美国财政危机 英文

• Recent steps will bring debt/GDP down over 2014-18.
• 2011-13 $1.5 trillion in spending cuts • + $0.6 tr. 1/1/2013 tax “increase” (relative to having let all Bush tax cuts expire).
– unless entitlements are put on a sound footing:
• Social Security & Medicare are due to run big deficits
– as the baby-boomers retire (predictably)
– and the cost of health care rises rapidly (less predictably).
Long-term debt problem, continued
Federal
Not sustainable
Long-term debt problem, continued
• There is not a short-term problem:
– Far from tiring of absorbing ever-greater levels of US treasury securities, global investors continue happily to lend at record-low interest rates (2008-13):
– warrants demand stimulus; – which fiscal policy would have been suited to deliver,
• far better than monetary policy.
• The short-term political problem:
Debt/GDP is set to decline over 2014 -18.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Jan.9, 2013 http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3885
CBPP recommends a further $1.2 tr. in spending cuts & tax rises to stabilize debt out to 2022. But there is no need for it to hit this year. That would send us back into recession, as the January 2013 fiscal cliff would have.
• The long-term debt problem
– warrants a return to fiscal discipline.
• The medium-term economic problem,
slow recovery in aftermath of the 2007-08 financial crisis,
National debt/GDP is the highest since WWII spike.
Source: CBO, March 2012
The US has a long-term debt problem, continued
• “Long-term” in the sense that debt/GDP will rise alarmingly after the 2020s
• The US enjoys safe-haven status; the $ enjoys “exorbitant privilege.”
– There is no fiscal crisis. The US is not Greece,
• though we want to be sure not to become Greece in 20 years.
• Definition of debt sustainability:
– regardless the level of the debt, it is sustainable if the future debt/GDP ratio is forecast to fall indefinitely.
US Fiscal Problems
Jeffrey Frankel
Harpel Professor of Capቤተ መጻሕፍቲ ባይዱtal Formation and Growth
Senior Executive Fellows, February 25, 2013
Three distinct US fiscal problems
– A succession of artificial “cliffs” & shutdown deadlines, each threatening disaster. – Next up, March 1: the “sequester.”
The US has a long-term debt problem..
• Indeed the federal budget deficit is now coming down
• from 10 % of GDP in FY 2009 to 7 % in FY 2012.
– despite the continued weakness in the economy.
Long-term debt problem, continued
The debt problem is also “long-term” in the sense that we have known about it a long time.
E.g., when Ronald Reagan, took office: