Citation URL: http://www.urban.org/AlanJAuerbach

his paper reviews recent economic events and their impact on U.S. fiscal performance and prospects. We highlight the historic nature of the 2009 budget outcomes, the unsustainability of plausible ten-year budget projections, and the increasingly dire long-term fiscal problem. These conditions leave federal policy makers with difficult choices. Over the next several years, as the recession ends and the economy recovers, policy makers will face a delicate balancing act between encouraging economic recovery and establishing fiscal sustainability. Even if a successful recovery ensues, however, medium-term and long-term fiscal problems have become increasingly urgent.

In 2009, the federal deficit will be larger as a share of the economy than at any time since the 1940s. After 2009, we project an average deficit of $1 trillion per year for the next 10 years, under optimistic assumptions. The longer-run picture is even bleaker, with a fiscal gap of 7-9 percent of GDP -- between $1 trillion and $1.3 trillion annually in current dollars. Recent trends in credit default swap markets suggest that although fiscal policy problems are usually described as medium- and long-term issues, these problems may be upon us much sooner than previously expected.

The United States has gone undergone major fiscal changes in recent years. Despite the tax cuts enacted early in the decade and the increased spending enacted since then, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO, 2007b) currently projects a baseline surplus of $586 billion in the unified budget over the next 10 years. Under the baseline, the deficit will decline over the next few years, and turn to a surplus by 2012 that will continue to grow through 2017. This paper evaluates recent fiscal outcomes and assesses future fiscal prospects. First, we review recent changes in the budget outlook. There has been a sizable net deterioration in the budget outlook since 2001. For example, in January 2001, the CBO baseline projected a unified budget surplus of $573 billion in 2007. CBO's baseline now projects a deficit of $177 billion for 2007—a deterioration of $750 billion or about 5.5 percent of GDP. This deterioration is due almost entirely to changes in policy. For example, more than 90 percent of the deterioration in the 2007 outlook since 2001 is attributable, according to CBO estimates, to policy changes—tax cuts and increases in spending. The changes in the deficit since 2001 reflect differing trends in policy choices and in economic factors. Beginning in 2001 the deficit rose due to a series of policy changes, including tax cuts, a new Medicare entitlement, and increased spending on defense and homeland security. These policy changes have increased the deficit with each passing year. At the same time, the economy and technical factors that caused revenues to decline in the early 2000s have recovered strongly in recent years. In short, the economic and technical factors that elevated the deficit from 2002–05 have almost entirely reversed themselves, while the effects of policy changes continue to accumulate. As a result, almost all of the net change in fiscal projections since 2001 is due to deficit-increasing changes in policy.

Despite substantial attention given to fiscal policy concerns in recent years, the federal government's fiscal status has continued to deteriorate, with the enactment of tax cuts, a massive new Medicare entitlement, increased spending on defense and homeland security, and related economic developments. This paper provides new estimates of the nation's fiscal status over both the 10-year and long-term horizon, based on the most recent (January 2006) Congressional Budget Office official budget figures (CBO 2006). Our general conclusions are not surprising: under plausible assumptions, the nation faces significant short- and medium-term deficits and massive long-term shortfalls. Dealing with these problems will require spending cuts or tax increases that are far beyond the scale of anything currently considered politically palatable.

In previous work, we have estimated the long-term revenue costs of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, assuming they are made permanent and are not gradually eroded by the Alternative Minimum Tax, to be about 2 percent of GDP, roughly the same size as the actuarial deficits over an equivalent time period in Social Security and Medicare Part A. Jenn and Marron (2004) criticize our calculation of the costs of both the tax cuts and the entitlement trust fund shortfalls. This paper responds to their criticisms and evaluates the alternative measures and concepts they propose using.

Because of the strikingly large long-term fiscal gaps being projected recently for the United States, researchers have searched for hidden assumptions underlying revenue projections that might be biasing the results. This paper addresses the extent to which alternative projections of tax-preferred retirement accounts affect estimates of the long-term fiscal gap. We review previous work by Boskin (2003), and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO 2004). We show that Boskin's projections imply only very small revisions to standard fiscal gap estimates. The CBO analysis implies an even smaller adjustment. Thus, neither of these contributions changes the conclusion that the United States faces a substantial fiscal gap.

Over a permanent horizon, the fiscal gap now exceeds 7 percent of GDP under the CBO baseline and 10 percent of GDP under an adjusted baseline, substantially higher than a year ago. Allocating the fiscal gap to different programs is not straightforward, though. Most government programs are intended to be financed out of general revenue, and alternative, reasonable ways of allocating general revenue generate very different allocations of the fiscal gap across programs. In addition, focusing on a program-by-program basis tends to obscure the role of tax policy in generating a fiscal gap.

A variety of recent studies have found that the United States faces a substantial fiscal gap -- that is, a sizable imbalance between projected federal outlays and receipts. A recent study by Boskin (2003) suggests these findings are overstated because they largely or entirely omit projected revenues from tax-deferred saving plans. This paper reassesses estimates of the long-term fiscal status of the United States in light of Boskin's analysis and draws three principal conclusions. First, the nation continues to face a substantial long-term fiscal gap, as conventionally estimated. Second, Boskin's projections of revenue from tax-deferred accounts have only a very modest effect on the long-term fiscal outlook because almost all of the relevant revenue is already incorporated into the revenue projections that generate sizable fiscal gaps. Third, the primary focus of Boskin's analysis is the overall effect on the budget from retirement accounts -- not how much of that effect is already included in the budget projections. We also find that his estimated overall budgetary effect is substantially overstated.

Establishing a sustainable fiscal policy is central to the nation's long-term economic prospects, but requires a clear understanding of how past and current policies affect future resources. The federal budget should, but does not, provide this information, both because the task is difficult and current accounting practices are deficient. This paper shows that adjusting the official budget for many accounting and economic issues implies a bleak fiscal outlook that presents policymakers with difficult choices. We also explore options to restore fiscal sustainability directly and to improve the budget process that governs fiscal decisions.

[© Brookings Institution] The official federal budget outlook has deteriorated dramatically since early 2001, due to last year's tax cut, the economic slowdown, and the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The official projections, however, are overly optimistic. In addition to the pressures from the long-anticipated increase in entitlement spending as the nation ages, the government now also faces growing spending needs for defense and homeland security. These trends imply that future taxes must rise, future spending outside of defense and the elderly must decline, or obligations to the elderly and to defense be reduced. Faced with these constraints, the Bush administration proposes reduced spending for low-income households and substantial increases in federal borrowing. But rather than propose higher taxes or even reconsider some of the cuts passed last year, the administration advocates substantial new tax cuts, including making the 2001 tax cut permanent. The proposed tax cuts disproportionately benefit high-income households and would significantly worsen the budget outlook. A more responsible fiscal policy would freeze the tax cut at its current level, which would save enough revenue, relative to a permanent extension, to keep Social Security solvent through 2075. Strictly following the letter of the law and allowing the cuts to expire as scheduled in 2010 would save twice as much revenue over the same period.

Return to list of authors