17.7The Question of a Balanced Budget

that it produces closer to potential GDP, thus lowering unemployment. However, fiscal policy cannot help an economy produce at an output level above potential GDP without causing inflation At this point, unemployment becomes so low that workers become scarce and wages rise rapidly. LINK IT UP Visit this website (https://openstax.org/l/fiscalpolicy) to read about how fiscal policies are affecting the recovery.

Political Realties and Discretionary Fiscal Policy

A final problem for discretionary fiscal policy arises out of the difficulties of explaining to politicians how countercyclical fiscal policy that runs against the tide of the business cycle should work. Some politicians have a gut-level belief that when the economy and tax revenues slow down, it is time to hunker down, pinch pennies, and trim expenses. Countercyclical policy, however, says that when the economy has slowed, it is time for the government to stimulate the economy, raising spending, and cutting taxes. This offsets the drop in the economy in the other sectors. Conversely, when economic times are good and tax revenues are rolling in, politicians often feel that it is time for tax cuts and new spending. However, countercyclical policy says that this economic boom should be an appropriate time for keeping taxes high and restraining spending. Politicians tend to prefer expansionary fiscal policy over contractionary policy. There is rarely a shortage of proposals for tax cuts and spending increases, especially during recessions. However, politicians are less willing to hear the message that in good economic times, they should propose tax increases and spending limits. In the economic upswing of the late 1990s and early 2000s, for example, the U.S. GDP grew rapidly. Estimates from respected government economic forecasters like the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget stated that the GDP was above potential GDP, and that unemployment rates were unsustainably low. However, no mainstream politician took the lead in saying that the booming economic times might be an appropriate time for spending cuts or tax increases.

Discretionary Fiscal Policy: Summing Up

Expansionary fiscal policy can help to end recessions and contractionary fiscal policy can help to reduce inflation. Given the uncertainties over interest rate effects, time lags, temporary and permanent policies, and unpredictable political behavior, many economists and knowledgeable policymakers had concluded by the mid-1990s that discretionary fiscal policy was a blunt instrument, more like a club than a scalpel. It might still make sense to use it in extreme economic situations, like an especially deep or long recession. For less extreme situations, it was often preferable to let fiscal policy work through the automatic stabilizers and focus on monetary policy to steer short-term countercyclical efforts.

17.7 The Question of a Balanced Budget

LEARNING OBJECTIVES By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Understand the arguments for and against requiring the U.S. federal budget to be balanced
• Consider the long-run and short-run effects of a federal budget deficit

For many decades, going back to the 1930s, various legislators have put forward proposals to require that the U.S. government balance its budget every year. In 1995, a proposed constitutional amendment that would require a balanced budget passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a wide margin, and failed in the U.S. Senate by only a single vote. (For the balanced budget to have become an amendment to the Constitution would have required a two-thirds vote by Congress and passage by three-quarters of the state legislatures.) Most economists view the proposals for a perpetually balanced budget with bemusement. After all, in the short term, economists would expect the budget deficits and surpluses to fluctuate up and down with the economy and the automatic stabilizers. Economic recessions should automatically lead to larger budget deficits or smaller budget surpluses, while economic booms lead to smaller deficits or larger surpluses. A requirement that the budget be balanced each and every year would prevent these automatic stabilizers from working and would worsen the severity of economic fluctuations. Some supporters of the balanced budget amendment like to argue that, since households must balance their own budgets, the government should too. However, this analogy between household and government behavior is severely flawed. Most households do not balance their budgets every year. Some years households borrow to buy houses or cars or to pay for medical expenses or college tuition. Other years they repay loans and save funds in retirement accounts. After retirement, they withdraw and spend those savings. Also, the government is not a household for many reasons, one of which is that the government has macroeconomic responsibilities. The argument of Keynesian macroeconomic policy is that the government needs to lean against the wind, spending when times are hard and saving when times are good, for the sake of the overall economy. There is also no particular reason to expect a government budget to be balanced in the medium term of a few years. For example, a government may decide that by running large budget deficits, it can make crucial long- term investments in human capital and physical infrastructure that will build the country's long-term productivity. These decisions may work out well or poorly, but they are not always irrational. Such policies of ongoing government budget deficits may persist for decades. As the U.S. experience from the end of World War II up to about 1980 shows, it is perfectly possible to run budget deficits almost every year for decades, but as long as the percentage increases in debt are smaller than the percentage growth of GDP, the debt/GDP ratio will decline at the same time. Nothing in this argument is a claim that budget deficits are always a wise policy. In the short run, a government that runs a very large budget deficit can shift aggregate demand to the right and trigger severe inflation. Additionally, governments may borrow for foolish or impractical reasons. The Impacts of Government Borrowing will discuss how large budget deficits, by reducing national saving, can in certain cases reduce economic growth and even contribute to international financial crises. A requirement that the budget be balanced in each calendar year, however, is a misguided overreaction to the fear that in some cases, budget deficits can become too large. BRING IT HOME No Yellowstone Park? The 2013 federal budget shutdown illustrated the many sides to fiscal policy and the federal budget. In 2013, Republicans and Democrats could not agree on which spending policies to fund and how large the government debt should be. Due to the severity of the 2008-2009 recession, the fiscal stimulus, and previous policies, the federal budget deficit and debt was historically high. One way to try to cut federal spending and borrowing was to refuse to raise the legal federal debt limit, or tie on conditions to appropriation bills to stop the Affordable Health Care Act. This disagreement led to a two-week federal government shutdown and got close to the deadline where the federal government would default on its Treasury bonds. Finally, however, a compromise emerged and the government avoided default. This shows clearly how closely fiscal policies are tied to politics.

Key Terms

automatic stabilizers tax and spending rules that have the effect of slowing down the rate of decrease in aggregate demand when the economy slows down and restraining aggregate demand when the economy speeds up, without any additional change in legislation balanced budget when government spending and taxes are equal budget deficit when the federal government spends more money than it receives in taxes in a given year budget surplus when the government receives more money in taxes than it spends in a year contractionary fiscal policy fiscal policy that decreases the level of aggregate demand, either through cuts in government spending or increases in taxes corporate income tax a tax imposed on corporate profits crowding out federal spending and borrowing causes interest rates to rise and business investment to fall discretionary fiscal policy the government passes a new law that explicitly changes overall tax or spending levels with the intent of influencing the level of overall economic activity estate and gift tax a tax on people who pass assets to the next generation—either after death or during life in the form of gifts excise tax a tax on a specific good—on gasoline, tobacco, and alcohol expansionary fiscal policy fiscal policy that increases the level of aggregate demand, either through increases in government spending or cuts in taxes implementation lag the time it takes for the funds relating to fiscal policy to be dispersed to the appropriate agencies to implement the programs individual income tax a tax based on the income, of all forms, received by individuals legislative lag the time it takes to get a fiscal policy bill passed marginal tax rates or the tax that must be paid on all yearly income national debt the total accumulated amount the government has borrowed, over time, and not yet paid back payroll tax a tax based on the pay received from employers; the taxes provide funds for Social Security and Medicare progressive tax a tax that collects a greater share of income from those with high incomes than from those with lower incomes proportional tax a tax that is a flat percentage of income earned, regardless of level of income recognition lag the time it takes to determine that a recession has occurred regressive tax a tax in which people with higher incomes pay a smaller share of their income in tax standardized employment budget the budget deficit or surplus in any given year adjusted for what it would have been if the economy were producing at potential GDP

Key Concepts and Summary

17.1 Government Spending

Fiscal policy is the set of policies that relate to federal government spending, taxation, and borrowing. In recent decades, the level of federal government spending and taxes, expressed as a share of GDP, has not changed much, typically fluctuating between about 18% to 22% of GDP. However, the level of state spending and taxes, as a share of GDP, has risen from about 12–13% to about 20% of GDP over the last four decades. The four main areas of federal spending are national defense, Social Security, healthcare, and interest payments, which together account for about 70% of all federal spending. When a government spends more than it collects in taxes, it is said to have a budget deficit. When a government collects more in taxes than it spends, it is said to have a budget surplus. If government spending and taxes are equal, it is said to have a balanced budget. The sum of all past deficits and surpluses make up the government debt.

17.2 Taxation

The two main federal taxes are individual income taxes and payroll taxes that provide funds for Social Security and Medicare; these taxes together account for more than 80% of federal revenues. Other federal taxes include