Category Archives: Douglas Holtz-Eakin

“The Federal Government’s Budget Is on the Road to Hell”

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So declared Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, in March 2011.  At the time, federal debt held by the public (on which we pay interest) stood at 63% of GDP.  Now, just six years later, that ratio stands at 77% and is projected by the CBO to reach 150% by 2047 if current laws remain unchanged.


The CBO has just released its latest (March 2017) report and the debt situation continues to get worse:

  • The interest rate on federal debt has averaged 5.8% over the past 60 years. It is now at an unusually low 2% and the CBO projects that it will climb no higher than 4.4% by 2047. Even with such a conservative projection, the total cost of servicing the debt will rise to almost 1/3 of federal revenue by 2047, compared with just 8% today.

Here are some of the dire consequences of such a large and growing debt:

  • Reduces national savings and income in the long term because more of people’s savings would be used to buy Treasury securities, thus crowding out private investment.
  • Increases the government’s interest costs and thus makes it much more difficult to lower deficits.
  • Reduces the ability to respond to unforeseen events. For example, when the Financial Crisis hit in 2008, public debt stood at 40% of GDP and lawmakers had the flexibility to respond to the crisis with both TARP and a fiscal stimulus. Such costly actions will be much more difficult next time.
  • Increases the chances of a new fiscal crisis if investors become less willing to finance more federal borrowing or demand higher interest rates in return.

Conclusion. The more debt that accumulates and the higher interest rates rise, the more painful it will become to implement a solution. What is really scary is that nothing will be done until a new crisis occurs.  Then we will be forced to act and it will be very painful indeed.

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Does Tax Reform Have a Future?

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My post on February 27, “A Breath of Fresh Air” praises the new tax reform proposal from the House Ways and Means Committee which both lowers and consolidates tax rates in a revenue neutral way as well as greatly simplifying the tax code.  It would be a big step in the right direction.  But the Washington Post’s Robert Samuelson makes a good case in ”Does Tax Reform Have a Future?” that the House bill does not go far enough.
CaptureMr. Samuelson argues that if we’re going to eliminate tax deductions and loopholes, and thereby alienate lots of special interest groups, in order to get lower tax rates, then we should avoid half measures and eliminate virtually all deductions in order to get the lowest possible rates.  In other words, eliminate the mortgage interest deduction rather than just limiting it, eliminate deductions for charitable contributions as well as deductions for state and local taxes.  Eliminate the deduction for employer provided healthcare (which by itself would go a long way towards reforming healthcare.)
Mr. Samuelson would retain only the Earned Income Tax Credit (which encourages low-income people to work) and also the tax preference for contributions to retirement accounts (without which most Americans wouldn’t save for retirement.)
We badly need broad based tax reform to stimulate our economy.  Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office, has estimated “Reforming Taxes, Goosing the Economy”, that even the imperfect House tax reform proposal would raise GDP by .5% annually for 10 years and create 500,000 new jobs each year over this time period.
Full-fledged tax reform, a la Samuelson, would provide an even greater stimulus but let’s at least do something to put the millions of unemployed and underemployed people back to work and reduce our staggering budget deficits!