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PROSPECTS FOR THE ECONOMIC EXPANSION

HEARING

BEFORE THE

JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 27, 2006

Printed for the use of the Joint Economic Committee

(

(II)

JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

[Created pursuant to Sec. 5(a) of Public Law 304, 79th Congress]

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey, Chairman

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

PHIL ENGLISH, Pennsylvania

RON PAUL, Texas

KEVIN BRADY, Texas

THADDEUS G. MCCOTTER, Michigan

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

SENATE

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah, Vice Chairman

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama

JOHN CORNYN, Texas

JACK REED, Rhode Island

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts

PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland

JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico

CHRISTOPHER J. FRENZE, Executive Director

CHAD STONE, Minority Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

OPENING STATEMENT OF MEMBERS

Statement of Hon. Jim Saxton, Chairman, a U.S. Representative from New

Jersey .................................................................................................................... 1

Statement of Hon. Jack Reed, Ranking Minority, a U.S. Senator from Rhode

Island .................................................................................................................... 2

WITNESSES

Statement of Dr. Edward P. Lazear, Member, Council of Economic Advisers ... 3

Statement of Dr. Mickey D. Levy, Chief Economist, Bank of America ............... 30

Statement of Dr. Brad Setser, Director, Global Research, Roubini Global

Economics; and Research Associate, Global Economic Governance Center .... 35

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Prepared statement of Representative Jim Saxton, Chairman ........................... 46

Prepared statement of Senator Jack Reed, Ranking Minority ............................ 47

Prepared statement of Dr. Edward P. Lazear, Member, Council of Economic

Advisers ................................................................................................................ 49

Editorial, The Wall Street Journal, entitled, ‘‘America at Work’’ ........................ 58

Chart, entitled, ‘‘Effects on After-Tax Income of Tax Cuts Passed Since 2001’’ 60

Chart, The New York Times, entitled, ‘‘The Rich Get Richer, Again’’ ................ 61

Prepared statement of Dr. Mickey D. Levy, Chief Economist, Bank of

America ................................................................................................................. 62

Prepared statement of Dr. Brad Setser, Director, Global Research, Roubini

Global Economics; and Research Associate, Global Economic Governance

Center .................................................................................................................... 74

(1)

PROSPECTS FOR THE ECONOMIC EXPANSION

TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 2006

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE, Washington, DC

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Jim Saxton,

Chairman of the Committee, presiding.

Representatives present: Representatives Saxton, Paul, Ryan,

Brady, Maloney, Hinchey, Sanchez and Cummings.

Senators present: Senators Bennett, Reed and Sarbanes.

Staff present: Chris Frenze, Robert Keleher, Brian

Higginbotham, Colleen Healy, Ari Evans, Jeff Schlagenhauf, Chad

Stone, Daniel Dowler, and Matt Homer.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JIM SAXTON, CHAIRMAN,

A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY

Chairman Saxton. Good morning.

It is a pleasure to welcome Chairman Lazear of the President’s

Council of Economic Advisers before the Joint Economic Committee

this morning. Thank you for being with us.

The Council of Economic Advisers and the Joint Economic Committee share a common history, and we value the good relationship

that we have had over many years. I would also like to welcome

the members of the second panel, Dr. Mickey Levy, and Dr. Brad

Setser this morning.

Thank you also for being here.

The U.S. economy has grown at a healthy pace in recent years,

according to official data. The U.S. economy advanced 4.2 percent

in 2004 and 3.5 percent in 2005.

The pick-up in economic growth since 2003 is largely due to the

rebound in investment including equipment and software spending.

A combination of accommodative monetary policy and investment

tax incentives enacted in 2003 helped to boost investment and improve economic growth in recent years.

Since August of 2003, 5.3 million new jobs have been created and

the unemployment rate has fallen to 4.6 percent. As the Fed noted

in a policy report last February, the U.S. delivered a solid performance in 2005.

In the first quarter of 2006, the economy expanded at a blistering

pace of 5.3 percent. This performance is all the more remarkable

considering the impact of high oil prices and a tightening of monetary policy by the Federal Reserve.

2

Although there is some weakness in the real estate sector, it appears as though a soft landing is the most likely outcome. The

overall economy has proven to be quite resilient.

Very recent data suggests that the U.S. economy is no longer

growing at an unsustainable rate in excess of 5 percent but advancing at a more moderate rate of about 3 percent.

According to the Blue Chip consensus of economic forecasters,

this trend will continue through most of the next six quarters.

The Fed has stated that the U.S. economy should continue to

perform well in 2006 and 2007. A variety of forecasts suggest that

the economic growth for 2006 will be about 3.5 percent and that

the economic expansion will continue into 2007.

At this time, I would like to ask the Ranking Member, Senator

Reed, if he has comments that he would like to make.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Saxton appears in the

Submissions for the Record on page 46.]

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JACK REED, RANKING

MINORITY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM RHODE ISLAND

Senator Reed. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Let me also welcome Chairman Lazear to his first hearing, and

I, too, am pleased that Dr. Levy and Dr. Setser will be participating in the second panel.

The latest Administration forecast, which is in line with the consensus of other forecasters, is for economic growth to continue at

a more moderate pace than we have seen recently. Of course, there

are risks to that forecast; high energy prices and cooling housing

markets might slow consumer spending more sharply than forecasters are predicting. And our trade deficit and dependence on foreign lenders have reached alarming proportions.

The Federal Reserve has to decide how to deal with these risks

while preserving its credibility on inflation. If the Fed makes the

wrong choice, the economic recovery could end before it has begun

for many American families. That brings me to the core of my concern about the economy and the Administration’s policies. As much

as the President would like to say that his policies are benefiting

all Americans, the fact is that we have gone through the most prolonged job slump in many decades. Real wages are not just lagging

behind productivity growth. They are stagnating.

And economic inequality is increasing. While workers are waiting

to see the benefits of this economic recovery show up in their paychecks, American families are experiencing widespread economic

insecurity in the face of soaring energy prices, rising health care

costs, declining health insurance and pension coverage, and rising

costs for a college education for their children.

The President’s tax cuts have not been the answer. They were

poorly designed to stimulate broadly shared prosperity and produced a legacy of large budget deficits that leave us increasingly

hampered in our ability to deal with the host of challenges we face.

Moreover, the President’s goals of making his tax cuts permanent

and cutting the deficit in half are simply incompatible. Large and

persistent budget deficits have contributed to an ever-widening

trade deficit that forces us to borrow vast amounts from abroad

and puts us at risk of a major financial collapse if foreign lenders

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stop accepting our IOUs. We had a current account deficit of nearly

$800 billion last year. And our international financial debt continues to mount.

I hope we would all agree that raising our future standard of living and preparing adequately for the retirement of the baby-boom

generation require that we have a high level of national investment

and that a high fraction of that investment be financed by our own

national saving, not by foreign borrowing. We followed such prosperity-enhancing policies under President Clinton, but that legacy

of fiscal discipline has been squandered under President Bush.

Most experts believe that the budget deficits we need to worry

about are the long-term structural deficits resulting from the President’s tax cuts, not cyclical deficits resulting from a temporary decline in economic activity. So I’ll be interested in Chairman

Lazear’s explanation of just how we can grow our way out of deficits as he recently wrote in the Washington Post.

I am also curious about Dr. Lazear’s recent statement in the

Wall Street Journal that the President’s tax cuts have made the

Tax Code more progressive, which narrows the difference in takehome earnings. In fact, the President’s tax cuts have widened the

gap in take-home earnings. According to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, the tax cuts passed since 2001 have raised the aftertax income of the top 1 percent of Americans by 5 percent while

raising the after-tax income of the bottom 60 percent of Americans

by just 2 percent.

Chairman Lazear rightly points out that policies must increase

the opportunities of all workers to acquire skills and training, but

this view doesn’t square with the President’s budget, which includes cuts to elementary and secondary education, student aid and

loan assistance for higher education and job training for displaced

workers.

I look forward to Chairman Lazear’s testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Senator Reed appears in the Submissions for the Record on page 47.]

Chairman Saxton. Dr. Lazear, the floor is yours, sir.

STATEMENT OF DR. EDWARD P. LAZEAR, MEMBER, COUNCIL

OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS

Dr. Lazear. Chairman Saxton, Ranking Member Reed, thank

you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today on the

prospects for economic expansion. The American economy is strong.

Even as world growth outside the United States has strengthened,

the U.S. has maintained leadership in economic growth. The economic outlook remains positive as well.

Let me begin with the current picture of the economy.

Chairman Saxton. Would you mind pulling the microphone a

little closer?

Dr. Lazear. Let me begin with the current picture of the economy and the Administration’s forecast for the next couple of years.

First, real growth of gross domestic product (GDP) was at 3.2 percent over the four quarters of 2005, and it is forecast to be at 3.6

percent this year and 3.3 percent the following year.

4

We expect rates of inflation of about 3 percent and even lower

going forward from this point. These expectations are consistent

with market data and with the consensus of private forecasts.

Job growth has been strong over the past couple of years. The

economy has been producing about 2 million jobs per year for a

total of 5.3 million jobs since August 2003. That trend is expected

to continue with some slight modification in 2006 and 2007.

Our monthly estimates of employment growth for 2006 and 2007

are 156,000 and 140,000 respectively. The unemployment rate

which was 5.1 percent in 2005 is forecast to average about 4.7 percent in 2006 and 4.8 percent in 2007. In short, the economy continues to grow, inflation expectations are moderate, and the labor

market is strong.

There have been some concerns in the past couple of months that

the economy may be slowing. It is better described as likely moderating from very good growth to good growth. The first quarter of

2006 enjoyed GDP growth at annual rate of 5.3 percent. While we

do not expect growth rates to continue at that level throughout the

remainder of the year, we do expect that they will be sufficiently

high to cause the real GDP growth over the four quarters of 2006

to be in the neighborhood of 3.5 percent as mentioned earlier.

We lead the industrialized countries in economic growth, and we

have very good fundamentals for continued economic expansion.

These fundamentals include a flexible labor market, few impediments to business formation, high levels of investment in skills and

human capital, strong property rights, well-developed and sophisticated capital markets, low taxes and an entrepreneurial spirit.

Americans’ pioneering attitudes and openness to new ideas and

people have been instrumental in growing this economy.

Although the economic situation is favorable, there are always

risks to continued economic growth. The one that has received the

most attention recently is the housing market. Partly as a result

of higher interest rates, the housing market has not expanded at

the same rapid rates as it has in the recent past. Most notably,

housing starts have fallen by about 13 percent since January of

this year. But that decline is best understood when put in historical perspective. Over the past 45 years, the average for housing

starts has been about 1.5 million units per year with a high point

actually coming in the early 1970s. Right now, with housing starts

at 1.957 million for May, they are currently above the level of housing starts throughout the 1990s.

While some specific housing markets have seen price declines, in

most markets the movement has been limited or slightly up. The

recent nationwide price increases in the range of 1 to 14 percent

are neither sustainable nor necessarily desirable. Offsetting the

moderation in residential construction has been expansion in commercial real estate and other business investment.

These latter two components signal strong confidence in the

economy and its ability to expand further. Recent moderation in

consumer spending has been offset by higher growth in exports.

During the last year, consumer spending accounted for about 72

percent of GDP growth which is down a fair amount considering its

importance to GDP growth during the previous 3 years. Exports

and business-fixed investments, on the other hand, rose to account

5

for 50 percent of GDP growth in contrast to the earlier 3 years during which they actually subtracted to GDP growth.

The most noticeable change in the economy since last summer

has been a significant increase in the price of gasoline and oil products.

Since last May, the price of crude oil is up more than 40 percent

and, nationally, the price of gasoline at the pump is 35 percent

higher. Higher energy prices crimp family and business budgets,

but thus far, the economy has once again exhibited resiliency. Although higher energy prices have played a role in boosting inflation

over the past year to 4.2 percent, the rate of core inflation was only

2.4 percent, up slightly from the 2.2 percent core inflation rate over

the year-earlier period.

These figures are from the consumer price index, the CPI, and

other measures show even less inflation. Moreover, energy prices

are expected to moderate. The futures price for West Texas Intermediate crude oil delivered 1 year from now is about $73 a barrel.

At today’s prices, that would mean an increase of about 3 percent

over the next year. Gasoline futures are actually down relative to

current prices, so the market is predicting lower gasoline prices in

December than are currently prevailing.

Consistent with the improved outlook on energy prices, the consensus of professional forecasters is that overall inflation will be a

moderate 2.3 percent in 2007 (Q4 over Q4).

Productivity growth is helping to keep inflation pressures moderate. It also helps the make the United States internationally

competitive and leads to high standards of living. Productivity

growth, how much workers produce per hour, has been remarkably

strong over the past 10 years at an average annual growth rate of

2.9 percent. Over the past 5 years, it has been at an annual rate

of 3.3 percent. This is the fastest 5-year growth period in nearly 40

years.

Productivity growth in the United States has been impressing

economists for another reason. It is the highest level of any major

industrial economy, and it is growing faster, too.

While there are no direct ways for policymakers to increase productivity, as I will discuss later, there are a number of steps we

can undertake to help.

Mr. Chairman, you asked me to comment on the issue of global

imbalances.

The United States is running a current account deficit on an

annualized basis of about $800 billion or 6.4 percent of GDP. Many

observers look at this number with concern. I would like to make

a few comments with respect to the issue of the current account

deficit.

First, let me point out that on the other side of the current account deficit is the capital account surplus.

Second, I would like to point out that historical records suggest

that countries can be in current account deficits or surplus situations for very long periods of time.

More important, there is no clear correlation between a country’s

surplus or deficit position and economic growth. Given the lack of

obvious correlation, should we still be concerned about large current account deficits? I believe the answer is that we should. We

6

must constantly monitor our international situation for the reason

that abrupt changes could create problems for the U.S. economy. In

particular, a rapid decline in the U.S. current account deficit would

correspondingly imply a rapid decline in the U.S. capital account

surplus. Were this to happen, there could be significant adverse

consequences to the U.S. economy and the rest of the world. We do

not anticipate abrupt changes like this occurring, but we do not ignore the possibility.

Most importantly, we must make sure that we maintain the kind

of investment climate that allows foreign individuals and institutions to remain confident in our economy and its ability to grow

and pay returns to investments that they are making.

We should also consider the causes of and potential remedies to

our current saving dearth in the United States. Major progress

could be made by removing impediments to saving that are incorporated in our current tax structure and also by continuing to

bring down the Federal budget deficit.

This brings me to issues that are perhaps more directly relevant

to the Congress. Mainly, what can we do specifically to ensure that

we grow at high rates and encourage additional economic growth?

First, we must make sure that our marginal tax rates stay low.

The most important way to encourage growth in the economy is to

maintain high rates of returns to investments both in physical and

human capital.

In order to allow for high rates of investment in physical capital,

business taxes and returns to capital investments through dividends, capital gains and other payments must not be taxed at high

rates. Raising the level of capital per worker makes workers more

productive and leads to higher wages in the long run. Congress’s

recent action with the President to extend the capital gains and

dividend tax cuts are very positive moves in this direction.

Second, the death tax affects saving behavior. The President has

expressed his desire to see the complete elimination of the death

tax, and we believe a such a policy would be favorable to create a

climate that is positive for saving.

Third, we must ensure that we do not discourage investment in

human capital. The most important source of capital in the economy is the capital embodied in people through their skills. To make

sure that individuals have incentives to invest in skills by going to

college, graduate school or vocational schools to obtain other forms

of skills on the job, it is necessary to keep tax rates on wage income

low.

If individuals see that the returns to investment in their skills

will only be dissipated through high tax rates on moderate- to highwage earners, the incentives to invest in human capital will be

dampened.

Fourth, we must remain open to foreign investment. As I mentioned earlier, foreign investment has been an important source of

capital for the United States. Approximately 1 in 20 workers is employed in a foreign-owned firm, and about 45 billion workers are

employed by firms that engage in significant amounts of international trade.

7

As such, we must make sure that we keep pushing for freer

trade, especially in the area of services, which has become a larger

and larger part of our economy.

Fifth, the President has outlined a competitiveness initiative to

make sure Americans have the skills to compete in the modern

world. We must continue to push for reform in K through 12 education, which has been the weakest component in our human capital investment structure.

Fortunately, our colleges and graduate schools are the best in the

world. We export education by training large numbers of foreign

students in our American colleges and universities, and it is good

for us to continue to do that. But we must also make sure that

those U.S. individuals who do not necessarily go on to college also

get the skills that are important for them to compete in a modern

American economy.

As such, keeping students in high school, reducing our drop-out

rates and ensuring that the education quality that is provided to

all of our young citizens is high will be important not only in the

near future but as we move into the later years of the 21st century.

The President’s efforts over the past several years to improve education with the No Child Left Behind Act and community college

initiative will help.

Furthermore, we must also strengthen our human capital infrastructure by working to raise the skill levels of American workers

and by increasing opportunities for education and training. As part

of the competitiveness initiative, the President has proposed Career

Advancement Accounts that workers could use to obtain the education and training they need to compete in a global economy.

Career Advancement Accounts are self-managed accounts that

encourage future workers to gain the skills necessary to successfully enter, navigate and advance in the 21st century labor market.

In conclusion, our economy is currently very strong, and it should

continue to grow and remain strong because our fundamentals are

positive. There are a number of issues policymakers need to address, including some that I have not mentioned here this morning,

but ultimately, we must ensure that we do everything possible to

keep productivity growing. Growing productivity is the key to wage

growth and to rising standards of living. It is also a key picture of

our international competitiveness.

Productivity grows as a result of the investment in physical and

human capital. And physical and human capital are amplified

when incentives remain strong. This means that we must keep tax

rates low, keep openness to investment and foreign trade, and keep

our economy and labor markets flexible. The President’s initiatives

for low taxes and his focus on the improvements of the skills of all

Americans are the right moves for the U.S. economy.

Again, thank you for the opportunity to discuss these issues with

you. I would be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Lazear appears in the Submissions for the Record on page 49.]

Chairman Saxton. Dr. Lazear, thank you very much for a very

comprehensive statement.

8

In a statement last February, the Federal Reserve stated that

the economy had performed well in 2005 and was expected to continue to perform well in 2006.

Also on June 10th, the Blue Chip forecast was issued which essentially said the same thing, projecting that economic growth

would be around 2.8, 2.9, 3 percent.

Is this consistent with what the Administration’s forecast is

going forward?

Dr. Lazear. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yes, it is consistent. We recently engaged in an exercise that we

go through a couple of times a year. It is called the troika process,

and it involves three agencies: the Council of Economic Advisers,

the Office of Management and Budget and U.S. Treasury. And the

consensus from the group was that economic progress is strong and

that it will continue to be strong over the next couple of years. In

fact, we recently revised upward our estimate of the growth in the

economy based on first quarter numbers. So we were initially projecting 3.4 percent growth for this year and actually revised up to

3.6 percent as a result of the very strong Q1.

That is also being reflected in the labor market. We are seeing

high employment growth during the first quarter. We also saw creation of jobs at about the same rate that we had seen through the

previous 2 years, which is a very high rate.

Initial claims on unemployment insurance continue to be at low

rates, so all of these are indications of a strong labor market, and

we anticipate that will continue into the future.

Chairman Saxton. Thank you.

In your statement, you listed four items that you think are important in terms of keeping the economy in robust shape. Three of

the four included or focused on low tax rates. The first was that

marginal tax rates stay low; the second was, the estate tax stay in

a position where it will positively affect savings; the third was that

incentives to invest in human capital should be kept in place, again

referring to low marginal tax rates in order to incentivize people

to increase their personal skills with a goal toward increasing their

income.

I don’t mean to speak for him, but in his opening statement, Senator Reed questioned how the Administration’s policy relative to

taxes could be sustainable in as much as we have to worry about

revenue.

Would you address that further for the Committee, please?

Dr. Lazear. Sure. Obviously, we are concerned about revenue.

The President stated that his goal was to cut the budget deficit in

half by 2009. As you know, revenues have been coming in at rates

that have been above the projected levels both last year and during

the early parts of this year. So things are actually looking much

better than we anticipated in terms of revenue growth. In large

part this reflects the fact that the economy has been very strong

and when we have a strong economy with strong GDP levels and

strong growth, that tends to reflect the tax revenues as well. So the

budget deficit is currently moving in the right direction and moving

in that right direction at a very hurried pace and at a much more

rapid pace than we expected. And this is true despite the fact that

we were able to cut taxes and give more money to the American

9

taxpayer and put that money in their pockets rather than directly

in the hands of the Government. So we view these as all being

positive developments.

I have also looked at the effect of tax cuts on economic growth.

I have reviewed the literature, and this literature is broadly based.

Much of it comes from academia, and it is written by individuals

who are on both sides of the political spectrum. The general consensus is that the tax cuts have been effective in bringing about

changes that we were anticipating in 2003 in particular. The dividends in capital gains taxes have resulted in higher levels of investment and higher levels of economic growth. So we view those

as all very positive developments and very positive aspects of the

policies that were implemented a few years back.

Chairman Saxton. I remember sitting here during 2002 and

hearing the Administration criticized because job growth was rather anemic. Then the tax changes that occurred in early 2003

seemed to have a positive effect on investment and the economic

growth that followed the investment. Would you care to comment

on that?

Dr. Lazear. Yes, what we saw after 2003 was that the tax cuts

had an immediate effect on investment and on GDP growth. What

was a bit slower to develop were movements in the labor market.

So what happened initially was, we had very high rates of productivity growth; GDP went up; productivity went up, but we were

able to obtain these higher levels of productivity and output without hiring more workers.

That worked for a while. We were able to get more out of fewer

for a while but eventually, the economy needed additional workers

and we saw job growth start to take off a couple of years ago.

As you mentioned in your opening statement, Chairman Saxton,

we have seen job growth of over 5 million jobs over the past couple

of years, and that trend continues. So we think that what we saw

earlier has now generalized to other aspects of the economy.

I should also mention that one of the developments that I view

as being quite healthy is that the expansion that was fueled earlier

by housing and by consumption now seems to be generalizing to

other sectors of the economy, particularly exports and business investment.

I view that as a healthy development because it means that the

economic situation is more robust and perhaps less fragile than it

would have been a year or 2 ago. So I am actually encouraged by

the fact that these developments have occurred and that we are

seeing generalization of the kind of economic activity that was very

strong in the earlier couple of years to other sectors of the economy

that now seem to be important in growing to us.

Chairman Saxton. Thank you.

Let me just finish up with one question that I find quite interesting. Because the investment climate has been more favorable in

the U.S. than in many other countries, the United States has enjoyed a net inflow of foreign-direct investment particularly in the

last few years. These net inflows are recorded as surpluses in the

U.S. financial account.

Given the rules of international accounting surpluses and the

U.S. financial account inevitably produced deficits in the U.S. curVerDate 11-MAY-2000 18:46 Feb 06, 2007 Jkt 030522 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\JEC\30522.TXT CELINA PsN: CELINA
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rent account, should U.S. current accounts be seen as a sign of relative strength in the U.S. economy compared to the many other

economies in the rest of the world rather than a problem?

Dr. Lazear. Right now, our deficit in the current account is about $800 billion, but as you correctly point out, you don’t get to

enjoy consumption of these goods without having something else go

on on the other side.

Foreign suppliers are not willing to simply give us their goods for

free. And what they are doing is, they are giving us their goods because they find the United States perhaps the most attractive place

in which to invest.

As a result, foreign investment in the United States has been

very high. And we have benefited from that foreign investment in

large part through growth not only in investment activity but in

growth of our output and employment as well.

So part of the—part of the story, and we always like to point out

at the Council of Economic Advisers that an important part of the

story whenever we talk about current account deficits, is that that

means that we are getting funds from abroad, and that is we get

those funds from abroad because individuals abroad see this place,

this country, as the most attractive environment to invest in.

Again, I would return to what I said earlier. I believe that is because of the fundamentals of the American economy. We have flexible labor markets. We have relatively low tax rates. We have a climate of entrepreneurship. All of those factors are favorable to economic growth and economic investment, and they have enabled not

only American citizens but also foreigners to invest in ours and

enjoy the gains from our productivity.

Chairman Saxton. Thank you.

Senator Reed.

Senator Reed. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Let us go to the issue which I think is important, this notion of

revenues versus tax cuts. You have looked at the literature. But

there is recent economic analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Congressional Budget Office and the Congressional Research Service, which all find that deficit-financed tax cuts reduce

long-term economic growth because of the increase in governmental

deficits and the resulting decline in national saving. There is something to be said, and it was true several years ago when we were

running a huge surplus, which is a thing of the past, that tax cuts

could have a stimulative effect, and they would not adversely affect

the bottom line. But we are literally borrowing money to make tax

cuts, and according to these reports, it will, in the long-term, affect

our growth in a negative way. What is your comment?

Dr. Lazear. Well, I certainly agree with you that running longterm budget deficits is a problem, and I think the President shares

that view. We don’t want to see deficits persist for long periods of

time. It is not only not good for economic growth, but it is not good

for consumption. It is good for displacing other kinds of investments. There are many angles to it, and I don’t think anybody favors having sizable budget deficits.

To my mind, the question is, what do we do about deficit situations? As you know, center deficits are caused by a number of different factors. The deficit that we face today to some extent at least

11

was caused by unanticipated events, wars, natural disasters, of

which we have had our share. And those kinds of factors do contribute to a deficit situation.

The issue, when you are hit with factors like that, is, what is the

optimal way to finance those expenditures over time? No one would

argue that you want to finance the expenditures on hurricanes or

wars out of current consumption to finance all of it out of current

consumption. Almost any reasonable economist would argue that

we have to smooth that financing over time.

The issue I think that we confront there is whether we are financing it at the appropriate level at the appropriate speed and

whether we are doing it at appropriate—in an appropriate fashion.

That is a tough question, to be honest with you, because people

will have different views on that politically.

My way of looking at this is to rely on market estimates, and

what I mean by that is that when we run a very high deficit, if

we are running a deficit that is too high and one that is too high

for economic growth, we see two things happening. First, we crowd

out business investments. In fact, that hasn’t been happening in recent years. Business investment has been strong during the first

quarter. Business investment is up about 13 percent.

The second thing that I would look at, and I think the thing that

probably most economists would look at, is what has it done to interest rates? When we see that the Government is borrowing at

very high rates, that tends to drive up interest rates because it

means that the demand for funds is high for any given supply of

funds available.

Again, we haven’t seen higher interest rates. In fact, interest

rates right now, even though they have gone up over the past couple of years, are quite low by historical standards.

So we are looking at a situation where long-term interest rates

are down at about 5.1 percent. All of those factors seem to be consistent with the markets saying that we are probably doing a good

job in financing our current expenditures.

Senator Reed. What has all of this done to the national saving

rate, and how important it is to have a national saving rate that

is positive?

Dr. Lazear. Again, I certainly agree with your pointing out that

the national saving rate is low. In fact, it has been negative. Not

just low. And that is a concern. I would like to see saving get much

higher in the future. I think we need to save more for the future

of our country.

I focused in my earlier statement on tax cuts. I think that is

probably the best way to get at this. We can’t make individuals

save. The question I think that you are aiming at is whether Government saving or Government consumption is driving out—crowding out—private saving, and again, if that were the case, we would

see the evidence in terms of higher interest rates.

So my view of this is that, if we look at the markets, if we look

at financial markets, we are not seeing a lot of evidence that private savings has been crowded out by action by the Government.

That being said——

Senator Reed. We are not showing a lot of private savings.

12

Dr. Lazear. Certainly not seeing private saving. But I would

say, we are not seeing private savings declining because of Government action.

If it were the case that the Government were crowding out investments, other kinds of activities, we would worry about that,

and we would see that reflected in financial markets. We don’t tend

to see that.

The one thing that I think is a concern that you point out is that

this issue of private saving and the private saving rate having been

low is not one that is recent. It has been true for a long period of

time, although I admit it is lower now than it has been in the past.

But we are a very low-saving country, and the question is, why is

that the case?

Now some people believe that part of that is a statistical artifact;

in part, a reflection of the fact that we are not counting savings in

the appropriate fashion. For example, if we took into account the

very large capital gains that we see in the housing market and in

the stock market, and we look at the change in individuals’ wealth,

most individuals would think, gee, I am saving a lot because I have

a house now that I bought at $200,000 that is now worth $400,000.

I have saved $200,000 during that period.

It doesn’t show up in the difference between current income and

current consumption, but most individuals would think of this as

saving. And so that is another way to look at it, and many economists believe that is the appropriate way to look at it.

Senator Reed. You and the Administration have been talking

about not only the rising tide but one that has been fairly shared.

But when you point to the data, it is all aggregate data on productivity or average income rather than looking at median wages or

median income to get a better picture of how the wealth is being

shared.

And when you look at some of these median numbers, it looks

as though many workers are being left behind even though productivity is growing, and that the distribution of the benefits is skewed

to the upper income rather than lower income. Is that accurate?

Dr. Lazear. I would say that part of it is accurate. It has certainly been true that over the past 25 years, there has been an increased dispersion between the incomes of the top and the incomes

of the bottom or even the median.

Most of the growth that has taken place in wages in the economy

over the 25 years has been among those individuals who have had

the highest level of skills. This is, I think, something that is fundamental to our economy, and in some sense, it is a good thing. And

what I mean by it is a good thing is that it reflects high rates of

return to investment in human capital. We like that part of it. It

is a good thing. Some people invest in skills, and those skills have

high payoffs.

What we don’t like is the fact that some people in the society

have been left behind and have not been able to invest in those

skills and enjoy the benefits that are associated with these investments in level—in high levels of human capital. And that is an

issue, and it is an issue that concerns me, and I believe it is an

issue that concerns the President as well.

13

One of the first things that he did, as you know, when he came

into office was to institute No Child Left Behind. That is a step to

move in that direction. Obviously, it is not the entire solution to

that problem. But my view is that the only way to solve the problem of bringing up the bottom is through higher investment and

skills to those individuals. And by the way, I would argue that that

is generally the consensus among labor economists. I recently did

a call with a large number of labor economists, many of whom were

members of the Clinton administration, and we have basically all

come to the same conclusion, which is that the reason for increased

inequality is not something that has to do with the policies of any

particular administration, Democrat or Republican, but rather reflects a long-term trend in differences in human capital. So my

view is that we need to address those differences, and I think that

is a very—I think you have focused on a very important issue and

one that is certainly close to my heart.

Senator Reed. I just want to make a final point, which is that

the data suggest that if you look at median earnings and median

family income, there is a great deal of stagnation, and it goes, I

think, to the point you have made several times if there is not an

incentive in your paycheck to upgrade your skills, then it won’t

happen. And what we are seeing for the vast majority of Americans

is that this economy is not producing the kind of gains in their paychecks that we saw in the past and that we hope to see again. I

think that is a huge problem.

Dr. Lazear. That is the part of your statement that I—that I

don’t fully subscribe to. Let me tell you why. While I think your

facts are correct—I certainly don’t dispute that—I would interpret

it slightly differently. The person who is the median worker 5 years

ago is not the median worker today. So if you look, for example,

at the median worker in 1994, and you ask, where is that worker

today—let us take the group of workers between 25 and 34, because they are going to be moving up the distribution the most, so

this in one sense, one extreme, those individuals enjoyed a 52 percent wage growth from 1994 to 2004. So it is not that the median

worker is being left behind. It is that, as the economy changes, in

its composition in large part, bringing in new immigrants, the person who is the median worker is a different individual. That having

been said, again, I don’t dispute I think what is your basic point

and your basic point is we need to provide opportunity for all individuals and for individuals at the bottom as well as for individuals

at the top. And I certainly subscribe to that. So whether we differ

on how to interpret median income or not, I think I would say, I

am on the same page as you are on that.

Senator Reed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Saxton. Thank you very much.

Senator Bennett.

Senator Bennett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you

Chairman Lazear for your being here and for the cogent way in

which you are responding to some of these issues. Let us go a little

farther down the road that Senator Reed started us on.

The productivity growth: You indicated productivity went up, and

wages lagged. And then the job growth took off as we couldn’t handle it with these more productive workers. But isn’t it normal that

14

productivity growth, particularly following recession, will always

lead wage growth and job growth? Isn’t that a normal pattern that

we have seen for a generation or more?

Dr. Lazear. Indeed, it is. It tends to be the case that when we

have a turnaround in the economy, when we have a recession followed by an economic recovery productive period at first, and then

employment fix-up later and then finally wages tend to pick up.

The same thing was true by the way during the 1990s, so if we

look at the recession that occurred in the early part of the 1990s

and we ask, what happened, then in fact what happened was productivity took off, and it took a while for wages to catch up. In fact,

some of my colleagues who served in my capacity and as members

of the Council of Economic Advisers during President Clinton’s administration were also concerned about some of these same issues,

kept thinking if productivity is growing, why aren’t wages growing,

and then in the late 1990s, we saw wages did start to grow and

grew at fairly strong paces.

If you look at the numbers for Q1 of 2006, we saw some very

strong wage growth during that period. We saw wage growth of 5.3

percent, and I am talking about hourly wages. The picture is even

better I would say for wages if we take into account not just wages

but total compensation.

Senator Bennett. That was going to be my next question.

Go ahead. Let us talk about the entire compensation package

and not just what shows up on the W2 form.

Dr. Lazear. One of the things that has happened over the past

5 years is that, while hourly wages have gone up but not gone up

by as much as we might have hoped, compensation has increased

at about double the rate of hourly wage growth; in fact, by some

measures, more than that.

So we are looking at compensation that was up by about 2 percent since 2001.

Much of that reflects compensation that takes the form of benefits. Some of it is health benefits. Health benefits are good when

they improve the health of our workers. We don’t view that as a

bad thing. If workers take some of their compensation in the form

of more health insurance, we would like to see that occur.

So that is not a bad thing. And we do expect that those trends

will tend to—tend to slow down a bit in the future as health costs

tend to get under control, and we hope they will get under control.

But we also would expect then that at the same time wages will

increase to make up for some of these differences in increases in

benefits.

Senator Bennett. Having been an employer, I know that, when

you look in terms of your labor costs, you don’t look at the W2

number. You have to figure in all of the other costs connected with

the job, so that your employee has to return value to the firm sufficient to cover the entire package of compensation rather than just

the amount that shows up in the wages. So I have had the feeling

that some of the rhetoric around this issue has focused entirely on

the W2 and not recognized that the entire package which the employer has to pay has in fact gone up rather substantially.

Taking the entire package—I think this is what I heard you say,

but I want to just emphasize it and nail it down—taking the entire

15

package, the amount that an employer has to pay for labor or the

flip side of it, the amount of benefit that the employee gets, has in

fact been going up fairly substantially—in the period since the recovery. Now, is that a fair summary of where you are?

Dr. Lazear. It is a fair summary. Obviously, we always—we

would prefer more growth to less growth. It certainly is the case

that if we take compensation into account, compensation has grown

at a much more rapid rate than hourly earnings. So as we move

into the future, my expectation is that compensation, total compensation, which as you point out is what is relevant from an employer’s point of view, is the cost side, it is also relevant from an

employees’ point of view, because when we take wages, wages are

only one component of earnings. Pension benefits, vacation benefits, health benefits, which are the major components of compensation that don’t show up in wages, are also important parts of an

individual’s well-being, and we want to make sure that those continue to grow as well. So I agree with you. I think we have to take

the entire package into account.

Senator Bennett. There was a time in my career when pension

benefits struck me as being completely worthless. The older I get,

the more valuable they become. Thank you.

Dr. Lazear. Thank you, sir.

Chairman Saxton. Thank you, Senator Bennett.

Mrs. Maloney.

Representative Maloney. Thank you and welcome.

You testified that the deficit relative to the GDP is 3.6 percent

this year.

Dr. Lazear. Deficit relative to GDP, you are talking about for

2005 I think.

Representative Maloney. Yes.

Senator Bennett. I would think it is 2.6.

Dr. Lazear. I think that is right. I want to check the number

just to make sure. Why don’t you continue, and I can listen to you

while I am checking?

Representative Maloney. My question really pertains to longterm sustainability of economic growth with the deficit. Most economists believe that, 5 to 10 years out, the deficit will grow definitely,

entitlements are going to grow and now, how can we sustain this

with the revenue loss from the tax cuts and the growth and entitlements and the growth in the deficit? You have a structural problem

that has long range challenges for the country.

So how do you propose to sustain economic growth with the

structural deficit and expenses that are now part of our system?

Dr. Lazear. Well, I think that you——

Chairman Saxton. If I can interrupt. My sharp staff behind me

here has given me this the actual percentage of GDP. GDP that the

deficit represents is actually 2.6 percent.

Dr. Lazear. It sounded off. I think the 3.6 number that I cited

was the projected growth for next year for GDP, but anyway, we

have got our numbers straight, and I certainly understand.

Representative Maloney. The point is not the 2.6 now, which

is not a problem. The problem is the sustainability of—with the

structure of deficit, lost revenue and entitlements and built-in

16

spending with Social Security, with the baby boomers and the challenge that we face there.

Dr. Lazear. I agree with you, and in fact, I would say I would

paint an even bleaker picture than you pointed out if we don’t get

things under control because we estimate that if we go forward into

2030 on the level of benefits projected right now and entitlements

projected right now, we will have about 60 percent of our GDP devoted to the Federal budget, and that is clearly not sustainable, nor

would any country tolerate levels of taxation that would support 60

percent of GDP going to that part of society.

Representative Maloney. And another challenge is wages not

growing for most workers. So where will spending come from if

wages are not growing? Where is the boost for the economy?

Dr. Lazear. I would disagree with your point that wages are not

growing. Again, I would go back to the numbers that I just cited

for Senator Reed which is that, if you look at the typical

worker——

Representative Maloney. We are talking about money put into

the economy from their wages. Their wages, their take-home pay

is not growing. Maybe they have more vacation time, but their

take-home pay is not growing.

Dr. Lazear. I even mean take-home pay. Let me go back to the

number that I cited before. If we look at the median worker between 25 and 34 years old in 1994, we compare with that worker

10 years later. We ask, by how much did that typical worker’s

wages grow? It is 52 percent. So although the median is not growing, that doesn’t mean that typical workers’ wages are not growing.

So those individuals do see wage increases over their careers.

Now, I thought——

Representative Maloney. Many people, many Americans feel

with the high cost of gas and with the high cost of housing—and

the housing market is cooling—that their wages are not growing.

I just want to ask one question. You were talking earlier about the

deficit, and you talked about 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina and the

war. Hopefully the war will be over soon. The President announced

he is withdrawing troops. I hope he will. But you talked about

9/11 and Katrina for the budget deficit. And I would say that

9/11 and Katrina are a very small, a little of the deficit compared

to revenue and other items and with the large revenue that is lost

from the tax cuts, and I would like to ask you just, at a basic level,

do you agree that tax cuts cause a drop in the Federal revenue?

Dr. Lazear. There is no doubt in any mind the tax cuts cause

a drop in the Federal revenue initially. That is certainly true. What

tax cuts are able to do, though, is to help grow the economy.

Now——

Representative Maloney. I would agree that some tax cuts

help grow the economy. But when you have deep structural tax

cuts that take out a large amount of revenue for the Government,

you have a structural problem. Alan Greenspan testified before us

in the seat that you are sitting in, it is very rare and very few

economists believe that you can cut taxes and you will get the same

amount of revenues, and he says it is very—you will get some back,

but it is very small, and it is not a large part of the economy. So

what I am basically concerned about is the sustainability of our

17

economic growth with the large deficits, the trade deficits, the

growing built-in challenges with Social Security for aging baby

boomers and so forth, and a major revenue source cut out of the

budget. And I would add that everybody talks about the earmarks,

but the Republican majority has really hurt the budget with removing the caps and not continuing the program of pay-as-you-go, the

Democrats——

Chairman Saxton. The gentlelady’s time has expired.

Representative Maloney. May I get his answer?

Chairman Saxton. You can get his answer, but we have to stop

the question.

Representative Maloney. On PAYGO, it is a program where

you do not spend money that you do not have, and that program

has been removed, and that has also added to the——

Chairman Saxton. The gentlelady’s time has expired.

The Chairman would like you to answer the gentlelady’s question, please.

Dr. Lazear. I certainly agree with Chairman Greenspan’s earlier

statement that tax cuts result in an initial decline in revenue. The

issue I think that you are addressing is what happens over time.

And you made the point that——

Representative Maloney. His statement was over time. Over

time.

Dr. Lazear. I was going to address that. Bear with me. I will

get to you. I will get to it.

And I certainly would not claim that tax cuts pay for themselves

nor do I think that is necessary. My view of tax cuts is not to cut

taxes so that they pay for themselves but rather to cut taxes so

that the economy grows and so that it has fewer distortions in it.

I am more concerned about economic growth in the private sector

than I am about the size of the public sector. I would rather not

see the public sector grow. I would rather see a more controlled

public sector, but my focus is on, as an economist, is on making

sure that we create the kinds of economic conditions that are favorable to economic growth in the private sector.

In terms of sustainability, again, I certainly agree with you. I

think that it is extremely important to make sure that we deal

with deficits and that we deal with the expenditure side as well as

the tax side. I am concerned that, as we project forward, we have

not done a good job in thinking about expenditures. I actually think

the President would also agree with you; he is concerned about entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the programs

that are going to eat up a very large part of our budget into the

future.

So I don’t think we have much of a disagreement there.

The one point where I would perhaps want to take a slight issue

with something that you said is that the tax cuts have not been

helpful or will not be helpful in the long run. In looking at the

economy, and there, I say, numbers speak louder than words. If we

look at the history since 2003, it is very difficult to argue with the

evidence that we see there, that the growth in the economy has

been very strong; the growth in the labor market has been very

strong; growth in investment has been very strong. So I think we

have a slight difference of opinion there.

18

Chairman Saxton. Thank you very much.

The gentlelady’s time has expired.

Mr. Brady, it is your time, sir.

Representative Brady. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

What was the increase in Federal revenues last year. Do you recall?

Dr. Lazear. The increase in Federal revenues, I believe, was 9

percent, was the number. Yes, I believe it is 9 percent.

Representative Brady. This year it is projected to be double

digit?

Dr. Lazear. 13 percent.

Representative Brady. So just following up that point, the tax

relief that helps spur the economy to create 2 million jobs every

year has actually resulted in close to a 10 percent increase in Federal revenues last year, and a projected 13 percent increase this

year.

Dr. Lazear. Well, revenues are certainly up. I guess the way I

would like to put the point is that I view the tax cuts as having

helped increase the rate of growth in the economy.

I also view a growing economy as consistent with generating

more Federal revenues. So the additional Federal revenues that we

see are attributable in large part to the growth of the economy,

some of which I think can be attributed to the tax cuts that were

initiated primarily in 2003. I would say those are the ones that

were most important in stimulating economic growth.

Representative Brady. I think at the time, I know with the triple hit of the 9/11 attacks, which cost almost 2 million jobs, the recession that we were in and then the collapse of the dot-coms, at

that point, we were at a critical point in the economy and needed

to boost spending in a number of areas. I think the tax relief

helped produce, as you pointed out, the Federal revenues that we

are receiving today.

You pointed out a key issue on the trade balance, that our account deficit is really related not to just what we buy and what we

sell but how much we consume, what type of investments we are

seeing as a Nation compared to the rest of the world.

One of the keys in our trade balance is related to both our consuming as a Nation and selling our exports as a Nation.

Representative Brady. One of the keys is finding, not only new

markets for American business services which our free trade agreements are producing, but also spurring more consumption by other

nations. As you look at the world from China to Europe to Africa

to Central America, to South America, do you forecast increased

consumption and stronger economies outside the United States?

What impact could that have on our economic growth?

Dr. Lazear. Yes. That is a very important point in that when

we will look forward, and we think about where we are, we have

to remember that we are only 5 percent of the world’s population,

and of course, since we have a very large and very rich economy

relative to the rest of the world, we are much greater right now in

terms of our economic importance.

But as we look forward, that situation is going to change. If you

have countries like China and India growing at very rapid rates

and they account for over, well over a couple billion people, we

19

know that they are going to be an important component in the entire picture. And we have to make sure that we have access to their

markets and that we are able to trade with them.

Fortunately, the rest of the world actually is doing quite well

right now. Not only are the developing countries like China and

India growing at very rapid paces, but Europe is now fighting its

way back, Japan, after having a very troubled decade, is doing recently well with growth rates around 3 percent right now.

All of those factors contribute to a situation that will help our

economy as we trade and export and also import from those individuals and from those countries as well. So I think the picture

looks quite good, and actually looks better than it did a few years

ago in large part because the world is a healthier place than it was.

Representative Brady. So from your perspective does America

isolating ourselves from the global market increase our economic

growth, or does our engagement in the global market, especially in

prying open new markets, encourage our economic growth?

Dr. Lazear. I think there is little doubt about this, and this is

one you often you hear economists saying on the one hand, on the

other hand. This is one in which there is no other hand. Virtually,

the entire economics community believes that trade is beneficial to

an economy.

And increased trade improves economic growth.

So we are very much in favor of making sure that we maintain

openness in terms of trade, the Doha round, which is currently

being negotiated, is one that we are hopeful will conclude in some

positive achievements, the bilateral agreements we have been engaging in over the past few years, I think, have been helpful in

opening up the world. We are a very productive nation. We are actually a low unit cost nation. So despite the fact that our wages are

high relative to the rest of the world, we are not a high cost country because we are so productive. So our costs are actually relatively low as compared with those countries with whom we trade.

All of those developments mean we can compete and we can compete successfully when we have openness to other markets. And we

are certainly pushing in that direction. And we believe that is a

very important component of growth as we look forward to the 21st

century.

Chairman Saxton. Thank you, Mr. Brady. The gentleman from

New York, Mr. Hinchey.

Representative Hinchey. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and

welcome. As you pointed out in your testimony, we have seen significant amounts of productivity growth and substantial increases

in the profitability of corporations, the corporations’ bottom lines,

as well as in the pay of corporate executives, which has reached extraordinarily high levels, record levels. We have even seen some

growth in the economy but the growth in the economy itself has

been rather modest, 2.6 percent or so, which is really odd in the

face of the fact that we have experienced record amounts of economic stimulation.

We have had record low interest rates, which have been the primary reason why the housing bubble sustained the economy and

prevented us from going into a deep recession. And we have seen

20

huge amounts of public spending which have created very, very

large debts.

And given the fact that the interest rates are now going up, how

much longer do you think that we can sustain even the productivity growth and the corporate profits, let alone the modest

amount of economic growth that we have experienced?

Dr. Lazear. Rising interest rates have certainly had an effect on

various sectors. You pointed out housing in your question, and I

think that housing is one of the areas in which we have seen the

most significant change. The picture in the housing market is a little bit uncertain. And what I mean by uncertain is that when we

look at these numbers—and I look at these numbers almost daily—

we see some numbers declining, for example, housing starts have

declined by 13 percent since the beginning of the year. But then,

we were surprised yesterday by the number that showed that new

home sales were up by 4.6 percent last month.

So we have things moving in different directions there, and it

looks like the housing market is slowing, I would say, and slowing

a bit, but not slowing by as much as we had perhaps anticipated

or even feared.

The other side to that, sir, that I would point out is that while

the housing market has declined, so we are talking about residential construction declining, we are seeing a lot of strength in commercial real estate. And so what we have lost in housing real estate we are seeing picked up in commercial.

The other component of the economy that has been very strong

is business fixed investment which has also picked up. So that, coupled with growth in exports, indicates to me that what we saw initially as being focused on consumption and housing and I think

that was your concern you were worried about sort of the fragility

in some sense of that those sectors——

Representative Hinchey. My concern is sustaining what little

economic growth we have actually experienced in the face of the

fact that interest rates are going up, somewhat, the housing market is closing down, and you are facing a growing disparity in income among people in the economy.

Most of the benefits, the economic benefits, have flown to people

in the upper income brackets. But if you look at, for example, the

effect on the income of the median American family, when you adjust that for inflation, their income has dropped off by more than

$1,600 over the course of the last 5 years. As a result of that, we

are beginning to see a decline in demand, and this is essentially

a demand-based economy.

If you don’t have demand, it doesn’t matter how much supply you

have. In fact, if you have too much supply and lessening demand,

you are going to be facing a situation of deflation, which some people have raised as a potential problem for the future, and I would

be interested to hear what you have to say about that.

But the fact is that what we have—all of these allegations, the

so-called economic growth and prosperity and rosy pictures that

have been painted—are not reflected in the experiences of the average American family.

The income of the average American family is declining. The

number of people without health insurance is now up over 45 milVerDate 11-MAY-2000 18:46 Feb 06, 2007 Jkt 030522 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\JEC\30522.TXT CELINA PsN: CELINA
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lion, and the number of people in poverty in the last 5 years has

gone up by 4.5 million people.

So we are seeing people at the lower income level and the middle

income level being seriously economically depressed, while everyone in the Administration is painting a very rosy picture about the

economy.

It doesn’t make any sense to me.

Dr. Lazear. You have covered a lot of territory in your question.

Let me see if I can address a few of your points.

The first one that you made and you have made it twice now was

that there was little economic growth, and I guess I don’t share

that view.

Representative Hinchey. It is 2.6 percent average.

Dr. Lazear. Let me read to you the numbers, specifically real

GDP growth was 4 percent in 2003, 3.8 percent in 2004, 3.2 percent in 2005, 5.3 percent of in Q1 of 2006. I don’t know where you

got 2.6 percent out of that, maybe you are looking at a different

period.

Representative Hinchey. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has

provided that.

Dr. Lazear. We look at these numbers, and I am quite confident

of these numbers, so I would stand by my numbers. I believe my

numbers on this.

The growth rate in the economy has been very high. I don’t think

there is any dispute about that.

The issue I thought that you were coming to in the second half

of your question was one that I did address earlier, it was this

issue of wage growth and how the average individual was enjoying

the gains in the society.

And as I pointed out, I do believe that we have seen growth in

compensation, which it was greater than the growth in wages, albeit, perhaps not what we would like, we would like to see higher

growth in wages, I agree with you on that. I certainly would like

to see higher growth in wages. I believe it is coming again.

If I cite the Q1 figures, we did see very strong wage growth in

Q1, and we hope it will continue. These tend to reflect lags that

one sees after a turnaround in the economy.

Whether we will be right, whether the over-95 percent wage

growth that we saw in Q1 will be sustained into the future, we

don’t know. But we certainly hope that it will be. And I would join

you in cheering those efforts. But I think that what we have done

and what we believe is that a growing economy and growing productivity is the best way to make sure that there is wage growth.

If you look at this over the long run and it is not even a very long

run, there is almost a 1-to-1 relation between wage growth and

productivity growth. So for every 1 percent you get in productive

growth you get in wages.

During some periods you will see a lag, as I pointed out in the

mid-1990s, we saw a lag, and in the early 2000s, we saw a lag as

well. But we do seem to see somewhat of a catch up right now and

I hope it will continue.

Chairman Saxton. I thank the gentleman. On housing, it seems

to me that the low rates of interest that we saw in the past years

created a great incentive on the demand side. The housing sector

22

benefited greatly during those periods of time, but to the point

where we saw an increase in prices that made it somewhat difficult

for the average guy on the street to afford housing. Can you just

comment on that and see, where do you see that going?

Dr. Lazear. Well, last year, we have seen increase in housing

prices in the range of 14 percent. And housing price increases at

that level, I do not believe are sustainable into the distant future.

In fact, if I felt that there was certainty that housing prices

would increase at 14 percent, I think that is all I would be investing in right now. I think all of us would do that. We wouldn’t need

to worry about anything else.

So I think that seeing rates of growth at that level are first, not

sustainable, and second, as you point out, not even necessarily desirable, because what that does is it changes the prices of housing

so that the persons in older age groups are receiving capital gains

relative to those in younger age groups, those outside the housing

market who have to buy into the housing market suffer some capital losses as a result of that and it is not clear to me at all that

that is a healthy development for the economy.

So some leveling off of housing prices that we might be seeing

this year, at least to my mind, does not signal any kind of disaster

scenario. In fact, it is probably a move in the direction of a more

sustainable path.

Chairman Saxton. Thank you.

Senator Sarbanes.

Senator Sarbanes. Mr. Lazear, as you are well aware, the way

it works here you have a certain amount of time when you are recognized to ask questions and get your answers. Now if you give

long answers, we don’t get to ask many questions.

In fact, if you give a long enough answer, you can get one question and then, dance off the stage and then of course, Chairman

Saxton will gavel me down as I try to put another question to you,

frustrated by encountering these long answers.

So I will try to give relatively short questions and hopefully get

relatively short answers and maybe we can move along here, and

then I won’t come into conflict with the chairman, as I try to put

yet another question to you.

An article in last Sunday’s New York Times illustrated what has

been happening in income distribution over the last 25 to 30 years.

[The New York Times chart, entitled, ‘‘The Rich Get Richer,

Again,’’ appears in the Submissions for the Record on page 61.]

Now what it shows is that the distribution of income has become

about as unequal as it was in the 1920s. We had incredible growth

in the post-World War II period for better than a quarter of a century. But we have seen in recent years this concentration with respect to the share of income, so that the top one-tenth of 1 percent

is now getting 7 percent, and the top 1 percent gets 16 percent, and

the top 10 percent get 43 percent.

Does this trend concern you? I don’t need a long answer. If it

concerns you, I would like to know, if it doesn’t concern you, say

so.

Dr. Lazear. It does concern me.

Senator Sarbanes. Now, traditionally economists have called

our income tax system progressive because taxes rise as per share

23

of income, the higher up you go in the income scale and that, of

course, narrows the difference in after-tax income compared to before-tax income.

But do you agree with that observation as a general proposition?

Dr. Lazear. It depends on the actual tax structure. Sometimes

a tax structure can be made more progressive sometimes less progressive. You would have to be a bit more specific.

Senator Sarbanes. I do indeed want to be specific. In your oped piece in The Wall Street Journal on May 8th, you said, and I

am now quoting you, the President’s tax cuts have made the Tax

Code more progressive, which also narrows the difference in take

home earnings.

[The Wall Street Journal editorial, entitled, ‘‘America at Work,’’

appears in the Submissions for the Record on page 58.]

Now the Tax Policy Center, which, of course, has economists

across the political spectrum, has found just the opposite, that the

net effect of the tax changes since 2001, has been to raise the aftertax income of the top 1 percent of the population by 5 percent, and

raise the income of the bottom 60 percent of the population by only

2 percent.

And that is illustrated in this chart, this is, the effects on aftertax income of the tax cuts. And it shows the top 1 percent up 5 percent, the bottom 60 percent, in other words, more than half the

population, three-fifths of it, up 2 percent.

[The bar chart, entitled, ‘‘Effects on After-Tax Income of Tax

Cuts Passed Since 2001,’’ appears in the Submissions for the

Record on page 60.]

What is your evidence for the statement in The Wall Street Journal that tax changes since 2001 have narrow differences in aftertax income?

Dr. Lazear. I am going to have to give you a slightly longer answer, but I will try to keep it short so you get to ask another question. I will speak quickly. When we look at the tax cuts, first, I

want to point out that there have been a variety of changes in the

Tax Code, some of which move in the direction of progressivity,

some of which move in the opposite direction. Remember that associated with the tax cuts during this Administration have been reductions in tax rates from 15 to 10 percent, increase in child care

credits, reduction in marriage penalties and some changes in the

EITC as well. Those tend to work in the direction of progressivity.

On the opposite side of that we have seen changes in the capital

gains tax which tend to work against progressivity.

So the issue is really an empirical question. I don’t think one can

answer that ex ante.

Senator Sarbanes. This is empirical evidence that the Policy

Center has done——

Dr. Lazear. And I saw your numbers. I have looked at those

numbers carefully, and I have also investigated this quite thoroughly. We believe that the tax cuts that the President instituted

were progressive in the following sense. If we look at those tax cuts

estimated for 2006, take those right now, and ask, what would the

effect of those tax cuts be on individuals in, say, the lowest 50 percent of the income distribution, we estimate that with the tax cuts,

24

they pay 15 percent fewer, lower taxes than they would without the

tax cuts.

Additionally, if we look at the proportion of individuals who pay no taxes at all, before the tax cuts individuals who earn $32,000

paid no taxes. After the tax cuts individuals who pay, I am sorry,

who earn less than $42,000, pay no taxes. So to my mind that is

a move in the direction of progressivity.

Senator Sarbanes. I am not challenging that some of the tax

cuts contributed to progressivity.

But if you put them all together and look at the estimates that

the Tax Policy Center has made, I think these are rather spectacular findings here. In any event, Mr. Chairman, I think my time

is up, as I understand it.

Chairman Saxton. Yeah it was up about a minute ago.

Senator Sarbanes. Let me ask this final question, Chairman

Lazear.

I am always interested in the struggle to maintain professionalism of people who come into say the Council of Economic Advisers or other positions from private life, and then they are confronted with the political demands to, in effect, be spokesman for

an administration policy. It happens in all administrations, an administration policy which is often arrived at largely on political

grounds.

And I am just curious. Are you encountering that struggle now

as chairman of the CEA?

Dr. Lazear. No, sir, I am not.

Senator Sarbanes. All right. That is all I want to know.

Chairman Saxton. Thank you. Before we go to the gentlelady

let me ask this question as a follow-up to Senator Sarbanes’ question, which I thought was a good one. When we look at the percentage of taxpayers, Senator Sarbanes talked about the top 1 percent

and the bottom 60 percent. I would like to talk about the top 1 percent and the bottom 50 percent. My numbers are that the top 1

percent of the wage earners in this country pay 34 percent of the

taxes, while the bottom 50 percent of the wage earners pay just 3.5

percent of personal income taxes.

And I am wondering how you could give the same percentage of

tax cuts to the bottom 50 percent, given the fact that they pay just

3.5 percent of the taxes, as you would the top 1 percent? It would

be a difficult chore, it would seem to me.

Dr. Lazear. Indeed it would. And that is why the numbers that

were cited earlier are not compelling in my mind. It is virtually impossible to think about tax cuts that would win by that particular

standard.

The reason is this: If you think about people at the bottom who

are paying a small proportion of the total taxes, suppose you eliminated all of their taxes and you change the taxes for the very top

individuals by 1 percent. Well, obviously, if those are the individuals who are paying all the taxes in absolute terms, they are going

to get a bigger tax cut. On the other hand, most people would believe that eliminating entire, the entire amount of taxes for individuals at the bottom, and a small fraction of taxes at the top would

be a move toward progressivity, but it would fail on that test. It

would succeed on other tests. That is why these questions become

25

somewhat more difficult, somewhat more complicated, and do require a bit of, what I would say, more study before jumping to particular conclusions and that was what we were trying to point out

with the numbers that we gave, and I think your numbers reinforce that point.

Senator Sarbanes. Are you asserting that the percentage cuts

given to the bottom 60 percent were equal to the percentage cuts

given to the top 1 percent?

Dr. Lazear. No, the percentage cuts, I am sorry, sir, the percentage cuts given to the bottom, when we look at the overall picture,

just talking, again, about your—the statistic that you used, which

is take all of the tax cuts combined, capital gains, dividend tax

cuts, take the EITC, add those all up and then ask what proportion

of the tax burden is borne by low income individuals versus high

income individuals, low income individuals——

Senator Sarbanes. It wasn’t a percent of the tax burden, it was

after-tax income——

Chairman Saxton. I would like to thank the gentleman for

his——

Senator Sarbanes. [Continuing.] inequality.

Chairman Saxton. I would like to thank you for your input. We

are about 8 minutes past your time so, Ms. Sanchez, the floor is

yours.

Senator Sarbanes. I was prompted to ask since you asked a

question——

Chairman Saxton. Thank you.

Senator Sarbanes. I thought we ought to keep the record

straight. It is important to do that.

Representative Sanchez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Mr.

Chairman, thank you for being before us today. I have a couple of

questions that I have been following in the last year, since I have

been on this Committee, one with respect to housing and one with

respect to why hasn’t Wall Street slapped Washington for the deficit spending that is going on, and their inability to—our ability to

structure ourselves into what I think is a big hole coming out of

Wall Street, and I am incredibly interested in why the markets

haven’t sent a message to us yet.

In talking to Chairman Greenspan, I think it was the last question that was asked before he left, by me and the Congress, one of

the reasons that he gave us was, you know I asked him, why hasn’t

Wall Street gone after us on this?

And he suggested that one of the reasons, one of the major reasons was that productivity at the high end had increased, even

though the cost for productivity had not, that the influx of people

from the former Soviet Union, and India and China, high end engineering, mathematics, et cetera, that we were now using was depressing the wages or keeping the wages down at the high end of

these type of people.

I have noted that high—that the graduating class out in universities in the United States actually is in high demand, and the salaries are going up this year for the first time in a long time of people coming out of there, given that less than 20 percent of the people in the United States carry at least a BA, I am thinking of them

as a higher productivity class, if you will.

26

So my question to you is, does it, I was talking to a colleague last

night, and she told me that her daughter, who is a second-year law

student is making more per week than we do as lawmakers per

week. So, obviously, salaries are going up for people who are getting the education out there.

Does this trouble you, given that Chairman Greenspan said this

is all about to collapse on us, and he viewed that increases in this

level of people were going to begin and bring down the productivity

of the United States? Does this concern you?

Dr. Lazear. No, I actually view it as a positive development that

the return to investment in education is high.

What does concern me, though, again, is that I would, I think we

need to focus on making sure that all Americans enjoy the ability,

the opportunity to take advantage of these high returns. It is a

good thing when our productivity is high, when our investment in

skills pay off, when our investment in any kind of capital, physical

or human, pay off. And that trend, by the way, has been going on

for a long period of time. So I don’t view it has particularly problematic. I don’t see any robustness issue there which I think is

what you were getting at in your question, is this going to collapse?

There doesn’t seem to be any tendency at all at least in the historic

data to suggest that it will.

Representative Sanchez. So you believe that if increases in

the higher end, the high productivity that Chairman Greenspan at

least had alluded to, that the increase in wages which if nothing

else comes out, drops down the productivity, that this will not be

a problem and the capital market will not see this as a problem

for the United States, inflation in other words at the higher end?

Again, we are talking about the top 10 percent here getting higher

wages where the lower end is stuck, we can’t even get a minimum

wage through the Congress in over 9 years.

Dr. Lazear. I believe it actually works the other way, that it is

not so much that wages will cause productivity to collapse, but

rather wages are a reflection of productivity. So in large part, the

reason that our individuals are wage earners at the top of the distribution, top of the skill distribution, are doing so well is because

their productivity is very high, they are contributing a lot to the

economy.

Representative Sanchez. Thank you, I want to get to my second question. I will add that unfortunately, this President and this

Congress in raising the cost of the interest cost to student loans

and in cutting moneys really to education are really not investing

in education, as the rest of us would like to see, given your comment about productivity.

Back to this housing issue, you know, I talked to Greenspan and

also, of course, to the new chairman of the Fed now, when he was

in your position before, and coming from California and having

seen the type of market that we have had, my question is to the

issue of interest rates increasing, and probably for the foreseeable

future, seeing them go up even more and the fact that in order for

people to get into homes, they took out ARMs and, you know, quite

frankly things that as an investment banker that, I just, scream

about, 50-year, I think the No. 1 loan out there in California right

now is a 40-year, 1 percent negative amortization loan or 50-year

27

loan, with 0 percent, I mean just things are incredibly crazy, I

think. With this slowdown, and I know that you talked yesterday

about the housing sales and the new housing sales having gone up

but even developers, I watch this all day long, are very interested

in this issue because Orange County is developer haven, that is

what we export to the rest of the world is new development in particular.

Even all of the heads of Lennar and other companies said this

surprised them, and they also said that cancellations are not noted

in these housing sales. And then they said that their cancellation

rates are about 30 percent right now. In other words, the new

housing, that this home sales that supposedly went up yesterday,

you could begin to discount by at least 30 percent, because it said

their cancellation rates were hitting that high at this point in this

quarter. So they said, it is definitely slowing down. Almost every

major developer said this yesterday.

So my question to you is, are you worried? And what should Congress do, as a policy to these ARMs that are coming due, a quarter

of them due in this next year across the Nation, people not having

equity, because as we have seen the new housing starts and the

lack of sales are actually beginning to show, and the developers are

admitting to, will push down, I believe, even further the sales of

existing homes.

Are you worried about these nontraditional or nonconservative financing methods, and what they are going to do with respect to

foreclosure and lack of equity? And what do you really see? Are you

tracking this? And what do you think the impact will be to the

overall economy nationally, and what do you think, what do you,

I think, Congress can or should do about anticipating this?

Dr. Lazear. Thank you. Again you, too, have touched a large

number of areas. Let me try to answer in a comprehensive fashion.

Specifically, let me talk about the ARMs that you refer to.

In fact, we do watch these, and it is a concern for us as well as

for you.

What one worries about, of course, is that as interest rates go up,

one is concerned that individuals then have higher household payments. At the same time, if they can’t make those payments, increases in interest rates could involve capital losses in their housing prices, and then they could be in trouble, and I think that is

the concern that you have.

We looked at that actually very carefully, because we too were

concerned about that.

What we are finding is at least to this point, there is no evidence

of that happening, in fact, net household worth is up and bankruptcy rates have been down and down considerably. One of the

good pieces of news in our economy among many but one of the

ones that we focused on in the household level is that bankruptcy

rates are running at about less than half of where they were in the

late 1990s. So part of that, you asked what Congress could do is,

I think, part of that is I think a result of some of the action you

took about a year ago to reform some of the bankruptcy laws, but

what we are seeing is real declines in bankruptcies right now.

And, again, I think that reflects increases in net worth, in large

part coming not only from the housing market, which, by the way,

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is still going up, it is still not—it hasn’t declined. It is still going

positive, but also from equity markets as well.

So it is a concern. It is one that we monitor. It is one that we

continue to look at, and we will continue to look at it, I think you

know I am also a Californian, although from the north, but I share

your views. I have seen markets like this have booms and busts

and it is one that we are on to.

Representative Sanchez. Let me just end, Mr. Chairman, if

you will, by saying that, you know, as somebody who also invests

in the stock market, I would say that the equity markets, at least

from my statements, and I follow straightforward market investment portfolio, not individual stocks, has declined over a thousand

points as I recall it has had a little bit of a rally in the last few

days, so equities have actually come down, I believe, over the span

of this year. And my realtors, who were in from Orange County,

said that definitely there is a slowdown, pricing houses, may be a

little up or at the same level, but the number of homes up for sale

the length of the homes up for sale and people actually taking their

homes off for sale, because they can’t find buyers is continuing to

increase, and the fact that 25 percent of the ARMs or, you know,

people are going to have to redo their loans this coming year, I

think is a real vital should be a vital concern to many of us, especially those who have seen heavy movements in the markets or robust economy because of housing sales.

Representative Brady. [Presiding.] Thank you. Gentleman

from Texas, Mr. Paul.

Representative Paul. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning. I have a question dealing with inflation. I see on

page 3 you talk a little bit about inflation, expressing a little bit

of concern, but I don’t think a whole lot.

And yet, the Fed seems to be a lot more concerned about inflation right now.

Even this week, there is the anticipation that they have so much

concern that some in the market believe that the interest rates

might even be raised a half a point rather than just a quarter

point. So they evidently are very fearful and that is generally what

the whole talk is in the financial community. But I am a little bit

bewildered by the way we handle inflation.

Generally speaking, Treasury, or the Fed, or the Council of Economic Advisers, in talking about inflation, they never talk about

the depreciation of money. They always talk about some external

force that causes prices to go up. For instance, you suggest a significant increase in the price of gasoline and oil prices will push up

inflation, of course, some of us see that as a consequence of inflation. There was a famous economist once who taught that inflation

was always a monetary phenomenon. And yet we essentially never

talk about it.

So here there is, this concedes there is a concern about inflation,

and typically, and this has been the way it has been for decades

now, and I think this is the Keynesian influence in our system.

And therefore, they make the assumption that prices go up because there are too much of a healthy economy and we have to turn

the economy off, because the economy is booming too much.

29

So what do they do? They suggest we raise interest rates to turn

off the growth. Of course, raising interest rates has a price effect

too. That can be so-called inflationary as far as pushing up prices.

And besides, it challenges the whole notion that if you have a

free market and it is productive and going well, productivity is the

best thing in the world to drive prices down. So we have, you know,

one section of the market is rather unfettered, it is in the area of

TVs and computers. And you don’t have an inflation, price inflation

there, prices keep going down. And so here we are, we refuse to

think about it as a monetary phenomenon, then we get too much

growth and we say too much growth is bad. We have to turn the

growth off to crash the prices or bring the prices down. And at the

same time, not recognize the fact that it is the depreciation of

money that really counts.

And I am just wondering whether you have an opinion of this,

why is there this almost refusal to deal with the depression of

money because if that is, if the economists are correct that point

all the blame at monetary depreciation and we refuse to deal with

it, we can forget about a healthy economy and your job becomes

much worse. How can you adjust for it? How can an economic adviser give advice to cause a healthy economy if the basic flaw is in

monetary policy?

Dr. Lazear. Thank you.

Well, I would say first just commenting on your sort of general

theme of your question, which is that I seem to show less concern

about inflation than the Fed does, at least in public statements. I

guess I would say that I am, part of that is because I have confidence in the Fed.

So I don’t have to worry about inflation because Ben and his

partners are doing that right now for us. And I think we will do

a good job and we will be successful in controlling it.

But my views are not based on personal knowledge of the Fed

or its board, but rather on the market. I think if we look at the

market indicators, the market also seems to believe inflation is

under control or will be under control.

For example, if you look at things like our forecast or look at the

Tip spread, which is an estimate of what the market believes about

inflation, Bloomberg estimates, all of these are in the same range,

they are all about 21⁄2 percent going forward.

So those numbers obviously take into account Fed policy. But I

think that the economy and the forecasters are all pretty much

singing the same song. I think the most important point you made

is one I would strongly agree with, and that is the best way to control inflation—and what we are talking about in terms of inflation

is increases in real prices, prices of goods going up relative to our

earning power. That is what we really worry about.

And you mentioned that the best way to control that is through

increases in productivity. And I certainly subscribe to that philosophy as well. I think that the most effective control against inflation, the most effective guard is to make sure productivity stays

high. We have done that in the past few years, productivity growth

has been very strong. And I see it continuing into the near future.

As a result, we have not experienced very high levels of inflation,

even with gas prices going up and maybe we don’t want to call it

30

inflation, because as you point out, most of us think of inflation as

a monetary phenomenon, at least where I went to school, that is

how we think of it, but still the fact that prices are going up is a

concern obviously to consumers.

They haven’t gone up very much, except for gasoline and oil

prices, prices have not gone up very much, quarter prices have

been contained, and I think, in large part, because of the productivity gains to which you alluded.

Representative Paul. May I have one quick follow-up? If this

is true, raising interest rates may well diminish the product for

productivity increase, wouldn’t this be true?

Dr. Lazear. When interest rates are raised, it does have an effect on the economy. As Ms. Sanchez pointed out earlier, we are already seeing this in the housing market, there is no doubt the

housing market has slowed at least relative to its past. The question that one has to address is whether we are willing to tolerate

some slowing in the economy in order to keep what would be

viewed as a monetary reason for inflation under control. We have

full confidence that the Fed is looking at those issues and making

the appropriate tradeoffs in doing that. As I said, I have confidence

in them in large part, because I know the individuals involved.

They are very sensible and very thoughtful people. They have all

the data available to them that I have available to me. And I think

they will do the appropriate and responsible thing.

Representative Brady. Chairman, thank you for your services

leading the Council of Economic Advisers and taking time to enlighten us today about future prospects to the economy. Thank you

very much.

Dr. Lazear. Thank you, sir.

Representative Brady. The Committee welcomes for its second

panel two distinguished Members, Dr. Mickey Levy, chief economist for the Bank of America, and Dr. Brad Setser, senior economist and director of Global Research for the Roubini Global Economics Group out of New York.

Representative Brady. Gentlemen thank you for joining us

today, Dr. Levy why don’t we begin with you.

STATEMENT OF DR. MICKEY D. LEVY, CHIEF ECONOMIST,

BANK OF AMERICA

Dr. Levy. Thank you very much for inviting me to express my

views to you about the economy. In addition to giving you a brief

economic overview, I would like to identify several risks facing the

economy and also discuss why global imbalances are so large, and

what the implications are. I see some narrowing of imbalances

coming our way.

Now, without being redundant with Mr. Lazear, the economy is

really fundamentally sound and, it is important to keep in mind

that the U.S. has the highest potential growth of all industrialized

nations. To put it in perspective, we have $11 trillion economy, so

31⁄2 percent growth means economic output or national income is about $375 billion higher than last year and, it is spread, around

and the reason why the U.S. economy has high potential is because

we have generally pro-growth economic policies and it is very important to keep it that way.

31

Going through the economy, everything has been quite healthy,

particularly productivity, and I would note that, in some sectors,

productivity is much higher than the statistics suggest.

The soft spot that was alluded to in the previous testimony is

while wages have been rising, they have not kept pace with productivity gains. And the rise in energy prices has tempered the rise

in real compensation. When we think about the culprits, it is not

just higher costs and nonwage costs to corporations, it is also international competition.

And this is going to continue. We see low cost producers overseas. It is very difficult to identify the independent impact of this,

but it seems to me it is putting higher demands on high skilled

workers and somewhat lesser demands on lower skilled workers.

And that is just a fact going forward. It is more severe in Europe.

The right way to address this is not to address the symptoms of

the problem, but rather to increase education and skill levels.

Now, as for my outlook, I am looking for continued economic expansion but at a moderating pace. As a consequence of the higher

interest rates, the higher energy prices, and the impact of the higher interest rates on mortgage refinancing, a natural consequence,

and actually a welcome consequence of the Fed’s rate hikes, will be

some moderation in consumption of the rate of economic growth.

But even with those factors, consumption will continue to grow.

And if you look at the key factors that have historically driven consumer spending, real or inflation-adjusted disposable personal income is still growing, even though it has been suppressed by higher

energy prices. And should energy prices stabilize here, real disposable personal income growth will accelerate.

Also while real interest rates have gone up a little bit, they still

remain low, particularly in after-tax terms. And household net

worth, that is, stocks bonds and real estate, net of all household

debt, is at an all-time high, and of the nearly $50 trillion in total

net worth, less than 30 percent is real estate. And so, even if real

estate falls by more then I think, it will not affect the consumer

that much. It will slow things down, but not lead to a decline.

With regard to housing activity, I expect, looking forward, further flatness, perhaps modest declines in housing activity and

prices, but not large declines.

Once again when we look at the factors underlying what has historically driven housing, they are all generally positive.

Employment is rising and the unemployment rate is 4.6 percent,

and personal incomes on average are rising, and real after-tax interest rates are low.

Toss in the demographics, and in my view, it is adjustment process. While I agree that the recent pace of price appreciation in

housing is unsustainable, the adjustment process suggests that a

flattening out and maybe a modest decline, but not much more.

Capital spending is very strong, reflecting record-breaking profits, cash flows, low real costs of capital, and other positive factors.

Exports are very strong reflecting global economies that are quite

strong. So if you were to look at the destination of U.S. exports and

what we are exporting, the outlook is very, very favorable.

The trade deficit is widening, but a key point I am going to emphasize here is the deficit is widening because the U.S. is strong.

32

Imports are higher and rising more rapidly than exports. Forty percent of all U.S. imported goods are industrial supplies and capital

goods, even excluding petroleum and automobiles. That is because

the U.S. is growing faster than nearly every other industrialized

nation—not just consumption but investments—imports are rising

rapidly and a hefty portion of that rise in imports that is generating the trade deficit is for business production and expansion and

associated with job creation.

The largest risk to the economy—and we shouldn’t understate

these—involve three sources. The first risk is if the Fed were to inadvertently hike rates too much, causing a slump in aggregate demand. In response to several questions about the housing markets

and consumer debt, as long as the economy continues to grow at

a healthy enough pace, in the aggregate, we can withstand higher

interest rates. But if the Fed raises rates too much, which creates

a slump in aggregate demand, which leads to a slowdown in employment and wages—this is the biggest risk to the economy and

to housing.

The second risk is protectionism that significantly raises the cost

of production or otherwise jars international trade and capital

flows and/or elicits retaliatory measures. In this world of large

global imbalances, barriers to trade and capital are dangerous and

have to be avoided.

And the third potential risk is a dramatic or undisciplined decline in the dollar. I am not anticipating one.

Inflation has risen. It has risen due to excess demand. In the last

couple years, nominal spending growth in the economy has been

about 63⁄4 percent, which is well above common estimates of potential, about 31⁄2. Consequently, inflation has accelerated and core inflation, even excluding food and energy, has risen above 2 percent.

The Fed has told us it wants to keep core inflation at 2 percent.

And so it will hike rates.

And here is the difficulty for the Fed. It doesn’t want to cause

a slump. It has looked at its past history at times when it is has

orchestrated a soft landing and times when it has tightened too

much. It doesn’t want to do the latter. But the difficulty is there

is no single measure of monetary thrust they can rely on. And in

addition, monetary policy works with a lag. But with the markets

testing the Fed’s inflation fighting credibility, here is a good analogy: Let’s say you told your kids it is 9 o’clock bedtime. And it is

9:15 and then 9:30 and you look in and they are still watching TV

and it looks like they are getting more wound up than closing down

shop.

What do you do?

The Fed is going to hike rates further. And I am looking for a

53⁄4 percent funds rate by year end. I do not think that would

unhinge the economy.

With regard to the trade deficits and the current account deficits

in the global context of large global imbalances, if all countries had

approximately the same rates of economic growth and investment

and saving, imbalances would be very minor.

But that is not the case.

The U.S. has been growing significantly faster than every other

large industrialized nation since 1990 except for Canada. And not

33

just consumption has been growing faster but investments have

been growing faster. So there is a tremendous demand for capital.

At the same time, our rate of saving has been too low.

In the 1990s, during the investment boom, the rate of national

saving was fairly high. The decline in the rate of personal saving

was offset by the Government moving from deficit to cash-flow surplus. But so far this decade, the rate of personal saving has stayed

so low, and we have budget deficits. And so the U.S. has insufficient savings relative to high investment.

Now, in Japan, where the economy has languished up to until a

couple of years ago, it had a very weak domestic demand, flat consumption, weak investment and excess saving. Ditto Germany.

While China is poor in GDP per capita terms, and has strong

growth, it has an extraordinarily high rate of personal saving, over

40 percent, by their official statistics.

The reason why it is so high is they don’t have a social safety

net or any retirement programs.

So those countries have excess saving relative to investment and

they export their capital to the United States.

I understand the current account deficit is extremely high. I am

not concerned at all about the U.S. trade deficit, because it reflects

relative strength. What we have to ask is, what are we doing with

the imported capital? What is the rate of return on it? Are we putting it toward investment that creates future jobs? Or are we using

it for current consumption?

I am concerned about the current account, not because I think

there is going to be a collapse in the economy, and not because

there is going to be a sharp decline in the dollar, but I think we

have to address the factors underlying it.

When you think about the current account deficit in the United

States, you should also think about the current account surpluses

in Japan and China and look at the factors underlying them. I

would like to make several points: One, the large imbalances are

largely a reflection of the U.S. strength, and its low rate of saving;

second, in equilibrium, don’t expect the trade and current accounts

to be in balance unless every country has approximately the same

rate of economic growth, same rate of investment and same rate of

saving. Do not expect an ultimate day of reckoning where the dollar plummets or the U.S. economy collapses.

I have had the pleasure of sitting down with the top global portfolio managers in Asia who manage nearly $2 trillion. I walk away

from those meetings with the clear impression that they are absolutely economically rational in holding a very large portion of their

portfolio in U.S. dollar-denominated assets.

If you think about it, the U.S. has the fastest growth and the

most credible policymakers, a credible central bank, the highest interest rates in market and in inflation-adjusted terms. They are investing in the U.S. for the right reasons. Don’t expect any sell-off

and do not expect a sharp decline in the dollar.

That is just not how portfolio managers work.

In order to think the dollar will fall sharply, you would have to

think those portfolio managers are irrational economically.

I think there are factors in place that will begin to narrow global

imbalances.

34

Think about the following.

In the last couple years, Japan’s domestic demand has picked up.

That means its consumers after a dozen years of flat to declining

consumption are starting to consume more.

Japan enjoys record breaking profitability, and that is generating

higher investment. Its domestic demand is picking up, which is

going to boost its demand for capital. At the same time, their rate

of personal saving is coming down as confidence builds.

Dr. Levy. Their excess saving is starting to shrink, and they will

become smaller exporters of capital to the U.S. and around the

world.

Ditto Germany. We are finally starting to see a pick-up in the

German economy largely due to lower German tax receipts and

spending as a percentage of GDP. European economies are picking

up and, once again, you are going to see a pick-up in domestic demand. Germany’s current account surpluses will come down.

Finally, China. In the U.S., consumption is nearly 70 percent of

GDP. In Europe, it is about 58 percent. In China, it is 42. That is

going to increase. As the Chinese citizens start to spend more of

their disposable income, the excess of national savings relative to

investment will shrink, and there will be less sources of capital

available to the U.S.

From the U.S. perspective, the Fed’s rate hikes and higher real

interest rates are beginning to slow down domestic demand, and

we are seeing that in housing and we are going to see it in consumption. We are going to see a slowdown. So the demand for capital is going to come down a little bit. At the same time, the excess

capital from around the world is going to shrink a little bit.

This is going to serve to begin to narrow the current account imbalance. It will not eliminate it, because if we consider the sources

of insufficient saving in the U.S., the primary source is the budget

deficit (that is, the Government’s ‘‘dissaving’’). This has to be addressed. You can’t just go through this exercise by ‘‘arithmetically’’

closing the budget gap as if it was a deficit bean-counting game.

You have to think about policies that both reduce the imbalance,

increase the rate of national savings, and, at the same time, are

pro-growth. In my mind, in most people’s minds, this requires addressing the entitlement programs and the retirement programs. I

think once you do that, it is going to provide you a lot of flexibility

to address a lot of other budget needs.

If you look at the total Government budget imbalance, not just

the cash-flow deficit now, but the long-run imbalance based on rational estimates of the unfunded liabilities of Social Security retirement, Medicare, Medicaid, and divide that by GDP and take the

present values, the numbers are scary and very large: perhaps up

to 6 percent of GDP. In the long run, raising taxes to close that

gap in an arithmetic way could cripple the economy and you end

up further away from your objective, and hurt exactly the people

you are trying to help.

And so once again, I think addressing the entitlement programs

is not just a direct way of increasing the rate of national saving,

but it is also an indirect way to provide you a lot of flexibility to

reallocate national resources in a way that helps current citizens

and future citizens. And I will stop right there.

35

Representative Brady. Dr. Levy, thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Levy appears in the Submissions

for the Record on page 62.]

Representative Brady. Dr. Setser.

STATEMENT OF DR. BRAD SETSER, DIRECTOR, GLOBAL

RESEARCH, ROUBINI GLOBAL ECONOMICS; AND RESEARCH

ASSOCIATE, GLOBAL ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE CENTER

Dr. Setser. I too would like to thank Members of the Committee

for inviting me to testify here today.

I am going to focus my remarks on the one risk to the outlook.

That is the United States’ very large current account deficit. The

current account deficit in the fourth quarter of 2005 reached about

7 percent of U.S. GDP, about $900 billion. It fell slightly in the first

quarter, but I think most people believe that it is likely to remain

at least at $900 billion and perhaps widen during the remaining

course of this year.

Current account deficits of 7 percent of GDP in an advanced

economy like the United States cannot be directly compared to

those of major emerging market economies, but it is still worth noting that a 7 percent of GDP current account deficit is equal to that

Mexico ran in 1994 and 1995 on the eve of its crisis. The U.S. deficit is quite large. It is also unprecedented for a major advanced

economy to be running deficits of this size.

In my view, these large deficits pose two risks to the outlook. The

first risk is the financing necessary to sustain deficits of this kind,

financing that by and large, despite what some people have argued,

continues to come from official sources, will not continue to be

available. If that financing should dry up, there would be a sharp

adjustment to the dollar, perhaps a sharp rise in interest rates,

and a major change in both the pace of growth and in the composition of growth. Sectors such as the housing sector which have benefited from low-income rates would contract and the export side

would benefit. However, if the adjustment is too abrupt, the sectors

which are contracting would contract faster than the sectors which

are expanding. You cannot create an export industry overnight.

I think the second risk is that the possibility that there may not

be any adjustment. The U.S. deficits will not only remain at the

current size but perhaps expand. Those deficits have to be financed

by taking on additional debt. That debt is a claim on our future income. And looking ahead right now, the net claims on the U.S. are

around—net foreign claims are around 25 percent of GDP. That is

certainly going to double in any gradual adjustment scenario. It

could more than double if an adjustment does not start soon. That

implies that the United States’ population isn’t just going to be

paying for its own retirees, but will also be contributing to the retirement income of our creditors in Japan, our creditors in China,

and our creditors in Russia and other oil-exporting states.

These two risks interrelate. If the deficit continues to expand and

the policies needed to reduce the deficit not be put in place, the

risks of a disorderly adjustment go up. That is, the bigger the deficit, the bigger the risk that the adjustment process will not be benign, gradual and so forth, but rather sharp, disruptive, and painful.

36

Before outlining the specific policies that I believe should be put

in place to address the United States current account deficit, I

want to make three analytical points.

First, the U.S. current account deficit has increased not because

of a rise in investment but, rather, because of a substantial fall in

savings. That was most noticeable in the years between 2000 and

2003 when net Government savings fell substantially. Recently, the

budget deficit has trended somewhat down, improving Government

savings but household savings have fallen.

It is true that investment has picked up somewhat since 2003.

But that rise in investment has been overwhelmingly concentrated

in residential housing and residential real estate. There has been,

more recently, a bit of a pick-up in business investment. However,

that increase needs to be put into context. Current rates of investment are still well below the levels of the 1990s. I would also note,

neither residential real estate nor investment in commercial real

estate seems like an obvious source for the future export revenues

that will be needed to pay our external debt.

Second analytical point. These deficits have not been financed because the United States is an attractive location for equity investment. Net equity flows into the United States have been substantially negative for most of the past 5 years. The exception is last

year, 2005, I think most analysts believe those flows were influenced heavily by the Homeland Investment Act. Certainly in the

first quarter the pattern of net equity outflows from the United

States reappeared.

There has been a substantial rise in the amount of U.S. debt that

foreigners have been buying, I would argue that rise has not come

exclusively because U.S. debt is attractive to private individual investors but, rather, because foreign central banks and, increasingly, oil investment funds. Official creditors have been providing

very large funds of financing to the United States.

Recorded flows from official creditors fell in 2005. But I share the

judgment of the former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Martin Feldstein, that the U.S. data significantly understates

official flows in the United States. Specifically, it does not capture

a major fraction of the flows from China and is failing to capture

any of the flows from the Gulf States.

Third point. In order to keep the current account deficit at

around 7 percent of GDP, the trade deficit has to fall. The current

account deficit is the sum of the trade deficit, the transfers deficit,

and balance on investment income. Over the past few years, the interest rate that the U.S. has to pay on its external debt fell substantially. It was above 6 percent in 2000. It fell to around 3 percent in around 2003 and 2004.

As we all know, interest rates are rising. That means the interest that we will be paying on our external debt is soon going to

rise, and rise significantly. As a result, because of those increasing

net interest payments in order to keep the current account deficit

just at its current elevated level, the trade deficit needs to begin

to fall. I don’t see the necessary steps either here or abroad for that

to happen.

The president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Tim

Geithner, observed that private markets will eventually force the

37

United States to adjust, even if policy changes that would support

that adjustment are not put into place. However, he has also noted

that the risk of disruptive adjustments are higher in the adjustment process is not supported by appropriate policies.

Here in the United States the most direct, most significant, and

best way we can increase our national savings is to reduce our fiscal deficit. Academic work suggests a $1 reduction in the fiscal deficit will lead to a roughly 50 cent increase in national savings—or

up to a 50 cent reduction in the current account deficit. We could

also take measures to produce or demand for foreign oil, something

that Menzie Chinn of the University of Wisconsin has highlighted.

Those measures directly reduce the volume of oil that we need to

import, and also would have impact on global market prices.

What policies are needed outside of the United States? I would

put an emphasis on three:

First, China and other Asian countries need to allow their exchange rates to appreciate. Their exchange rates are being held

down by their central banks intervening heavily in the foreign exchange markets.

China needs to do more than just adjust its exchange rates. It

also needs to put in place policy steps that would lead its low rate

of household consumption to rise. I would note that China’s savings

rate is rising this year and that its current account surplus is also

rising. That is, necessary policies to change haven’t yet been put

in place and haven’t yet put into effect.

Second, more emphasis should be placed on the role of oil-exporting countries. I don’t think Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States

should be pegging to the dollar. That means that their currency’s

external purchasing power has fallen even as their oil revenues

have surged. They need to find more creative ways to inject some

of their huge oil windfall into their economy rather than lending

it back to the United States.

Now I put more emphasis on the role of emerging policies and

less on that which is needed in Europe and Japan because the increase in the U.S. current account deficit has been associated with

the rise in the surplus of European economies. But there is little

doubt that the willingness of Europe and Japan to accept further

appreciation of their currencies and base their future growth on

current demand will be critical to sustain an orderly adjustment

process.

The United States is undoubtedly an important market for many

of these countries and everyone has a stake in an orderly rather

than disorderly process. But we in the United States, in my judgment, should not base our policies on an expectation that other

countries will provide us the financing we need, no matter what we

do.

The majority of economists believe that the odds favor an orderly

adjustment process. I certainly hope they are right. I would also

note that this process is yet to begin. It should begin soon if the

odds of an orderly adjustment are to be as high as the majority

think.

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has reminded us recently that just because large deficits have been financed relatively

easily in the past doesn’t mean they will be in the future. Here in

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the U.S. we rarely pay attention to the developments in financial

markets in places like Iceland, New Zealand or Turkey. But all

their currencies have fallen sharply this year, and interest rates in

all of these markets are up. Large and growing current account

deficits in each of these countries helped trigger these market concerns.

This turmoil should provide us with a warning. Experience

teaches us it is better to adjust our policies when markets are

calm, not wait until markets demand change. Thank you very

much.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Setser appears in the Submissions for the Record on page 74.]

Representative Brady. Thank you.

Dr. Levy, in your statement you note, and I think it is important,

40 percent of imported goods flowing in the U.S. is comprised of

capital goods in industrial supplies. In other words, these are not

goods that my family is buying to consume. These are goods that

a business is purchasing to produce something else here in the

United States.

Won’t these types of imports facilitate increased U.S. production?

Shouldn’t they be viewed as favorable, rather than an item that is

being purchased for and imported for consumption?

Dr. Levy. Yes, sir. They are. Absolutely positive. The reason

why I included those statistics is to dispel the myth that it is just

the profligate consumer that is generating excess import growth;

that it is evenly balanced between the consumer and business expansion. And once again, if you look at the record, the U.S. has

been growing persistently faster than nearly every other industrial

nation, and that is why imports are growing rapidly.

So the issue is, let us say we want to address the trade deficit.

How do you do it? Well, presumably we want to do it in a way that

increases growth and increases standards of living rather than a

way that hurts the economy and hurts those citizens that we want

to help.

We need to look at the composition of the imbalances, get a clear

understanding of why the imbalances have occurred, and then

think rationally of what policies can be put in place that both sustain strong economic growth and reduce the imbalances.

Representative Brady. Thank you.

Dr. Setser, over the past 25 years—and I am not an economist—

but the current account deficit tends to mirror the U.S. economy.

The stronger our American economy, the stronger the accounts deficit is. The larger it is, the weaker our economy, the smaller it is.

And you make the point today that foreign countries are not investing in the United States because we are a strong economy, a good

place to invest. What are the reasons for investing—for the foreign

investment in the United States? If we are not a strong economy,

why are they investing?

Dr. Setser. I want to clarify my remarks. My point was that equity investment from foreigners has been quite low recently, unlike

in the late 1990s. There have been substantial inflows into U.S.

debt markets. Foreigners do find our bonds attractive. I think that

is for several reasons. One, as Dr. Levy has noted, that some U.S.

interest rates are somewhat higher than those of other advanced

39

industrial countries. I don’t think that those interest rates differentials alone, though, are sufficient to generate $800 or $900 billion

in net inflow into our debt markets from private individuals and

private market players alone.

And I think if you look closely at the data, a significant fraction

of those votes aren’t coming from private individuals; they are coming from foreign central banks and from oil investment funds. Why

do foreign central banks buy U.S. dollars? Well, in part, they are

buying U.S. dollars in order to keep the value of their currencies

down in the face of trade surpluses and net capital flows into their

own economy. They take those dollars in and they have to invest

them somewhere. Until now, the majority of those funds have

found their way back to the United States.

Some have characterized this relationship as vendor financing.

Countries want to export to the United States and lend us the

money we need in order to buy their goods.

The oil investment funds have just had a huge influx of cash. Obviously with oil at 70, there is a lot of money sloshing around the

Gulf, sloshing around Russia, sloshing around any place that has

oil. Their revenues have gone up far faster than their capacity to

spend that money. They haven’t been very creative about finding

ways to inject that money into their economy. The cash is building

up faster than they can find ways to spend it. And they are lending

it back to us. That may not last forever.

Representative Brady. Thank you.

Congressman Hinchey, do you have a question?

Representative Hinchey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I want to thank both of you for your very thoughtful

and articulate testimony. It was interesting to listen to both of you.

I want to insert something in the Record to make it clear about

the general economy. Contrary to what we may have got the impression of as a result of the last testimony, the average annual

growth rate over the last 5 years has been 2.6 percent. The Chairman left out growth rates of 1.2 and 1.6. And after you adjust for

inflation, compensation of employees’ wages plus benefits has

grown at just 1.6 percent, which is half of the growth in productivity. And after adjusting for inflation, the income of the typical

household has declined by more than $1,600.

So I would like to ask you to comment on that situation. I mean,

we are confronting a problem in this economy where the income of

the median family, middle-income people, is going down. It has

been dropping off more severely as you get further down the income scale.

But it is impacting middle-income people very severely, and that,

I think, is going to have a major impact on the economy.

Also, I would be interested if you have any thoughts on the impact of the alternative minimum tax on median income, and how

that is affecting the economic situation that we are confronting. We

are debating now a major reduction in the estate tax, but this Congress is paying no attention whatsoever to the aspect of Federal

taxation which is impacting most severely the middle-income part

of our economy.

Dr. Levy. Let me tackle those questions. Firstly, your 2.6 percent includes the 2 years of very soft growth that brings down your

40

average. But if you look over a 10-year period or 20-year period,

the average economy has been growing about 3.4 percent.

Over the last 5 years it is 2.6 percent.

Dr. Levy. I agree with you.

I think the key point with regard to the median household is the

No. 1 factor we all have to strive for is sustained economic expansion. All the policies in the world are not going to help that middleincome household if the economy slumps. So it is healthy economic

growth that is absolutely required, and that requires healthy economic policies. And we have had healthy economic policies the last

couple of years in particular. We are now in this transition where

the Federal Reserve has been taking away the monetary accommodation and it should slow things down, but we have to recognize

that stable inflation is the best foundation for sustained economic

expansion and job creation.

Now with regard to wages, I have been disappointed that wages

have not kept pace with labor productivity gains. There are reasons

for this. One is the higher nonwage costs.

The other is higher energy prices which clearly push up headline

inflation, and we can’t do anything about that. We have to hope energy prices stabilize so real wages rise.

Another factor is international competition. As I noted in my testimony, it is very hard to isolate the impact of international competition on wages, but my hunch is the higher supply of low-wage

workers around the world is increasing the global supply of lowwage workers and putting downward demand on low-wage workers

here.

Meanwhile, there is high demand for high-skilled workers. This

is one of the factors that we have to deal with because it is not

going to go away. And I would say the absolute best way to deal

with it is pro-growth policies that help the people that you really

want to help: build education and skills. Trying to address the

symptoms, like raising the minimum wage, would absolutely hurt

exactly the people you are trying to help, because it makes them

less competitive in a global world where the costs and the price of

tradable goods are falling.

So there is no question we have a major dilemma, and it is not

going to go away, and we have to address it in a fair and efficient

way.

Finally, with regard to the AMT, put it close to the top of your

priority list because it is affecting people in a way it wasn’t designed. The AMT is going to become more and more onerous; not

just the tax burden, but going through the calculation of how you

consume, how you invest: Everything is being affected by the AMT.

Representative Brady. Thank you, Dr. Levy.

Congressman Hinchey, I would point out that the mitigation of

the AMT was included in the President’s tax relief bill he just

signed a few weeks ago and has been a part of all of the major tax

relief measures in the last 5 years.

Mr. Paul——

Representative Hinchey. Could we hear Mr. Setser’s response

to my question?

Representative Brady. Yes.

41

Dr. Setser. I too think that the priority that was placed on reducing the estate tax relative to the—or limiting the estate tax—

relative to the priority that has been given to addressing other national needs and other potential reforms in the tax system has

been misplaced.

I certainly agree with Dr. Levy that an economic slump is unlikely to be good for the median or average worker. But the problem has been that the economic expansion that we have seen over

the past few years hasn’t been very good to the median or average

worker either, for many of the reasons that he outlined.

I think the policy response that has been adopted by the Congress and the Administration has tended to augment rather than

to help the situation. Specifically, the priority that has been placed

on steps like reducing the estate tax, steps like reducing the capital

gains tax, steps like reducing the dividends tax all have come at

a time when global competition has been placing downward pressure on the wages of relatively low-skilled workers and increasing

the returns on capital. So at a time when international markets are

moving in one direction, increasing inequalities within our society,

we have made policy changes at the Government level that have

continued to add to those inequalities. I think that is a problem.

Representative Brady. Thank you. Mr. Paul.

Representative Paul. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It seems to me that the two of you have a slightly different interpretation of amount of concern we should have for the current account deficit. I wanted to get just a quick clarification if I could

from Dr. Levy. Your argument is that these funds aren’t just going

to consumption, that it represents some business expansion and

business investment when it comes to the purchase of mortgage securities. Is that considered consumption or is that considered a

business investment in our calculation?

Dr. Levy. Doesn’t matter. Capital is fungible.

Representative Paul. You are arguing that a lot of these funds

are going into business, and Dr. Setser is arguing the other case.

Dr. Levy. Here is my point. Let us say an Asian central bank

that has excess savings buys U.S. mortgage-backed securities. Well,

that frees up funds for investment in whatever, including business

investment or construction or residential housing or consumption.

Representative Paul. Let me follow up with Dr. Setser because

his statements are rather emphatic that the current account deficit

has risen largely because of the fall in savings and a rise in residential investment, not because of a surge in business investment,

arguing the case that it is not business investments we are borrowing a lot of money from overseas for consumption.

Now following that, he mentions that this is not an economic decision by individual investors. This is not a private market participation. This comes from central banks, which I think muddies the

water. And I just wonder if there is any reason to think that central bankers—you know, in their planning that is what central

bankers are; they are planners domestically to centrally—run the

economy. Why wouldn’t central bankers get together and say, look,

tit for tat; you buy our securities and we will keep the consumption

going.

42

And because there is this fantastic trust in the dollar, a remnant

of the Bretton Woods Agreement that it is still a reserved currency,

it seems to me like we could be working toward a dollar bubble.

I know Dr. Levy says don’t worry about it. But I think there is

room for concern about the setup that we have, and the dollar

being so unique that this is why the deficit’s going to—maybe it

will—you suggest there are two problems: One, it will correct; and

two, it will continue to do it. Let us say the psychology is so powerful and the dollar is so strong and our military stays strong and

we have success overseas and there is no reason to doubt our preeminence in economics because we can continue our economic

power through borrowing, what if we continue this until we get a

10 or 12 percent current account deficit? Doesn’t this just mean

that someday we have to be prepared for some serious adjustments?

Dr. Setser. Certainly if the U.S. account deficit were to rise to

10 percent of U.S. GDP, which is where it will be in 3 or 4 years

if we don’t or our markets don’t demand—if we don’t implement

corrective policies or the markets don’t demand that we do—that’s

the track we are on. The deficit has been growing at a pace that

would imply 10 percent of GDP current account deficits by 2010.

So I think your concerns are well placed.

I think that it is important when talking about the dollar to differentiate between the exchange rate between the dollar and euro,

which is largely determined by market forces and the exchange

rate between the dollar and, say, the Chinese currency, which is

not set by market forces. It is set by the intervention of the Chinese central bank and the amount of intervention that China has

to do in order to maintain it has been growing.

At some point—I don’t know when that point will be—I think it

is likely that China will conclude that there are better ways of

spending their money than subsidizing American consumption, and

that the domestic monetary consequences of this very rapid reserve

growth will become such that there will be a reevaluation inside

China of this policy choice.

Now that reevaluation hasn’t come yet. It may not come next

year, it may not come the year after; but at some point it will come.

The People’s Bank of China in my judgment is unlikely to extend

an infinite credit line to the United States, which implies at some

point something will change.

I think it is also important to recognize that right now a very

large amount of the central bank financing from the United States

is coming from a set of countries which are not necessarily either

democracies nor necessarily our allies: China, Russia, many countries in the Middle East.

Finally, I do disagree with Dr. Levy’s argument that we are currently largely taking on external debt to finance a surge in investment, including a surge in business investment.

Unambiguously, business investment today is lower than it was

in the 1990s. Unambiguously, residential investment today is higher than it was in this 1990s. Unambiguously, household savings

today is lower than it was in the 1990s. Unambiguously, the Government deficit today is bigger than it was in this 1990s. On all

of those measures, the overall characterization that we are taking

43

on more external debt not to finance a surge in business investment relative to the 1990s is accurate.

Dr. Levy. Let me respond. There is no question the rate of business growth is lower than the 1990s. In the 1990s we said it was

way, way too high and we were worried about it. Business investments so far this expansion is growing double digit. That is very,

very healthy. And I like what I see in terms of the allocation.

I think it is a misuse of the term to imply that the Chinese are

going to get tired of subsidizing the U.S.

Nations that have excess savings relative to investments have to

do something with it. They allocate their resources to generate the

highest risk-adjusted expected rate of return.

As long as the U.S. continues to have healthy economic fundamentals and healthy economic policies, it will continue to not

have problems attracting foreign capital.

But once again, I think it is critically important to look underneath the imbalances. But why are they there? Once again, if we

had economic growth along the lines of Europe, less than 2 percent,

with unemployment rate twice what we have; or, if in the last 15

years we had 1 percent economic growth like Japan, with declining

investment, then we wouldn’t have such a large trade deficit. But

the fact that there are imbalances, we all benefit from international trade and international capital. And not only does the U.S.

benefit because we are able to import capital and put it to work

not just for consumption but for business expansion, but nations

that have excess savings are able, through international capital

flows, to put their capital to work.

So globally the saving in the world seeks investment opportunities.

There is no question but that when the U.S. runs a current account deficit. It implies that we are exchanging current consumption and investment for claims on future U.S. income. That is OK

as the returns on our imported capital are higher than the cost of

financing it. And therein lies the rub.

The Government deficit spending for consumption-oriented activity does not add to future productive capacity, yet it does reduce

the rate of national savings and that is one area we need to address.

And I think there is this other area where, Brad, I think we totally agree, and that is in response to the more than doubling of

energy prices in the last couple of years. You suggest consumers

have maintained their rate of consumption growth, which has lowered the rate of personal saving and lowers the rate of national

saving. That capital has flowed to OPEC producers (oil transactions

all transacted in dollars) and a lot of it flows back into the U.S.

This rise in oil prices has clearly been something that 4 or 5 years

ago none of us anticipated, and has clearly increased the current

account. We have to hope that energy prices stabilize and come

down; and if they do, that should contribute to a higher rate of personal savings in the U.S. and higher rate of national savings. If,

on the other hand, energy prices go up significantly from here, now

that monetary policy is more neutral than accommodative, then the

economic impact could be negative and it could keep our rate of

personal savings in the negative territory.

44

Representative Brady. I want to thank the panelists for being

here, the Members as well. And this meeting is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:50 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

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