S. HRG. 109–695

STATE OF THE ECONOMY AND BUDGET

HEARINGS

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

September 28, 2006—THE STATE OF THE ECONOMY AND BUDGET

(

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget 

THE STATE OF THE ECONOMY AND BUDGET

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30–816pdf 2006

S. HRG. 107–695

STATE OF THE ECONOMY AND BUDGET

HEARINGS

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

September 28, 2006—THE STATE OF THE ECONOMY AND BUDGET

(

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget 

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET 

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire, Chairman 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa 

WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado 

MICHAEL ENZI, Wyoming 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

JIM BUNNING, Kentucky 

MIKE CRAPO, Idaho 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

KENT CONRAD, North Dakota 

PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota 

ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan 

ROBERT MENEDEZ, New Jersey 

SCOTT GUDES, Majority Staff Director 

MARY NAYLOR, Staff Director 

(II) 

iii

C O N T E N T S 

HEARINGS 

Page 

September 28, 2006—The State of the Economy and Budget ............................. 1, 71

STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS 

Chairman Judd Gregg ................................................................................................. 1, 8

Ranking Member Kent Conrad................................................................................. 9, 23

WITNESSES 

Edwards, Chris, Director of Tax Policy Studies, CATO Institute........................ 72, 75

Hassett, Kevin, Director of Economic Policy Studies, American Enterprise 

Institute................................................................................................................. 59, 62

Lazear, Edward, Chairman, Council of Economic Advisor................................... 25, 32

Orszag, Peter, Deputy Director of Economic Studies, Brookins Institute......................................................................................................................... 83, 86

(1)

HEARING ON STATE OF THE ECONOMY AND 

BUDGET 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2006

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:58 a.m., in room 

SD–608, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Judd Gregg (Chairman of the Committee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Gregg, Alexander, Grassley, Allard, Conrad, 

Sarbanes, and Murray. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN GREGG 

Senator GREGG. I believe we are going to get started even though 

it is a few minutes early, if that is agreeable to Senator Conrad. 

We appreciate Dr. Lazear coming today and we appreciate the 

other witnesses who are on our second panel joining us. I would at 

the opening make the point that, unfortunately, we did not receive 

Dr. Lazear’s statement until just a few minutes ago. That is unfortunate, because the Democratic membership has a right to the 

statement 24 hours before the hearing, and the Administration 

really doesn’t do itself any good by not getting those statements up 

here in a timely manner. It is really unfair to the minority not to 

get them. 

So I would hope that this would not be a recurring event, and 

on behalf of at least the majority of the Senate, we apologize to the 

minority for not having the statement. 

Senator CONRAD. Mr. Chairman, might I inquire? What is the 

rule of the Committee with respect to testimony before the Committee? 

Senator GREGG. I believe it has to be filed 24 hours before the 

testimony is presented. Is that correct? You probably know more 

than I do. 

Senator CONRAD. I think that is the rule, and what is the consequence for a failure to adhere to the rule? 

Senator GREGG. I have no idea. 

Dr. LAZEAR. The consequence is the dissolution of the hearing, if 

I am not mistaken. 

Senator GREGG. The problem would be then we would never get 

anybody to testify. They would never send in their testimony. 

Senator CONRAD. It may be a valuable lesson to send if we are 

going to have these hearings and they are going to be meaningful. 

I have not had a chance to read three paragraphs of the testimony 

before we hear it here, which makes it difficult to prepare quesVerDate 0ct 09 2002 07:01 Dec 07, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\30816.TXT SBUD1 PsN: TISH
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tions, makes it difficult to prepare a response. I am not going to 

insist on imposing the rule here, but I would send a message that 

I may not always be so tolerant. 

I think we have the rule for a reason and it is a good reason. 

So we will go forward. I thank the chairman for his explanation of 

the situation as well. 

Senator GREGG. I appreciate it and I appreciate the Senator allowing us to go forward, because I think it would be within his 

rights to state that the hearing shouldn’t go, and that would mean 

we wouldn’t be able to give opening statements, which would mean 

we would miss potentially thousands of charts. We do appreciate 

the minority’s allowing us to move forward and waiving that right. 

I want to start my opening statement and talk a little bit about 

what this hearing is about, which is the state of the economy, specifically the effect on the economy of the tax cuts which were put 

in place by this Administration. There has obviously been a lot of 

representations of what these tax cuts have and have not done, and 

I am sure the Senator from North Dakota will have a differing 

view than I do, but if we look at the facts on the ground, and 

maybe we can put the first chart up, the economic growth, we have 

seen now 18 consecutive quarters of economic growth, significant 

economic growth. This came in light of a period when this Administration came into power, came into office, that was extremely disruptive for our economy. We have had the internet bubble, which 

burst which was a dramatic event economically in and of itself and 

should have led to a severe recession. We had the attack of 9–11, 

which was a hugely disruptive event to our culture and to our economy. And those two things coupled together, basically in a regular 

economic cycle would have led, I believe, to a very dramatic and 

significant decline in the economy and recessionary event of significant proportions.

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What happened, however, was that because we put tax cuts into 

place, actually at the right time, which was right at the beginning 

of this Administration and before 9–11, some of them anyway and 

some right after, that we were positioned to give the economy some 

lift through tax incentives and create an atmosphere for more entrepreneurship and more investment, and as a result, it created 

more jobs. In fact, over that period, we have created 5.7 million 

jobs just in the last 36 months. That is pretty significant, 5.7 jobs 

as this chart would show. That is a pretty significant increase in 

the number of jobs.


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The practical effect of that, however, is even more important, because not only does it give people jobs, what the practical effect of 

making these tax cuts has been has been that revenues have 

jumped radically over the last 2 years, especially as the economy 

has recovered. We have seen the two largest increases in years of 

revenue increase in our history, and the effect of that revenue increase has been that the deficit has dropped significantly, down 

from an estimated 450 billion, approximately, to about 270 billion, 

depending on where we end up this year. That is because the economy is moving aggressively forward. People are working and people 

are investing and there is a tax atmosphere out here which encourages that.


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Now, some have said that during this period, there has been less 

of a wage growth. Actually, real compensation under this timeframe has exceeded the same type of period under President Clinton’s timeframe. Real compensation is a function not only of actual 

wages, but it is a function of benefit structure.


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In addition, some have said that these tax cuts have inordinately 

benefited the wealthy. Well, the numbers don’t support that either. 

In fact, these tax cuts have benefited dramatically all Americans 

by generating more economic activity and more revenue to the Federal Government, and the wealthy in this country are now bearing 

a higher percentage of the tax burden, income tax burden, than 

those people bore during the years of the Clinton years. People in 

the high income brackets are paying almost 85 percent of the tax 

burden today, 85 percent.

Do you have the comparison of the Clinton years? 

During the Clinton years, the people in the high income brackets 

bore about 81 percent of the tax burden. Today, people in high income tax brackets are bearing 85 percent of the tax burden. 

Why is that? It is very simple. When you make taxes fair, people 

invest in activity that is taxable. When taxes are excessively high, 

people avoid taxes. High income people know how to avoid taxes. 

They invest in shelters, basically, in various vehicles that will keep 

them from having to bear a tax burden that they consider to be too 

high. When you make the tax burden reasonable, they are willing 


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to take the cost of that tax burden as a cost of doing whatever their 

investment is. 

So the Federal Government receives more revenue. It is a very 

simple function of human nature, and it is reflected dramatically 

in these figures, which show that under the President’s tax cuts, 

we actually now have high income taxpayers in this country bearing a larger percentage of the cost of income taxes than they did 

under the Clinton Administration. 

In addition, another interesting fact is that under the Bush tax 

cuts, low income taxpayers, and that was the chart that was up 

there before, are actually receiving—low income taxpayers, the people in the bottom 20 percent, don’t actually pay taxes on the whole, 

income taxes. They receive earned income tax credits, basically, 

which is a payment to them, and then actually that has increased 

also under this Presidency. So the people in the lowest quadrant 

of income are receiving more back in benefit than they did in the 

Clinton years. People in the highest quadrant of income are paying 

more as a percentage of the burden of taxes than they did in the 

Clinton years.


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So we have actually, by cutting tax rates and making them fair 

and getting people to do more economic activity and generate more 

revenue for the Federal Government and at the same time generating more taxes being borne by high income people because they 

are not avoiding taxes, we have actually made the tax laws in this 

country significantly more progressive than they were under the 

Clinton Administration. Now, that is counterintuitive to the ‘‘New 

York Times’’, but it is the fact. The simple fact is that by reducing 

taxes and making them fair, we have created an atmosphere where 

high income people are picking up more of the tax burden, low income people are getting more back out of the Federal Government, 

and we have created more jobs, more revenue, and more economic 

activity than any time in our history. 

That is all pretty good news, and I know my colleague from 

North Dakota will have a different take on this, but those are the 

facts and they are pretty good facts. So I will yield at this time to 

my colleague for his perception. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Gregg follows:]


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OPENING STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER KENT CONRAD 

Senator CONRAD. Well, I enjoyed this presentation very much. 

They are facts, but I would say highly selective and leave out a lot 

of things, and now for the rest of the story. 

First of all, I always enjoy these hearings and I appreciate the 

chairman calling this one, because this really is an important discussion for us to have. Let us go back in history and recall what 

occurred. It was not the case in 2001 that you were for tax cuts 

and we were against tax cuts. In fact, the proposal that I put before our colleagues was for 900 billion of tax cuts. The President 

proposed about twice as much. 

So the question was, first of all, the size of the tax cuts and what 

kind of tax cuts should there be. The tax cuts the President advocated were much larger in amount, and the President’s tax cuts 

were much more heavily skewed to the wealthiest among us. The 

tax cuts that we proposed on our side were more affordable, and 

certainly in light of history, that is clearly the case, and they were 

also geared to the middle class. I would argue that is where we get 

the biggest bang for the buck. 

The second question is the revenue chart that the chairman put 

up, talking about revenues I don’t know if you put up a chart or 

just talked about revenues going up, but the rest of the story here 

is what happened to real revenues adjusted for inflation since 2000: 

The fact is we are just now getting back to the real revenues that 

we had in 2000. There hasn’t been some giant run-up in revenue. 

Please. The last few years, revenue has gone up, but from a very 

low base, much lower than the revenue that we had in 2000.

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So this talk about a dramatic rise in revenues, please. The fact 

is we are just now getting back to the real revenues we had 7 years 

ago. 

Let us go to the question of deficits. The chairman talked about 

big improvements in deficits; well, yes, a big improvement from the 

worst deficits we have ever had. You know, 2 years ago, the deficits 

were higher than they are now. They were the highest they have 

ever been, but compared to 6 years ago when we had surpluses, 

these deficits are terrible, and the deficits understate the seriousness of the situation.


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Well, just to make the point, the first year of this Administration 

where they inherited the fiscal policies of the previous Administration, we had a surplus. Now with the fiscal policies of this Administration, we have run up four of the largest deficits in the country’s 

history, and the deficit substantially understates the red ink, because while the deficit is projected to go up by 260 billion dollars 

this year, the debt is going to increase by $560 billion dollars. 

When you measure that against GDP, we find that we are over 4 

percent of GDP, debt increasing by over 4 percent of GDP.


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Let us go to the next chart. Just visually, here is what is happening to the debt of the country under the policies of our colleagues on the other side under this Administration: The debt at 

the end of the President’s first year—we don’t hold him responsible 

for the first year—was 5.8 trillion dollars; at the end of this year, 

eight and a half trillion dollars, and if we follow the President’s 

plan, 11.6 trillion dollars 5 years from now. That is about a doubling of the debt of the country and at the worst possible time, 

right before the baby-boomers retire.


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Let us go to the next slide if we could. I asked my staff to go 

out and look and find out how much borrowing this country is 

doing in comparison to other countries, and here is what we found: 

In the last year, according to the International Monetary Fund, we 

borrowed 65 percent of all the money that was borrowed by countries in world, 65 percent. That is utterly unsustainable. That is 

what the Controller General of the United States is telling us, this 

is an unsustainable path, and indeed it is. The next biggest country, by the way, in terms of borrowing was Spain at 6.8 percent, 

one-tenth of the borrowing that we are doing.


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Now let us go to the next one. The ‘‘Wall Street Journal’’ of yesterday had this warning from the Economic Forum: ‘‘The Economic 

Forum warns that the U.S. has budget deficits that will bring ill 

effects.’’ And it reads: ‘‘The U.S.’s huge budget deficit threatens to 

make the country’s economy less competitive according to the study 

by the World Economic Forum. The institute’s annual study of 

global competitiveness says the U.S. economy is the sixth most 

competitive in the world, slipping from first place last year.’’ So we 

slipped five places in a year. ‘‘Slipping from first place to last in 

last year’s ranking, a result of mediocre scores from its public financing.’’

They went on to say: ‘‘Serial budget deficits in the U.S. have lead 

to rising public debt, which means an increasing portion of government spending goes toward debt service. That means less money 

available for spending on infrastructure, schools, or other investments that could boost productivity. Heavy government borrowing, 

which means competing for money in financial markets with the 

private sector, also tends to drive up businesses’ borrowing costs.’’


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Let us go to the question of jobs, the jobs chart if we could. There 

is a lot of talk about jobs and how the economy is improving. The 

fact is 74 percent of people in this country believe that jobs are not 

plentiful or are hard to get. Only 26 believe that jobs are plentiful. 

That is according to the Conference Board.


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Let us go to the next. Consumer confidence has never recovered 

under President Bush. In January 2001 when he took over, consumer confidence was 115.7, again according to the Conference 

Board. Now in September of this year, it is 104.5. That is almost 

a 10 percent decline. If we compare job creation under this Administration to the previous Administration for the first 67 months, we 

see under the Clinton Administration, 16.6 million jobs were created. Under this Administration for that same period, 67 months, 

three million jobs have been created, about one-fifth of the jobs created, actually less than one-fifth of the jobs created under the Clinton Administration in its first 67 months.


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What is most interesting, of course there have been jobs created 

now that we are in an economic recovery. That always happens. 

What is the real test is how does this recovery compare to previous 

recoveries, and by that standard, what we see is job creation is lagging far behind the average of all of the major recoveries since 

World War II. We have had nine major recoveries since World War 

II. The pattern of average job creation is the red line. The black 

line is job creation in this recovery, and this recovery is running 

6.7 million private sector jobs short of a typical recovery. Something is wrong.


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Let us go to the next. Business investment, again looking at the 

typical recovery, the average of the nine previous recoveries since 

World War II is the dotted red line. This recovery is the black line. 

On business investment, we are running 72 percent behind the typical recovery since World War II. Something is wrong.


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Real GDP growth lags behind the typical recovery as well. The 

average in the nine recoveries since World War II, GDP growth of 

3.2 percent; this recovery, 2.8 percent.


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Let us go to median household income. Median household income 

in 2000 was $47,599; this year, $46,326. So real median household 

income has declined by almost $1300.


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Look, this recovery—the facts I think are very clear—is not performing as previous recoveries have, No. 1. No. 2, we are running 

up debt at an alarming rate. It took 42 Presidents 224 years to run 

up a trillion dollars of debt held by foreigners, U.S. debt held by 

foreigners. This President has more than doubled that amount in 

just 5 years. This is an utterly unsustainable course, and the question is what are we going to do about it. 

I would suggest to my colleagues neither party can do this job 

alone. What we really require is a bipartisan comprehensive plan 

to get this country back on track, and I know my colleague, the 

chairman, is interested in that approach. I certainly am, and I hope 

we can get to it. 

I thank the chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Conrad follows.]


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We will go to Dr. Lazear. 

STATEMENT OF EDWARD P. LAZEAR, CHAIRMAN, COUNCIL OF 

ECONOMIC ADVISERS 

Mr. LAZEAR. Thank you very much, Chairman Gregg, Ranking 

Member Conrad, and Members of the Senate Budget Committee. 

Good morning and thank you for giving me the opportunity to 

speak with you about the economy and its relation to tax revenues 

and the budget. 

I would like to begin by summarizing the economy, where we are 

right now and where I believe that we are headed. The economy 

is strong, in part as a reflection of pro-growth tax policies. Revenues are up and the deficit is shrinking at a rapid rate. 

Some specifics: Real growth of GDP was 3.1 percent over the 

three quarters of 2005. Although it now appears that GDP growth 

in the current quarter will be significantly slower than in the first 

half of the year, the current forecast indicates that growth in 2006 

will remain about the same as it was last year and the economy 

should continue to grow at a robust pace in 2007 and beyond. 


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Job growth has been strong. The economy has been producing 

roughly one and a half to two million jobs per year for a total of 

5.7 million additional payroll jobs since August of 2003. We expect 

that trend to continue with some slight moderation. 

The unemployment rate, which was 5.1 percent in 2005, is expected to average 4.7 percent for 2006. The most recently released 

jobs report shows that the unemployment rate declined to 4.7. Additionally, it revealed an increase of 128,000 payroll jobs in August. 

The continued increase in payroll jobs, even in an environment 

with low unemployment rates, suggest that the labor market continues to be strong and that its tightness will be reflected in more 

wage growth as we move into the coming months. 

Nominal wage growth has accelerated over the past year, and at 

an annualized rate, it has been 4.1 percent since January of 2006. 

As I will discuss shortly, this follows the typical business cycle pattern of productivity increasing, leading to wage increases with a 

lag. What distinguishes this period from the past is that recent 

large and unanticipated increases in energy prices have consumed 

much of the strong nominal wage growth. Workers’ paychecks have 

gone up, but they have had to use a portion of that increase for 

higher energy costs, such as gasoline and heating fuel. 

The increase in the price of gasoline and oil products has been 

one of the most notable changes in our economy during the past 

year. Since the beginning of August, we have experienced substantial declines in the price of gasoline and crude oil. Declines in energy prices are already apparent in the latest inflation data. Markets are expecting inflation rates going forward to moderate to 

around 2.5 percent. This coupled with continuation of high wage 

growth should translate into increased real earnings for the typical 

worker next year. 

The President’s goal of cutting the deficit in half by 2009, which 

drew the scoffs of many, is now likely to be reached before that 

date. 

One soft spot in the economy is the housing market. It is important to note, however, that the weakness in the housing sector does 

not seem to be spreading to other sectors of the economy, and recent consumer surveys indicate improving expectations. 

In sum, we expect the average growth rate for this year will be 

similar to that for last year. The economy continues to be robust 

and healthy. 

Underlying these strong numbers is high productivity growth 

that has made our economy the strongest and most robust in the 

world. It is the common thread that ties together all of the positive 

economic news. Productivity growth is closely associated with economic growth and results in higher worker compensation and improved living standards. It moderates inflationary pressure and has 

proved to be a defining characteristic of our economy.

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Figure 1 puts out recent productivity growth in a historical perspective. The BLS reports that U.S. productivity growth since the 

end of 2000 has been 3 percent per year, outpacing the 2.7 percent 

average from 1996 to 2000. The current growth rate in productivity 

is substantially above that for the 22-year period that preceded 

1995 when productivity growth averaged only 1.5 percent per year. 

Productivity growth is important because it is the basis for the 

growth in hourly worker compensation. Figure 2 shows the relationship. The chart demonstrates the very strong correlation between productivity increases and improvements in real hourly compensation. The red line and blue line move together over any reasonable period of time.


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A number of observers have pointed out that profits have grown 

at a very high rate during this recovery, which is reflected in Figure 3. The red line is showing that profits grew at a high rate over 

the past 3 years. There is a distinct pattern of profits and employee 

compensation over the business cycle. After the recession in the 

early nineties, corporate profits rose dramatically and employee 

compensation lagged behind. At the same time, productivity grew 

faster than compensation.


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Profit growth outpaced compensation growth until the latter part 

of the nineties when corporate profits fell dramatically. Note that 

corporate profits actually declined during most of the period between early 1998 and late 2001. 

Just as in the 1990’s, the mild recession in 2001 was followed by 

productivity growth in 2002, and profit growth was again very high 

while employee compensation growth was relatively low. The pattern that we observed in the past two recessions and recoveries is 

evident in earlier recessions as well going back at least 40 years. 

The pattern typically works in the following way: After a recession, 

productivity growth increases and hourly compensation tends to remain flat. As a result, costs stay low and profits rise. As the labor 

market gets tight, unemployment rates fall, hourly compensation 

increases faster than productivity growth, and so total costs rise 

faster than earnings. The result is that labor costs go up faster 

than the profit rate, and then the profit rate declines to more normal levels. 

Profits are important because they provide the incentive for investment in physical capital, and physical capital growth contributes to productivity growth. With rising compensation, we forecast 

that profit rates will decline in the future, but that this decline will 

bring them back to normal levels, and so profit rates will be sufficient to motivate the high levels of investment necessary to grow 

our economy. 

Whether real growth compensation growth will rise to the highest levels that we have seen over the previous expansions remains 

to be seen, but early indications are that we are on a similar path. 

Tax cuts passed by President Bush and the Congress have 

helped the economy grow. Probably most significant was the cut in 

dividend and capital gains taxes enacted in 2003. However, the 

lowering of marginal tax rates on earned or labor income was also 

an important contributor to economic growth. 

As budget directors and members of any budget committee surely 

know, government revenues tend to move directly with the state of 

the economy. When the economy is good, revenues come in at high 

rates, and when the economy declines, revenues decline correspondingly. The period since 2003, which has seen a growing economy, 

has also been one which during which government revenue have 

increased at high rates. Since 2003, government revenues are up 

34.6 percent and the projected growth of revenues from 2005 to 

2006 is around 11 percent. Because of this rapid economic growthtogether with the continued efforts of Congress and the President 

to effect discretionary spending restraint, the budget deficit is declining at rates much faster than was anticipated, and we are on 

the path to meeting the President’s deficit goals ahead of schedule. 

To determine the effect of tax cuts on revenue, we need to ask 

what revenues would have been absent these tax cuts. This question can be answered by providing estimates of what the revenue 

would have been had we not had cut taxes. An exercise of this sort 

can be done in a number of different ways, and we recognize the 

inherent uncertainty associated with the calculations.

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In Figure 4, we provide a simple comparison using historical 

data showing the path of revenue growth in this business cycle 

compared to previous cycles. The solid red line shows what happens during the current cycle’s recovery, similarly indexed, by way, 

with a trough in 2002, compared with previous patterns. With the 

tax cuts that were enacted in 2003, receipts were below the average of previous recoveries. These lower revenues persisted through 

2005. But more important than the level is the growth rate. 

Because of the growing economy, which we believe was stimulated at least in part by the tax cuts and growing taxable income, 

preliminary data suggests that revenues grew between 2004 and 

2006 at rates higher than were experienced in earlier recoveries. 

More refined estimates will be possible when the tax return information for 2006 is available. 

Will the tax cuts pay for themselves? As a general rule, we do 

not think that tax cuts pay for themselves. Certainly, the data presented above do not support this claim. Tax revenues in 2006 appear to have recovered to the level seen at this point in previous 

business cycles, but this does not make up for the lost revenue during 2003, 2004, and 2005. The tax cuts were a positive step and 

they have contributed to the enhanced economic growth, additional 

jobs, higher real disposable income, and low unemployment rates 

that we currently see today. 

Our goal is not to maximize the size of government by generating 

as much tax revenue as possible, but instead to provide the revenues necessary to make sure that we can operate those programs 

that society deems necessary while at the same time allowing the 

private sector to take full advantage of its growth potential.


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It is also worth noting that because our revenues are growing at 

such high rates now relative to spending, the ratio of public debt 

to GDP, which most economists view as the best indication of our 

long-run budget situation, is expected to decline this year. Not only 

is our debt-to-GDP ratio improving as a result of our high economic 

growth and enhanced revenues, but it is also very close to our 40-

year historical average and lower than at any point in the 1990’s. 

As a result, our debt situation is favorable relative both to its 

past and to the debt situation of other industrialized countries. 

This should not be taken as a reason to be complacent. Indeed, the 

opposite is true. If we cannot control our spending both on the discretionary and entitlement sides of the budget, the pattern we are 

seeing in the current year could easily reverse and we could find 

ourselves in a debt situation that requires higher and higher interest rate payments relative to our GDP in the future. This is not 

a burden that we want to pass on to our children and grandchildren. 

Where do we go from here? I believe it is important to maintain 

a positive economic climate so that the labor market will remain 

strong, workers can find jobs quickly, and so that, coupled with declining energy prices, the typical worker’s paycheck will buy more 

and more goods and services. The best way to do this is to keep 

our taxes low, to adopt more pro-growth tax policies, and to remain 

open to international trade and capital flows as well as keeping our 

economy among the most flexible in the world. 

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today, 

and I welcome your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lazear follows:]


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Senator GREGG. Thank you, Doctor. 

I am going to reserve my time until the end of the questioning 

period, because we have a number of Senators here. I want them 

to get their points in. 

So let us start with Senator Alexander for the first questions. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your courtesy. 

Senator GREGG. Thank you for coming. 

Senator ALEXANDER. In the President’s State of the Union Address, he proposed the American competitive initiative, which included a proposal to double the Federal investment of basic research over 10 years and to improve the teaching in math and 

science structure so we can keep our edge in science and technology. A number of Senators, actually 70, 35 Democrats and 35 

Republicans, have sponsored similar legislation this year. Last 

Tuesday, Senator Frist and Senator Reid, the Republican leader 

and the Democratic leader, introduced a comprehensive piece of 

legislation that took the President’s proposal, all the various Senators’ proposals, and worked it through three different committees. 


30816.062
47

It was a very remarkable piece, a pretty good start on competitiveness. 

I note that in July, the President of China, Mr. Hu, went to the 

Great Hall of the People and assembled the whole Government of 

China, Communist Party leaders, his Academy of Sciences and Engineering, and committed that country to a 15-year plan to make 

it a nation of innovation, including investments in research, remodeling universities, improving ‘‘K’’ through 12, and recruiting outstanding scientists from the United States and back to China to 

help grow jobs. 

So my questions are about this: We talk about pro-growth policies and we often talk, at least on our side of the aisle, about tax 

cuts. I agree those are pro-growth policies. Do you agree that investments in keeping our edge in science and technology are also 

pro-growth for our economy, and do you expect the President and 

the Administration to get behind the Frist-Reid legislation, which 

can’t pass this week, but would have a very good opportunity, given 

its broad support, to pass the Senate in November and then a 

chance to pass the House in this Congress? 

Mr. LAZEAR. Thank you. We certainly agree that investment in 

education, science, education specifically, but education in general, 

is a very high rate of return investment. When we look at the 

kinds of things that an economy can do to grow productivity, to 

grow GDP, to grow wages, investments in human capital come in 

at or near the top. If you look across the world and you ask which 

economies are growing, which ones are progressing at the highest 

rates, which ones are bringing their poor into the middle class, 

they are the economies that have the highest levels of education. 

They are the ones that are making the biggest investment in education. 

So I fully subscribe to your view that education and investing in 

skills in general is probably one of, if not the most, important 

things that we can do to grow the economy. It certainly has been 

something that has been on the President’s mind since he began 

his Administration. ‘‘No Child Left Behind’’, of course, was one of 

his initial endeavors, and I think it is a step in the right direction, 

obviously not the only step that one needs to take, but I am completely with you in terms of the importance of the investment. 

Senator ALEXANDER. I bring it up this morning because this is 

one of those rare occasions where this is not a Republican bill that 

was offered to the Democrats which they then amended or vice 

versa. This was actually a piece of legislation that probably two 

dozen Senators of both parties worked on together with the Administration about which there is unanimous support and there is an 

opportunity for the Administration, if it makes it a priority in the 

next few weeks, to make it happen. 

One other question: I was listening to the Senator from North 

Dakota’s comments about the dire straits of the economy. I asked 

the International Monetary Fund to give me some information 

about the United States’ position in the world in terms of Gross 

Domestic Product, and they gave this fact: They said in 1995, the 

United States produced about 25 percent of all the Gross Domestic 

Product in the world for about four or 5 percent of the people, 

which is our population. Last year, 2005, the United States proVerDate 0ct 09 2002 07:01 Dec 07, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\30816.TXT SBUD1 PsN: TISH
48

duced 28 percent of all the world’s Gross Domestic Product for 

about four or 5 percent of the people. 

Now we hear all these claims that the economy is bad and jobs 

are going down and things are terrible, but if those figures are 

true, does that not mean that the United States is not only remarkably rich in terms of Gross Domestic Product, but over the last 10 

years, we have gotten richer even at a time when China and India 

and other parts of the world are growing and Europe is trying to 

do better? How would you characterize that growth in our share of 

the Gross Domestic Product over the last 10 years? 

Mr. LAZEAR. Yes, sir. I certainly agree that we have had very 

strong economic growth. If we compare the United States to the 

other G–7 countries, which is usually the comparison that we think 

is probably most appropriate, because then we are talking about 

countries at a similar standard of living, the United States is the 

leading country right now. I always view that as particularly remarkable, because it is easier to have high growth rates when you 

are catching up than it is to have high growth rates when you are 

the leader. 

If there are other economies that you can mimic, if there are 

other economies to which you can converge, that is an easier task 

than pushing out the frontier. Our economy has been particularly 

successful at pushing out the frontier. I believe that that is attributable in large part to the flexibility of the economy, to the fact 

that we allow for very strong markets, for essentially unimpeded 

capital movements, labor markets are flexible, and very strong entrepreneurship, which I think is an absolute key to the growth that 

we see in the United States. We have rapid and relatively easy 

business formation in this country, and that is an important component of our economic growth. 

So those are all very positive features. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator GREGG. Thank you. 

Senator CONRAD. 

Senator CONRAD. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to take a moment, if 

we could, because this is going to be Senator Sarbanes’ last hearing 

in the Senate Budget Committee, and I think we need to take a 

moment and reflect on his contributions not only to this committee, 

but to the Senate. 

Last night, we had a dinner which we recognized the four members who are retiring this year, Senator Sarbanes being one of the 

four. I want to say that I am going to miss Senator Sarbanes. 

There has been a no more valuable member on this committee to 

me than Senator Sarbanes. He is truly a remarkable man, not only 

highly intelligent, but wise and of an extraordinary good nature. 

I note that his wife, Christine, is here. Christine, it is good to see 

you as well. The Sarbanes couple are truly a team, and I have had 

a chance to travel with them, to get to know their family. They are 

really an extraordinary couple and we deeply appreciate their contribution to this committee and to the U.S. Senate and to our country. 

My favorite story about Senator Sarbanes was told last night, 

that he was selected when he was still in high school, about to 

graduate from high school, as an all-star and was to play in an allVerDate 0ct 09 2002 07:01 Dec 07, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\30816.TXT SBUD1 PsN: TISH
49

star game in Baltimore, and he was to be the starting shortstop. 

He went to the game and they had preparations before the game, 

and the coach put him at second base. Paul went to the manager 

and inquired, you know, I had been selected for the game as a 

shortstop, and the coach kind of put him off and kept putting him 

at second base, and he went back to the coach and said, You know, 

again, I was chosen to be the shortstop, and the coach finally said 

to him, Look, Sarbanes, you are going to play second base; I am 

playing Kaline at shortstop. Of course, the Kaline was Al Kaline, 

one of the greatest baseball players of all time. You know, sometimes you draw the short straw. 

Senator GREGG. I think Senator Bunning struck Al Kaline out 

three times that day. 

Senator BUNNING. And he was on my team. 

Senator CONRAD. I think Al Kaline went to the Major Leagues 

when he was 18 or 19 years old. 

Senator BUNNING. Seventeen. 

Senator CONRAD. Seventeen years old. 

So, Paul, you know, maybe you could have had another career, 

a parallel career, one in the Major Leagues. Paul, we are truly 

going to miss you, and I am going to miss you very, very much, 

both as a friend and a colleague. 

Senator GREGG. Let me join you, Senator Conrad, in those 

thoughts and echo them. Obviously, Paul has been an immense 

person in the Senate for many, many years and a brilliant contributor to our activities. I am going to miss him too, although I am 

not going to miss his amendments. I used to cringe whenever he 

came to a markup, because I knew his amendments were just going 

to be terrorizing us. He will be missed immensely because he has 

been a force for positive and good government, and that is what it 

is all about. 

Senator SARBANES. Well, thank you. I very much appreciate the 

very generous comments of the chairman and of my good friend, 

the ranking member. Thank you very much for that. 

Senator CONRAD. Christine, thank you so much. 

And I will defer to Senator Sarbanes for any questions he may 

want to ask of the witness. 

Senator SARBANES. Mr. Chairman, I will be very brief, but having heard Senator Conrad say I am good natured, I don’t want to 

counter that. 

Mr. Lazear, what is the view down at the Council of Economic 

Advisers? And I understand the chairman and ranking member 

touched on this before I got here, but I was planning to raise it myself. What is your view down there about getting this testimony to 

the committee in accordance with our rules ahead of time, which 

of course then gives us a better opportunity to prepare substantively for the hearing? This isn’t the first time this has happened. Is the CEA operating on a different premise or assumption 

than the committee is operating on and, if so, we need to know 

that, and if not, why aren’t you measuring up to standard? 

Mr. LAZEAR. I will just simply apologize to you, Senator, and say 

that it is the first time on my watch and we will check into it in 

the future. So you do have my apologies for that mishap. 

50

Senator SARBANES. I think I am correct in saying, though, that 

it has occurred previously. It now seems to be becoming standard 

operating practice at the CEA. 

Mr. LAZEAR. If so, as I said, I don’t know about that. I am relatively new to the CEA, but we will check into it. 

Senator SARBANES. Well, I wish you would do that. I mean, I 

think it is a good rule and it is there for obvious reasons, and most 

witnesses, at least, comply with it, and I think in some respects, 

there is probably more excuse for someone from the private sector 

who isn’t equipped maybe to produce the statement the same way 

as the Council. 

While I have you, let me ask you is the Council still out in the 

hinterlands in terms of its location? You are no longer in the Executive Office Building; is that right? 

Mr. LAZEAR. Most of us are not. We do have an office in the Executive Office Building that we retain. As you probably know, after 

9–11, two-thirds of EEOB was shut down for remodeling, most of 

which was security related, and so most of the people in that building were moved out to neighboring offices, and we have an office 

about a block down the street from the EEOB, and it requires a 

bit of commuting between the two, but we have managed to do it. 

Senator SARBANES. Do you have an assurance that you are going 

to go back into that building once the remodeling is complete, or 

has, in effect, the banishment of the CEA from the immediate policy confines of the White House been accomplished? 

Mr. LAZEAR. I expect that we will go back, but, unfortunately, it 

looks like the remodeling will take us at least until 2009, probably 

2010, possibly 2011. So a promise from this Administration, unfortunately, would not be worth a whole lot in terms of committing 

future Administrations to moving us back. 

Senator SARBANES. That is like those promises we got from the 

President about the deficit early on in the first term of the Administration. They weren’t realized either. Correct? 

Mr. LAZEAR. Well, as I testified earlier, you know, the deficit 

numbers have been looking much better than we expected, and 

they are moving in the right direction. 

Senator SARBANES. I will spare you quoting the President’s statements during the course of his first term about what was going to 

happen to the deficit. Senator Conrad has done a first-rate job of 

outlining that problem. 

The Federal revenues are what share of the GDP now? 

Mr. LAZEAR. The deficit? I am sorry. 

Senator SARBANES. No. The revenues. 

Mr. LAZEAR. The deficit is approximately 2 percent. 

Senator SARBANES. No. The Federal revenues. 

Mr. LAZEAR. Revenues are about—it would be about 10 percent. 

Senator BUNNING. No. You have got the wrong question. 

Senator GREGG. I think you said what percent of GDP are the 

Federal revenues. I think they are about 18.1 percent right now. 

Mr. LAZEAR. Oh, I am sorry. Revenues are actually above that. 

I think we are at 18.2 percent right now. 

Senator GREGG. The average? 

51

Mr. LAZEAR. I am sorry. I misunderstood your question, Senator. 

The average, depending on which period you look at, is about 18.1 

percent. 

Senator SARBANES. The chart you showed had revenues back up 

at the line recovering. You know that chart you put up there? 

Mr. LAZEAR. This one? 

Senator SARBANES. Yes. That figure in 2006, that would be at 18 

percent of GDP; is that correct? 

Mr. LAZEAR. Actually, that would be using the numbers from the mid-session review, which is consistent with a $300 billion deficit. 

So that is what this number is based on. 

Senator SARBANES. I want to know what percent of GDP is Federal revenue. 

Mr. LAZEAR. I believe that is 18.2 at that point. 

Senator SARBANES. And back when you started, what it was it? 

Mr. LAZEAR. Which year, sir? 

Senator SARBANES. 2000. 

Mr. LAZEAR. In 2000, let us see. Do we have that number here? 

We can get that number for you. Bear with me for a second and 

I will get you the exact number. 

Senator SARBANES. I don’t want to impose on my colleagues. Let 

me ask you this. 

Mr. LAZEAR. Yes, sir. 

Senator SARBANES. A 1 percent increase in the share of the GDP 

in Federal revenues would be worth how much money? 

Mr. LAZEAR. A 1 percent increase of GDP? 

Senator SARBANES. No. Of revenues as a share of GDP, a one 

point increase. If it was 19 percent instead of 18 percent, how 

much more revenue is that? 

Mr. LAZEAR. About $130 billion, because GDP is 13 trillion, approximately. So you are talking about 1 percent of that number, 

sir. 

Senator SARBANES. Yes. So if it was 2 percent, we would be close 

to wiping out the deficit; is that correct, if you added two points? 

Mr. LAZEAR. That is right. 

Senator SARBANES. What was it back in 2000? 

Mr. LAZEAR. Let me see if I can find that for you. I have to get 

my glasses. Pardon me, sir. 

OK, 2000 was 20.9. 

Senator SARBANES. So if we were not even at that level, but 

somewhere near that level, we would have eliminated the deficit. 

Correct? 

Mr. LAZEAR. Well, that assumes that the economy would be the 

same. Your assumption is that GDP would be the same and that 

we would simply take 20.9 percent of the GDP number that we 

have right now. I would not be willing to make that assumption. 

Senator SARBANES. OK. As a calculation, that would be correct, 

would it not? 

Mr. LAZEAR. Again, sir, if you assume that GDP was the same, 

then that calculation would be correct. 

Senator SARBANES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator GREGG. Our resident all-star Hall-of-Famer, Senator 

Bunning. 

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

52

In all the charts and figures that the gentleman from North Dakota showed, there was no inclusion of 9–11, no inclusion of the Afghan War, no inclusion of the Iraqi War, no inclusion of Hurricane 

Katrina or Rita. The income levels did not include any health care 

and pension benefits that were added on top of the income levels. 

So I want that to be taken into consideration when you consider 

the numbers that were expressed by my good friend from North 

Dakota. 

Earlier this week, the ‘‘Wall Street Journal’’ indicated that more 

investors are starting to factor in the Fed Fund rate cuts that the 

Feds have made. Do you believe this is true and do you have any 

comment on the affect on the economy of the Fed policies of recent 

years? 

Mr. LAZEAR. Well, as you know, the Federal Reserve had raised 

rates for 17 consecutive times and then ceased raising rates a couple of periods ago. 

Senator BUNNING. I am very familiar with that. 

Mr. LAZEAR. Inflation now seems to be coming under control. I 

think that the numbers that we have seen for the past——

Senator BUNNING. Do you believe there was inflation in those 17 

months? 

Mr. LAZEAR. Well, there is no doubt that measured inflation was 

higher, quite significantly higher. 

Senator BUNNING. When they started raising interest rates? 

Mr. LAZEAR. I don’t believe when they——

Senator BUNNING. Maybe in the last 2 months. 

Mr. LAZEAR. Well, actually no. The last year had higher inflation 

than the previous year, but the question that I think most economists argue about has to do with whether this was a one-time increase in prices associated with an energy increase or whether it 

would be sustained inflation. I think that is the issue that the Fed 

has been arguing about as well. 

Senator BUNNING. Internally? 

Mr. LAZEAR. Well, you know, right, internally. I don’t know what 

they are arguing about internally, but only the statements that 

they have made are statements that I hear. As you know, we are 

an independent body and we have no access to any additional information. 

Senator BUNNING. You have the minutes of their meetings, just 

like we do, a month later. 

Mr. LAZEAR. Correct. That is right, sir. When we look at what 

they have been saying, they have had the same kinds of arguments 

that I think other economists have had, which is are we more concerned about inflation or are we more concerned about making sure 

that the economy continues to grow at a high rate. 

That is a balancing act that the Fed has to engage in. We are 

confident that the Fed attempts to do that the same way that we 

attempt to think about these issues. They have the same data that 

we have, as you pointed out, and I think the recent numbers on 

inflation are encouraging. 

Senator BUNNING. I have an even more important question. 

Some economists suggest that the blame for the American deficit 

lies in Asian emerging economies. Asian central banks drive their 

currency down by buying American Treasury bonds, reducing interVerDate 0ct 09 2002 07:01 Dec 07, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\30816.TXT SBUD1 PsN: TISH
53

est rates, and allowing Americans to buy even more Asian exports. 

To what degree do you think China’s current practices have contributed to the growing U.S. deficit? 

Mr. LAZEAR. There is no doubt that investment in the current account surplus to which you refer is the other side of the current 

account deficit that we see in terms of trade. So when we are running a current account deficit, it is necessarily the case that some 

other country, at least, is running a current account surplus. In 

fact, we have seen this with China investing at very high levels in 

U.S. Treasuries. 

Senator BUNNING. You have to get to the point of my question 

though. The basic point of my question is to what degree do you 

think China’s current practices have contributed to the growing 

U.S. deficit, in other words, the undervaluation of the Won. 

Mr. LAZEAR. Well, as you know, Treasury speaks for us in terms 

of the value of the dollar relative to other currencies. 

Senator BUNNING. We are trying not to let them do that. 

Mr. LAZEAR. I would prefer to defer to my colleague, Hank 

Paulson, on speaking about currency. 

Senator BUNNING. We will have a bill that will change that. 

Mr. LAZEAR. All right. I will wait for it. 

Senator SARBANES. Hasn’t he said that it is undervalued? 

Mr. LAZEAR. I am sorry? 

Senator BUNNING. Paulson has said it is undervalued. 

Mr. LAZEAR. Hank is not shy. I will let him speak for himself. 

Senator SARBANES. He has made public statements to that effect. 

Senator BUNNING. The thing that he really said was that there 

wasn’t manipulation. He didn’t say that it was undervalued, just 

to correct the record. 

Mr. LAZEAR. Again, I would rather let the Secretary speak for 

himself. 

Senator BUNNING. All right. I will question him when we see 

him. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator GREGG. Thank you. 

Senator CONRAD. 

Senator CONRAD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me just go to 

a speech that the Controller General of the United States gave, 

General Walker, about the situation that we are in as a country. 

These are remarks from a speech he gave to the certified public accounts in August of this year. He said: ‘‘The U.S. Government is 

on an imprudent and unsustainable fiscal path.’’ Let me go to the 

second statement there. No. Let us go to the third one. ‘‘The executive branch is only giving 5-year projections for their budgets. 

Why? Because we go in the tank after 5 years; the numbers start 

looking bad after 5 years.’’

Let us go to the next one. This is General Walker again in a 

speech to the accountants: ‘‘Right now, the miracle of compounding 

is working against us because we are the world’s largest debtor nation, and if interest rates start going up, the effect that that will 

have could be dramatic because we are adding debt at or near 

record rates, and if interest rates start going up, since the duration 

of our debt is pretty short, we will start feeling it pretty quickly.’’

54

Finally, so the bottom line is, he said, the status quo is not acceptable. It is not sustainable. Faster economic growth can help, 

but there is no way we are going to grow our way out of this problem. Anybody who tells you we are going to grow our way out of 

this long-range problem, No. 1, hasn’t studied economic history, 

and No. 2, would probably flunk basic math. The numbers just 

don’t work.‘‘

I would ask you, Dr. Lazear, are there any of these statements 

that have been made by Controller General of the United States 

that you disagree with? 

Mr. LAZEAR. I think I fundamentally agree with his statements, 

but I want to make sure that we interpret the statements as talking about the long-run situation. It is absolutely clear to me that 

the path that we are on in terms of growth and entitlements, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, cannot be sustainable. We have to 

think about ways to address that problem. I think the President 

has been clear on that as well. 

So I don’t think that these statements are at variance with the 

Administration’s view on it. 

Senator CONRAD. But it is a very different message that he is delivering than the message I hear you delivering here today. I hear 

you delivering kind a good news message, everything is going 

great, but I hear the Controller General of the United States delivering a very much more sobering message, one that we are on a 

course that is utterly unsustainable where we are piling up debt 

at a rate that is unsustainable and that it threatens our future economic strength. 

Mr. LAZEAR. Again, I would distinguish the short run from the 

long run, Senator. In the short run, I think things are getting better, the fact that the deficit has gone down significantly greater 

than anticipated. We are now below what I think is the magic 

number. The magic number at this point is about 2.4 percent deficit, which means we are at that number or below the deficit—the 

debt-to-GDP ratio is shrinking. So our public debt-to-GDP ratio will 

actually be shrinking. 

That is true over the short run, but if we allow expenditures to 

grow, if we allow the budget to get out of control in the future and 

if we believe these projections about where we are going to go in 

the future, we will certainly allow them to get out of control. That 

will cause some very serious long-run difficulties, and I certainly 

agree with that. I think that that is probably one of the greatest 

problems that we face as a country, and we need to address it. 

Senator CONRAD. Let me say that this analysis of the deficit as 

2.4 percent of GDP to me misses the point. The deficit is going to 

go up 260 billion this year. The debt is going to go up 560 billion, 

and what people seem to miss here is that it is the debt that has 

to be repaid, and this is the level of debt increase. The debt of this 

country, gross debt, at the end of this year will be eight dollars and 

a half trillion dollars, and we are going to add 600 billion dollars, 

almost 600 billion dollars, this year, 557 billion dollars. We are 

going to add, according to projections, 600 billion dollars or more 

every year for the next 5 years. 

So we are going be at 11 and a half trillion dollars 5 years from 

now just as the baby-boomers start to retire. That is what causes 

55

so many of us deep concern, and what I hear you saying is that 

that concerns you as well. 

Mr. LAZEAR. What I am saying is that we encountered some unanticipated shocks, some of the ones that Senator Bunning had 

pointed out. The question that every society faces when they encounter an unanticipated adverse event is how do we finance those 

over time. No one would ever suggest that you are going to finance 

that at one point in time fully by that particular year’s worth of 

income. 

So the question is how do you smooth it over time, and the issue 

is are we smoothing too much or are we smoothing too little or are 

we just about right. 

Senator CONRAD. I don’t see us smoothing anything. The debt 

this year, and you just described the economy as strong, we are 

going to increase the debt by almost $600 billion. 

Mr. LAZEAR. That is what it means to smooth. You borrow to 

take care of——

Senator CONRAD. But sir, sir, not only are we going to add almost 600 billion dollars to the debt this year, we are going to add 

three trillion dollars over the next 5 years. I don’t see where the 

smoothing is coming. The only thing that is happening here is we 

are running on a charge card. 

Mr. LAZEAR. As I said, the number that I think most economists 

think about is the ratio of the public debt to GDP. That is what 

we think of as the long-term target. Now, we can disagree over 

whether we are too high right now, whether we should be much 

lower. We are at about our historic average, slightly about, but 

pretty close to our historic average. The historic average, I showed 

on the chart. 

Senator CONRAD. The historic average includes World War II. 

Mr. LAZEAR. No, no. Sorry. The 40-year average. 

Senator CONRAD. I thought you said the historic average. 

Mr. LAZEAR. I am sorry. We only went back 40 years. We used 

the same numbers that OMB uses. 

Senator CONRAD. I just say to you that we are now running up 

debt at a rate that is by, I think, most objective observers’ analysis 

absolutely unsustainable. That is what the Controller General is 

telling us, and we are using an accounting system that you know 

is cash. If we were going on an accrual system, the way most of 

the institutions have to do in this society, these deficits would be 

much, much larger. 

I thank the chairman. 

Senator GREGG. Senator Grassley. 

Senator GRASSLEY. Dr. Lazear, your predecessor at CEA, Dr. 

Mankiw, wrote a paper entitled ’’Dynamic Scoring: A Back of the 

Envelope Guide‘‘. That is the name of it. The paper suggested the 

dynamic effects of tax cuts on labor will offset about 17 percent of 

the static revenue loss and the dynamic effects of the tax cuts on 

capital will offset about 50 percent of the static revenue loss. 

These results are interesting for two reasons, and I want you to 

comment. First, they suggest that while tax cuts do not pay for 

themselves from the perspective of the budget, they do have a significant impact on the economy. Second, in order to offset 50 percent of the revenue loss, a tax cut on capital would have to increase 

56

GDP by more than one dollar for each one dollar of revenue loss. 

Are you familiar with the study and what are your views, then, on 

the issue of dynamic scoring? 

Mr. LAZEAR. Yes, sir, I am familiar with the study, and I would 

say, Senator, that it is actually consistent with the numbers that 

I put up earlier. Actually, if you don’t mind, I will refer back to 

that for a second. 

Nick, if you could put up, I think it is Figure 4. 

This makes your point in a slightly different way, but I think it 

is completely consistent with what you are saying. If you look at 

the effect of the tax cuts, which is the difference between the red 

line and the dotted blue line, look at 2003, and you will see that 

there is a decline in revenue there; but what you also see is that 

the revenue growth between 2004 and 2006 is quite steep. We believe that that revenue growth is at least in part attributable to the 

tax cuts themselves, and that is the dynamic aspect of what we are 

talking about here. 

Now, as a consequence of that, you will also see that the revenues in 2006 are back to where they would have been but for the 

tax cuts. In other words, even if we hadn’t cut taxes, we would be 

back right at about the same level because of the additional growth 

of the economy. Again, that is the dynamic scoring aspect of this 

issue. 

As you know, we don’t do dynamic scoring in most of our analyses. Treasury right now is undergoing what they call a dynamic 

analysis to try to incorporate some of these issues. CBO is doing 

the same thing, and a variety of private think tanks have been 

working on this as well. So there are a number of different ways 

to incorporate these kinds of estimates. I think, you know, Greg 

Mankiw’s estimates that you mentioned are one set of estimates, 

but I think all of us agree that there are dynamic effects. The question is simply how large are they. This chart seems to suggest that 

at least in the short run, they are pretty significant and it is certainly something we need to take into account. 

Senator GRASSLEY. I yield back the rest of my time. 

Senator GREGG. Thank you, Senator Grassley. 

Senator ALLARD. Senator ALLARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to pursue 

this idea of the public debt being held by foreign buyers. What 

would happen if the United States prohibited foreign investors 

from purchasing our debt? 

Mr. LAZEAR. Well, right now, we are running a current account 

deficit, which, again, on the other side of that is the capital account 

surplus. We are bringing in a great deal of money from abroad, 

which is funding our investment. Our investment level still happens to be very strong, but that is coupled with a pretty high level 

of personal consumption, as you know. What that means is that we 

rely pretty heavily on foreign investment right now as a source of 

funds. For growth, for investment, that capital is extremely important to our economy. 

Just to give you a couple of numbers to put this in perspective, 

we estimate that about 45 million American jobs are in firms that 

are engaged in significant international trade. We estimate that 

about one in twenty Americans is employed in a foreign-owned 

57

firm, and so they are an important source of contribution to the 

American economy. If that were to reverse, if that were to come to 

an abrupt end, obviously it would have significant impacts, adverse 

impacts, on the economy. 

Senator ALLARD. So if you look at, you know, our account deficits, 

it seems as though when our economy is doing better, it increases, 

and when our economy is doing poorer, like during the Depression 

or maybe at the end of the 1970’s when we had the misery index, 

the account deficits were in the positive range. So would you say, 

then, in terms that we have an account deficit, it can be a sign that 

our economy is doing great? 

Mr. LAZEAR. Well, again, I would put it a slightly different way. 

What I would say is when we have a capital account surplus which 

suggests that others are anxious to invest in the American economy, that is a good sign, because it tells us that not only are we 

willing to put money in this economy, not only do we think that 

there is a good future, but people who have no other inherent stake 

in this economy also agree with us. 

Senator ALLARD. They will get a greater return on the investment than a savings account or whatever? 

Mr. LAZEAR. Exactly, and they are not in this game for charity. 

They are not in this game for patriotism, but because they think 

it is going to bring a higher rate of return. So I would simply view 

that as evidence that other people in other countries agree with our 

investment sentiments. 

Senator ALLARD. I want to move on to energy. Right now, we are 

blessed with a drop in the cost of gasoline at the fuel pump, but 

I think that there is still a good deal of frustration. When the economy looked like it was good, you would explain it to people and 

they wouldn’t believe you because every time they would pull up 

to the gas station to get a tank of gas, that impacted them so personally in their checkbook, but now we are seeing that dropping 

down dramatically. 

The Organization for Economic Cooperation Development has estimated that a $10 decrease in the price of a barrel of oil will increase the level of Gross Domestic Product by two-tenths percent. 

Since August, the price of a barrel of West Texas intermediate has 

declined significantly. Would it be reasonable to assume that the 

lower energy prices could provide an unexpected boost to our current economic growth in the coming months? 

Mr. LAZEAR. We believe it will be helpful to economic growth. 

Whether the number is 2 percent, I have actually seen numbers as 

high as—sorry—.2 percent. I have actually seen numbers as high 

as .4 percent. You know, I wouldn’t want to venture an exact number, but it certainly is a positive force. I think that one of the good 

things about the economy is that because we have had high productivity growth over the past few years, we have been able to withstand what really was quite a significant energy price increase, and 

we did it without seeing job loss, without seeing productivity loss, 

without seeing output loss. 

All of those things are good signs, and I think they are a testament to the robustness of the economy and the resiliency of the 

economy. So going forward, I think that your point is well taken. 

As we look to these declines that we are now seeing, and we are 

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certainly happy that those declines have occurred, we do expect 

that this will have a positive affect on the economy, possibly as 

early as fourth quarter. 

Senator ALLARD. Yes. I think that the fact that our economy did 

so well during a time of very high gas prices speaks very clearly 

about the strength of the President’s economic initiative to stimulate the economy and keep it going, because I can remember the 

last time we had high gas prices at the pump, it was, again, during 

the late seventies, and that is when it really had an adverse impact. 

So thank you for your comments. 

Mr. LAZEAR. Thank you, sir. 

Senator GREGG. Thank you. 

I had a set of questions I was going to ask you, but we are running into a time issue here. There is going to be a vote, and I would 

like to get the next panel’s testimony before we have to go into potentially a series of votes. So I want to thank you for coming. 

Mr. LAZEAR. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator SARBANES. Mr. Chairman, could I just clarify one thing? 

Senator GREGG. I would like to move this along, if you don’t 

mind. 

Senator SARBANES. I won’t take long. I want to followup on what 

Senator Allard was saying. 

Mr. LAZEAR. Yes, sir. 

Senator SARBANES. I was actually taken aback by your assertion 

that other people in other countries are willing to hold our debt 

and that shows that they have confidence and strength in the U.S. 

economy, which you just made. Correct? 

Mr. LAZEAR. Correct. I am surprised you are taken aback. 

Senator SARBANES. Well, I am taken aback because, as I understand it, more and more of that debt is being held by governments, 

not by individuals, and Senator Bunning made, I thought, a very 

effective point, that they are doing that in order to affect the exchange rate and to gain a trade advantage. That is why Japan and 

China have these huge, huge holdings, and the shift has been 

from—it doesn’t represent a judgment by private individuals. It 

represents a governmental decision in those countries designed, I 

think, to help them gain a trade advantage, which is, I think, the 

point that Senator Bunning was trying to make. 

So they are over there playing a very shrewd game to our disadvantage, and you are sitting there as the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors telling us that everything is hunky-dory. 

Senator GREGG. I think we will take that as a rhetorical question. 

Senator SARBANES. OK. 

Senator GREGG. Thank you very much for your input and thank 

you for your time, Dr. Lazear. 

Mr. LAZEAR. Thank you. 

Senator GREGG. We will now turn to our second panel, which is 

made up of three distinguished scholars from three very distinguished policy groups. We have Dr. Kevin Hassett, who is Director 

of Economic Policy at the American Enterprise Institute; Mr. Chris 

Edwards, who is Director of Tax Policy from CATO Institute; and 

Peter Orszag, who is the Deputy Director of Economic Studies at 

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Brookings Institute. All three have a long track record of substantive and thoughtful input on American policy on a variety of 

different levels, and we appreciate these three witnesses taking the 

time to come here today to testify. 

We will start with you, Dr. Hassett. 

STATEMENT OF KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR OF ECONOMIC 

POLICY STUDIES, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 

Mr. HASSETT. Thank you very much, Chairman Gregg and Ranking Member Conrad. I would also like to take a moment to thank 

Senator Sarbanes for his public service and say that I have testified many times over many years and I have always found our exchanges to be stimulating and challenging, and he really will be 

missed. 

I am going to abbreviate somewhat my remarks compared to 

what I handed in and try to give you the highlights, and I will skip 

over a good deal of what I have written about the outlook as it coincides fairly closely with what Chairman Lazear stated. The one 

thing I would like to add is the final concluding point from my 

overview of the economic outlook, which is that right now, it seems 

like the forecasters that I trust the most, like Moody’s Economy.com and so on, just non-political economists, think that we are 

heading for a successful soft landing, and I think that if we do head 

for that, it is just worth mentioning on the record that that is an 

impressive policy accomplishment for the Federal Reserve. 

Indeed, if we look back at last summer, in stopping where they 

did, the Federal Reserve officials took something of a calculated 

risk. Inflation pressures were still present. Growth was still strong, 

and in similar circumstances in the past, the Fed has continued to 

tighten. I think right now, their judgment not to do so looks pretty 

good given the data that we have seen since then, and I think a 

tip of the cap is in order for Mr. Bernanke and his colleagues. 

I mentioned in my written testimony that I wanted to bring a 

somewhat different light on the question of the distribution of 

growth. There has been concern in my circles that the current economy may somehow be different than economies in the past and 

that economic growth might not be shared as equally as it has been 

in the past. There are a number of statistics that are consistent 

with that perspective. Between 2000 and 2006, for example, real 

wages which exclude benefits increased .6 percent per year while 

real hourly compensation, which includes benefits, increased 1.3 

percent per year. 

Additionally, the Census Bureau recently reported that real median household income grew only 1.1 percent from 2004 to 2005. It 

also reported that this was the first year since 1999 in which such 

an increase was reported. These statistics have received a great 

deal of attention in the press, and on their face, the data would 

suggest that ordinary Americans are not sharing in the economy’s 

growth, and that would be quite a bit of a break from past experience. 

It is important to note, however, that, first of all, these measures 

don’t take the Tax Code into account. In my testimony, I have a 

couple of charts from a chapter in a book edited by Rebecca Brank 

and Sheldon Dansinger that I wrote with my co-author at AEI, 

60

Anne Moore. As of 2004, for example, the total income and payroll 

tax liabilities for the two sample families in my testimony declined 

sharply over the last decade, and accounting for those changes in 

taxes is important as we think about what is going on for the median person. 

There are also a number of other factors that we need to account 

for when we are thinking about how the middle person is doing, 

because no person stays right in the middle every year. Economists 

have long believed that one of the things to look at when you are 

assessing the welfare of individuals is their consumption. Just because GDP has been rising a lot lately, so has aggregate consumption. It has grown 17.24 percent since 2001. This is interesting because consumption very often in the statistics is much more equally 

distributed than income and wealth. 

So what my staff and I did is we went back to the consumer expenditure survey and took the share of consumption that goes to 

the middle class and then used that share to try to estimate their 

consumption in recent years given the increase in liquid consumption. I think that those data reject the view that we are evolving 

toward an economy where we are significantly less friendly toward 

the middle class. Indeed, the rate at which consumption by the 

middle class is increasing has even accelerated in recent years. 

There is a figure in my testimony that indicates that. 

I think that we should also recognize as we look at these data 

that we did have an adverse shock to inflation. The real growth at 

the top line consumer price index was 1.7 percent for 2001 to 2002, 

but it accelerated all the way up to 3.8 percent between 2005 and 

2006, marking the highest increase in the last 15 years. 

Inflation surprises have, of course, occurred before, and when 

they do, we know what happens. Real wage growth is lower than 

expected, but then as those wages are re-contracted as workers go 

back and say, Hey, that deal I made last year wasn’t so good because of inflation surprised on the up side, then their wages catch 

back up. In addition, energy prices have surprised on the down side 

lately, as was mentioned by Chairman Lazear, and those reductions should pave the way for further real wage gains, but it is 

worth emphasizing that the pattern that we see in the consumption 

data is consistent with a view that workers recognize that their 

wages are going to catch up and smooth their consumption through 

the negative surprise. 

In the near-term budget outlook section of my testimony, I talk 

about what has been going on with the near-term budget. Figures 

5 and 6, I think are notable for thinking about how we got to the 

place we are where we have a deficit. The dotted line in Figure 5 

shows the latest projections for outlays in 2006 and compares them 

to past CBO projections for spending in that year. Going back to 

the first year, such a forecast is available, in 1996. 

I think the chart tells an unambiguous story, that spending was 

much higher than projected back at the end of the Clinton Presidency or the beginning of the Bush one. While it is important to 

note that these projections keep real discretionary spending constant going forward, the numbers are, nonetheless, startling. 2006 

outlays, for example, were $479 billion higher than the CBO projected outlays would be, you know, for that year back in 2001. 

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Since the 2006 looks like it will be 260 billion or so, one could conclude that we could currently have a surplus if government had 

stayed on the spending course that was incorporated into that outlook. 

Figure 6 provides a similar comparison, this time for revenues. 

As I am running out of time, I won’t go through the details, but 

if you look at the revenue chart, then what you see is for some 

years, revenues are lower than they thought they would be in 2006 

for some past projections, and for some years, they are higher. So 

there is ample room for debate in there between supply side optimists and pessimists about whether the tax cuts paid for themselves, but I think that even the supply side pessimists would have 

to concede that relative to the times when we had large surpluses, 

revenues have surprised less on the down side than spending did 

on the upside. 

In the remainder of my testimony, I have a discussion of the literature on budget rules. I know that members on both sides of the 

aisle in this committee, at least, are in favor of some kind of new 

budget legislation. I think the literature suggests that those work. 

In the final section of my testimony, I talk about the longer-term 

outlook and agree with Senator Conrad that it is really quite troubling and discuss why I think the misconception about what a tax 

increase or a benefit cut really is when we are talking about entitlements might be an unnecessary obstacle to bipartisan agreement 

about how to afford. I think not moving forward is not an option 

and the fact that cleaning up these misconceptions might help 

move toward bipartisan agreement, I think is an optimistic sign. 

And that is how I close my testimony. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hassett follows:]

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Senator GREGG. Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate that, those 

thoughts. 

Mr. EDWARDS. 

STATEMENT OF CHRIS EDWARDS, DIRECTOR OF TAX POLICY 

STUDIES, CATO INSTITUTE 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thanks 

for hold the committee, as with other members, and thanks for 

having me testify today. 

The economy is certainly continuing a solid expansion, and we do 

appear to be in the middle of a long boom like we enjoyed in the 

eighties and nineties. I suspect that a lot of the current good economic performance mainly has to do with America’s entrepreneurs 

and dynamic global markets and not so much with Federal policymakers; however, Federal spending and taxation does play an important role in aiding or impeding growth. 

The Federal Government extracts $2.7 trillion in taxes and borrowing from the private economy every year. That has two basic 

impacts. The first basic impact is that it shifts resources from the 


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more productive private economy to the less productive government 

economy. The large increases in spending in recent years will reduce growth because current taxes will have to be higher than otherwise. 

The second basic impact of all that spending is that the method 

we use to extract the taxes from the economy is particularly damaging with a complex Tax Code. So to sustain our current strong 

expansion, I think they need to look at both limited spending and 

going to a simpler, more efficient Tax Code. 

Those opposed to recent tax cuts argue that tax cuts financed by 

deficits don’t do much for the economy, and it is true that recent 

tax cuts would have had more tick if we had limited spending as 

well and matched tax cuts with spending cuts. There is a crucial 

point to make here though, that all tax cuts are not created equal. 

About 45 percent of recent tax cuts since 2001, you can call a social 

policy tax cut, such as the child tax credits. Those sorts of tax cuts 

do not reduce distortions in the Tax Code and don’t really have 

much of an impact on GDP. They simply push tax burdens on to 

future generations. 

About 55 percent of recent tax cuts since 2001, however, you can 

call supply side tax cuts, such as the dividend and capital gains tax 

cuts. Those reduce distortions in the Tax Code, boost GDP growth, 

and they also don’t lose the Federal Government as much money 

as the static revenue calculations suggest. 

The greatly different impacts of different types of tax cuts can be 

seen in a joint committee taxation study last year. They did a 

micro simulation analysis of different types of tax cuts to see what 

the GDP impact would be. They found that a corporate tax rate cut 

boosted GDP growth in the long run twice as much as an individual income tax cut, and they found that a corporate tax cut 

boosted GDP four times as much as an expansion in the personal 

exemption, which is sort of like a social policy tax cut. 

So if you look at recent tax cuts, there is no doubt in my mind 

that the dividend and capital gains tax cut have helped the economy grow strongly and we certainly can see the impacts on Wall 

Street. Dividend payouts by large corporations have soared since 

the dividend tax cut passed in early 2003. 

Regardless of whether one supports recent tax cuts, it is clear 

that we have a gigantic long-term spending problem. The GAO, 

basic GAO, sort of business-as-usual scenario shows Federal spending rising from 20 percent of GDP this year to about 45 percent of 

GDP by 2040, and the long-term problem is actually really worse 

than that, because we risk here, moving forward, sort of an economic death spiral. If Congress tries to jack up tax rates to meet 

rising spending, that will cause greater tax avoidance, slower 

growth, and less tax revenue, perhaps prompting Congress to jack 

up taxes even higher than the GAO numbers indicate. 

So what we need to do is we have got a bleak future here for 

young Americans unless we do some serious spending reforms. We 

need tougher budget rules, and I certainly laud the chairman for 

his SOS bill. I guess it is S. 3521. He has got some great ideas regarding limiting entitlement spending and discretionary spending. 

I think an even more basic idea we should consider is putting an 

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overall cap on total growth and total outlays by the Federal Government every year. 

A number of States have such caps, and it just seems like such 

a simple and obvious idea, we ought to consider it Federal. The 

idea is you would cap total outlays every year by some indicator, 

like personal income, or it could cap total outlays with some fixed 

percentage number, like four or 5 percent. That would make it very 

easy for Congress to plan their outlays in the future, and it would 

make it very easy for the public and groups in the private sector 

to see whether Congress is cheating or whether they are following 

their budget rules. With a cap in place, Congress could consider 

their annual budget resolution. They would look at where the 

spending cap that is in the statute of law was and it could include 

reconciliation bills in your annual resolution to get spending under 

the cap. If the end of the fiscal year comes around and Congress 

hasn’t met the cap, the President would be required to sequester 

spending, sort of like under GRA’s role in 1990 in the Budget Enforcement Act. 

So it is clear budget rules are clearly not working. We have got 

non-stop deficits. In most years over the recent decade, we have 

had large deficits. We have got these gigantic unfunded obligations 

that have built up. We clearly need to experiment with new types 

of budget rules. I think the ideas in the chairman’s SOS bill are 

great, but I also think we need to look at a cap on overall Federal 

outlays. 

Thanks for having the hearing. I am happy to answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Edwards follows:]

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Senator GREGG. Thank you, Mr. Edwards. I appreciate those 

comments. 

Dr. ORSZAG. 

STATEMENT OF PETER ORSZAG, DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF 

ECONOMIC STUDIES, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION 

Mr. ORSZAG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the 

Committee. 

Today as a Nation, we are neither paying our way nor investing 

sufficiently in our workers. The Nation’s net national saving rate 

is hovering around 2 percent of national income. I would say there 

is no good outcome that comes from the world’s leading economic 

power only saving 2 percent of its income. It means that we either 

only invest 2 percent of our income, which will starve workers in 

the future of the productive capital that they need to have higher 

wages, or it means that we borrow the difference from foreigners, 

which is increasingly what we are doing. That, however, is not a 

free lunch. We owe the money back. We are mortgaging our future 


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income by borrowing such massive amounts from foreigners. 

Roughly half of the public debt now is owned abroad. 

The second problem is stagnant real income and more risk for 

middle class families. Family incomes are basically flat. If you look 

at the consumer expenditure survey itself, which Dr. Hassett already mentioned, and just look at consumption levels in that survey, consumption levels for the middle quintile are also flat. Across 

a wide variety of indicators, outcomes for middle class families look 

like since 2000 they are basically stagnant. 

At the same time, families face increased income risk. The probability of a 50 percent decline in income over a 2-year period has 

more than doubled since the early 1970’s. So middle class families 

and lower income families are facing both stagnant real incomes 

and increased risk, and we need to address that problem too. 

Unfortunately, the tax cuts have exacerbated both problems. By 2015, they will have contributed roughly $5 trillion to the Nation’s 

debt. That is 25 percent of our GDP, and ultimately because the 

tax cuts have to be paid for, they will reduce real incomes for the 

vast majority of families, more than three-quarters of families, once 

you take into account the necessary spending reductions or other 

revenue increases to offset the cost of the tax cuts. 

But everyone says, Well, maybe those costs are worth it because 

the tax cuts boost growth, and it is true that in the short run, they 

have had some modest effect on economic performance, but we 

could have gotten that same kick much more cheaply if we had 

pursued other policies; and, more importantly, over the long term, 

the vast bulk of the studies suggest that because the tax cuts are 

deficit financed and because they were not particularly well designed to promote economic growth, their long-term impact on the 

economy is negative, not positive. 

So we have both problems being exacerbated. Ultimately, the tax 

cuts increase national debt, reduce national saving, impair longterm economic performance, reduce incomes for most families, and 

also reduce after-tax income volatility, which families are also 

struggling with. So what should we do instead of that approach? 

And I think Senator Alexander actually touched upon it. There is 

a better way in which we invest in education, research, technology, 

and increase national saving. 

The basic alternative view in which the way to promote economic 

growth, broad-based participation in that growth, and improved 

economic security is the basis for a new project at Brookings that 

I direct called the ’’Hamilton Project‘‘ where we are putting out a 

lot of ideas about exactly how to go about doing that. 

So what do we need to do? First, increase national saving, obviously, we need to get the fiscal deficit under control, because the 

fiscal imbalance is a major contributor to that low national saving 

rate that I mentioned. I am sure we will talk about ways to get 

the fiscal imbalance reduced. Beyond that, we need to raise personal saving, and by far, the best way to raise personal saving in 

the United States is to make it easier and more automatic for 

households to save. 

I would note that there was legislation introduced yesterday that 

Senator Conrad was a cosponsor of, along with Senator Smith and 

I believe two or three other Senators on a bipartisan basis, to creVerDate 0ct 09 2002 07:01 Dec 07, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00090 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\30816.TXT SBUD1 PsN: TISH
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ate an automatic IRA so that workers that go to work at firms that 

don’t sponsor a pension plan would automatically be enrolled in an 

IRA. The evidence is overwhelming that these sorts of ‘‘EZ-Pass’’ 

approaches or automatic saving approaches work and we should be 

pursuing them much more vigorously. 

In addition to that, in my written testimony, I provide another 

idea that I think is worthy of attention. We in the United States 

spend roughly $500 billion a year through the Tax Code providing 

incentives for health care, retirement, homeownership, and other 

socially beneficial activities. Almost all of that is done in the form 

of deductions or exclusions, which link the size of the tax break to 

someone’s marginal tax bracket. Not only does that skew the benefits toward higher income households, but it is economically inefficient, because unless you think that high income households are 

more responsive to that incentive or generate larger benefits when 

they do respond, it doesn’t make any sense to provide a larger tax 

break to one particular set of households than another. 

In a recent paper with Fred Goldberg, who was the IRS Commission under the first President Bush, and Lily Batchelder of New 

York University we argued that basically all of those tax incentives 

should be reconsidered and done on a uniform credit basis rather 

than with a deduction or exclusion, which would both be fairer and 

more efficient, and there are very few opportunities that we face 

in the United States to improve both equity and efficiency, and I 

would urge you to seriously consider that as an approach. 

So the bottom line is there is a much better way to promote economic growth than tax cuts that run up the deficit, reduce national 

saving, and ultimately will impair incomes for most families. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Orszag follows:]

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Senator GREGG. That you, Doctor. 

Senate Bunning. 

Senator BUNNING. You surprised me, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator GREGG. I thought I would let you start. We are going to 

have a vote here, and I want to make sure everybody gets a 

chance. 

Senator BUNNING. Looking to the tax burden as a share of GDP, 

we see a definite trend of receipts heading back to their historical 

levels of about 18 percent of GDP. If we keep the tax rates where 

they are, then the projections are that receipts will stay near this 

historical range; however, if we raise taxes by allowing recent tax 

cuts to expire, the projections are that we will see the tax burden 

rise to over 20 percent of GDP. 

Can you comment on what impact the tax burden of this level 

would have on the economy? Is, as some of our colleagues suggest, 

the only path to fiscal restraint a return to record levels of taxation? 

I ask all of three of you that question. 


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Mr. EDWARDS. I would say the way to think about particularly 

the supply side tax cuts that have been passed in 2001 and 2003 

is that they are long-term reforms that do good things for longterm growth in the U.S. economy, and the Joint Committee on Taxation study that came out last year that I cited in my testimony 

is a good example of that. A cut to taxes on capital income boost 

long-run growth even taking into account other affects, like 

changes in interest rates. 

Something I would point out about recent tax cuts that have 

been about 2 percent, that account for about 2 percent of GDP, I 

went back and I looked at how big the tax increases in 1990 and 

1993 were. You may remember that. 

Senator BUNNING. Yes, I remember that. 

Mr. EDWARDS. George Bush I and President Clinton both increased income tax rates, particularly at the top end. The 1993 and 

1990 tax hikes are essentially a wash with the 2001 and 2003 tax 

cuts. They are both about 2 percent of GDP. So one way to look 

at recent tax cuts is that it really is getting back to where we were 

in the late 1980’s after the 1986 Tax Reform Act. In fact, our top 

income tax rate is still higher than it was in 1986. 

So, you know, looking at this over the long term, we don’t think 

recent tax cuts were large in the share of GDP. 

Mr. ORSZAG. Senator, what I would say is that there are obviously two main factors to take into account when evaluating the 

impact of that kind of change on the economy. The first is how you 

raise the money, and the second is what you do with it. If we raise 

the money in an efficient way and we use it to invest either in reducing the deficit or in things like preschool education, for example, I think the net effect would be positive. It is just the flip side 

of the studies suggesting that the long-term impact of the tax cuts 

is negative. In other words, what you ask is the flip side of a tax 

cut, so consider a tax cut that reduces marginal rates. It may have 

some benefit on the economy because it strengthens incentives to 

work and invest, although my view is that evidence on that suggests those effects are relatively weak, but to the extent that it is 

financed by a deficit, there is a drag on the economy from that deficit, and most of the studies suggest that the net effect is, if anything, negative. So you could turn that on its head to answer your 

question. 

Senator BUNNING. We all realize if we don’t do something about 

automatic spending increases with our Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, that by the year 2030, we won’t have any excess 

money to spend for Federal Government. We will have spent everything on entitlement programs, or at least we won’t be able to defend our country. Do you have any suggestions what to do as far 

as entitlements are concerned? 

Mr. HASSETT. I guess Peter has a plan on Social Security that 

I am sure he will be able to talk about. 

Senator BUNNING. Well, I have a lot of plans, but I can’t get anywhere with them. 

Mr. HASSETT. I think that the key is that it is important—the 

first key is to recognize that it is important to start soon, because 

whatever you are going to do is going to involve reducing benefits, 

reducing net benefits to current recipients, and the longer we give 

108

individuals a chance to plan ahead for that, the more they can 

change their saving today and be prepared. 

I think Senator Gregg’s SOS bill has some ideas about how to 

fold the entitlements into the real budget process, and I am quite 

confident that in the end, if we don’t double the size of government, 

that we are going to end up adopting a bill that looks something 

like his. 

Mr. ORSZAG. Senator, I think the real key here is health care. 

That is the major driver of the long-term fiscal imbalance. There 

is both a sort of problem and an opportunity. The problem is that 

I don’t think that you are going to be able to make a significant 

change in the health care obligations of the Federal Government 

without a significant change in the rate of growth in the private 

sector health care also. The systems are too linked. Costs per beneficiary in public programs have tracked cost per beneficiary in the 

private sector over long periods of time, and the patients are being 

treated at the same hospitals. You can’t just rip the systems apart. 

The opportunity is that there are significant possibilities for restraining cost growth in health care without impairing health outcomes. For example, costs vary across the United States, different 

regions of the United States, for reasons that don’t have anything 

to do with outcomes. They are not correlated with how healthy people actually are or what their responsive to health care is. It seems 

like it comes down to things like doctor practice norms in different 

regions, that in some regions, doctors order all sorts of test that 

aren’t actually necessary. In other regions, they don’t do that. 

Senator BUNNING. That is called covering your backside. 

Mr. ORSZAG. It is, but there are major opportunities for—basically, we are at the flat part of the health expenditure, health outcome curve. So there are major possibilities to restrain cost growth 

without actually hurting people and perhaps actually even helping 

them, and that strikes me as the most important thing for the 

United States to tackle in terms of getting our long-term fiscal 

house in order. 

Senator BUNNING. That is my time, but go right ahead. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I think entitlements ought to be cut and we ought 

to have phase-in cuts to all the major entitlement programs. I 

think Social Security, a simple long-term valued-added there would 

be to switch from wage indexing to price indexing for initial benefits. That would slowly over decades reduce benefits, which I think 

is a very fair thing to do. We know we have got a big problem. If 

you let young people know now that benefits are going to be cut 

in one, two, three decades down the road, they can plan ahead and 

save more. 

On Medicaid, I think we ought to do the same thing with Medicaid that we did for welfare reform in 1996, turn it into a Federal 

block grant. That way, we can control the Federal contribution to 

the program over time. Medicare, I think the CBO Budget Options 

book has a number of good ideas for increasing deductibles for 

Medicare. 

I think all these changes could be made on a progressive basis 

if you want some sort of bipartisan compromise. You could have 

progressive price indexing for Social Security benefits. 

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Senator BUNNING. You also realize if we mean-tested all of these 

programs, the weeping and gnashing of teeth we would have at 

these seats that are sitting up here. That would be a very good solution in every instance if you give a warning out front that this 

is going to happen. 

Thank you all very much. 

Senator GREGG. Thank you, Senator. 

Senate Conrad. 

Senator CONRAD. You have heard presentations that I have made 

here about the unsustainable nature of our current fiscal policy. I 

think, basically, in different words, you have all basically agreed 

with it, that long term, we are on a unsustainable course. Let me 

ask you in order, Kevin, starting with you, if I could, if you could 

wave a magic wand to deal with the long-term imbalances, can you 

just give us a couple of sentences on what you would do? 

Mr. HASSETT. Thank you for the opportunity, Senator. Yes. I 

would take Social Security and, as Chris suggested, index it, the 

prices, so that, again, people have a long time to see the reduction 

in benefits when they retire. On health care, I think that what we 

need to do is move toward a system where copays and so on by participants in the program depend their usage of health care in the 

previous year by participants in the program. I think we need to 

build a kind of sense of community that when they are seeking 

health care as an elderly person, they are asking something of 

their community, something that you want to provide to others so 

that you don’t consume more than you need. 

But I think that we need to move toward a system where the 

health system itself is more—that the fees of it are more related 

to what people do so people can see the effect they have on everybody else whether they consume a lot of health care. So I would 

like to tie those two over time, but again, I would not want to do 

it overnight. We would have to move gradually toward that system. 

Senator CONRAD. Chris. 

Mr. EDWARDS. One way to think about what the Federal Government does is, and there has been a few major studies on this in 

the past, is look at who gets the benefit of Federal spending. CBO 

did a nice study about a decade ago that looked at who gets all the 

benefits of Federal Government spending in terms of income distribution. It turns out that the Federal Government does not slant 

its spending toward the bottom end like a lot of people think it 

does. The distribution spending is actually right across the board 

from the wealthiest to the poorest. 

So I think the only way to get a good bipartisan compromise on 

spending cuts is cut the corporate welfare, cut the business benefit, 

cut benefits of Medicare, Social Security, etc. for higher income people and give people warning that benefits will likely be phased 

down, but it seems to me that is the type of approach we need for 

the long run. 

Senator CONRAD. OK. Peter. 

Mr. ORSZAG. Senator, I would lock you all in a room and not let 

you out until you had come up with a solution. 

Senator GREGG. That is my bill. That is my bill. 

Mr. ORSZAG. And I can go through my litany of what I think you 

all should do, but I think the main problem at this point is one of 

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political will and that if you all got in a room and were not allowed 

out until you actually had a solution, that would make far more 

movement toward an answer than my trotting out all by Brookings 

studies. 

Senator CONRAD. Let me ask you, though, if we were locked in 

the room and you were the only advisor allowed in, what would you 

recommend to us be the focus? 

Mr. ORSZAG. OK. 

Senator CONRAD. Where would you start? 

Mr. ORSZAG. I would start with health care, in order, health care, 

revenue, and then Social Security, and that reflects the relative importance of various factors in contributing to the long-term deficit. 

So on health care, I would be looking at ways of changing those 

practice norms. I would be looking at more personal responsibility, 

because I think that is an important component of improving 

health outcomes and restraining cost growth. I would be looking at 

preventive care. I would be looking at a whole variety of things. We 

don’t have all the answers there. 

Senator CONRAD. Let me stop you and ask you how about the 

chronically ill. We know that about 5 percent of Medicare beneficiaries use half of the money. It seems to me, you know, in business school, I learned to focus like a laser on that kind of statistic. 

How about the notion of focusing on the chronically ill to better coordinate their care as a way of saving money and getting better 

health care outcomes? 

Mr. ORSZAG. Certainly, you know, when looking to close a budget 

gap, it helps to look where the money is, and that is certainly an 

area that would be worthy of scrutiny along with, and relatedly, 

long-term care. I think there is a lot more that could be done, for 

example, with private long-term care insurance to make that market work better also. So health care is, obviously, a big component. 

On revenues, I think that we could very easily reverse at least 

part of the tax cut and do some other steps on an individual income 

side. I would replace the estate tax with an inheritance tax so that 

Paris Hilton could not inherit hundreds of millions of dollars tax 

free, and I would also re-examine the base of the corporate income 

tax in a world in which capital is increasingly mobile. I think there 

are changes that could be made to the corporate tax that would 

also sure up that revenue for the Federal Government. 

Finally, after you have solved all of that, I would be willing to 

let you out of the room, but if you wanted to keep going, there are 

changes that could be made with regard to Social Security also. 

Senator CONRAD. Would everyone agree that the long-term shortfall—this is my last question, Mr. Chairman—the long-term shortfall in Medicare is far greater than the projected shortfall in Social 

Security? Isn’t it really like seven times as much? 

Mr. EDWARDS. It is more a variable too though. For Social Security, we know with much greater certainty what the future benefit 

burdens are. Health care, we might be lucky. Technology might 

save us. We don’t know for sure. 

Senator CONRAD. You know, you can also make an argument 

that technology may increase our costs. When I look at the breaking of the genetic code and the new technology that is flowing from 

that, it is incredibly exciting. It extends life. It improves quality of 

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life. It also probably is going to increase costs, at least in the short 

run. 

I want to thank the witnesses. I thank all of you. You really are 

thoughtful people, and it is valuable to the committee to have you 

here. 

Senator GREGG. Thank you, Senator. 

I thank the witnesses. The points that you have made, I pretty 

much agree, except for a couple of yours, Dr. Orszag. 

Mr. ORSZAG. Right. 

Senator GREGG. But, basically, the thematic, if I could try to define the thematic statement here, it is that we have got to get control over our entitlement accounts. Getting control over our entitlement accounts is going to take discipline and it is going to take political will and it is going to take the primary area of focus on 

health care and how we deliver health care in this country as we 

move into a generation which is going to double the size of retirees. 

Social Security is a very definable world. It only has like six moving parts, and they are very correctable. All we need is the political 

will. We know how to correct it. We change the benefit. We adjust 

the COLA so it is an accurately accounting to COLA and you address the fact that people are working longer, and you have basically solved the problem of Social Security. 

But the issue of health care is much more complex and it gets 

to the question which the Senator has made, the point the Senator 

has made, which is you have got a very small percentage of the 

beneficiaries using the vast majority of the resources. You have got 

the technology issues. You have got the matrix, which is so complex. 

I have ideas on all these areas, and I appreciate you, Doctor, 

mentioning my SOS bill, which basically goes to what you suggested, Doctor, which is that we should have a system here where 

the procedure drives the policy, where you basically do put everybody in a room, give us some ideas, and basically the people in the 

room would be us, and then require us to act on those ideas. So 

I agree with that. 

But to get to a couple of philosophical points which were made 

here on tax policy, we have some disagreements. I am sensing that 

some of you or maybe all of you—in fact, you, Dr. Orszag, if I understand your position correctly, there are some tax cuts which 

make more sense than other tax cuts, and certainly that was the 

point that was made by other witnesses, that there are some tax 

cuts that make sense from the standpoint of growing the country’s 

economy and creating more incentive for savings that are better 

than other tax cuts, and so I would like to get your thoughts as 

if we are going to focus on tax cuts which produce more economic 

activity and, as a result, produce a better economy which means 

more jobs, and in my opinion, more revenue. What are the tax cuts 

that we should be focused on and are all tax cuts the same? 

I have a prejudice here. I can give you my answer, but I would 

be interested in your answer. Why don’t we start at this end and 

go this way this time. 

Mr. ORSZAG. Not all tax cuts are the same. I would note, though, 

that the context in which tax changes occur is very important. 

Given the very low level of national saving and given the very large 

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fiscal imbalance that we face, it is not at all clear to me that tax 

cuts should be anywhere near the top of the agenda at this point, 

but if you wanted to focus on tax changes, what I would actually 

do is come back to the idea that I mentioned before, which is we 

are spending $500 billion a year very inefficiently through the Tax 

Code in providing incentives for retirement and health, homeownership, and other things that we are trying to encourage. I 

would significantly re-examine that entire activity. 

Senator GREGG. You said go from deductions to credits. 

Mr. ORSZAG. I said go from deductions to credits. 

Senator GREGG. Of course, the bottom quintile of the taxpayers 

in this country don’t actually pay any taxes. They actually get a refund. The bottom 20 percent would not be affected by that either. 

Just as a distributional event, it would have no affect on the bottom 20 percent. 

Mr. ORSZAG. Well, for example, let us take retirement savings. 

On a revenue neutral basis, you could take the tax preferences for 

401Ks and IRAs and transform them into a 30 percent match that 

went into someone’s account regardless of whether they owed personal income taxes or not, and that would raise the incentive to 

save for over 80 percent of households and would be much more effective at actually urging new savings. 

Senator GREGG. And the cost would be the same, is what you are 

saying. 

Mr. ORSZAG. Right. 

Senator GREGG. That is interesting. 

Mr. EDWARDS. I agree partly with Peter. In fact, the approach 

taken in the two plans under President Bush’s tax commission, his 

report that came out, I guess, last November was converting a lot 

of the deductions, like the mortgage interest deduction, into credits. 

I think that is actually a pretty good idea, using the revenue that 

you save to lower the tax rate. That would make the Tax Code 

more efficient. It would target some of these deductions and credit 

that the Congress likes to put into the Tax Code at the bottom end 

to limit their cost, and that is reasonable. 

I think looking forward, the big crunches in the revenue system 

in the coming years are the expiration in the Bush tax cuts, the 

gigantic AMP problem, of course; but the third one that will become more and more and more important in the coming years is 

the absurdly high corporate tax rate the United States has. The 

data from 2005 show that the average corporate tax rate across the 

25 European Union countries was 27 percent. Our Federal rate is 

35 percent. Our State and local rates go up to about 10 percent in 

New York City. 

We have got a terrible problem here. We all know we have got 

problems with the competitiveness of the big corporations, the 

automobile companies, airlines, and others. I think the corporate 

tax rate is really something we really have to look at. In look at 

Senator Kerry, when he was running for President, he had a corporate tax reform plan. So I think that really is something we need 

to look at going ahead. Global capital will only get more mobile. So 

the problem will become greater and greater over time. 

Senator GREGG. We have an answer that is call New Hampshire. 

There are no sales or income tax. 

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Mr. HASSETT. Thank you, Senator. I actually agree with both 

Chris and Peter on their main points. I think that if you want to 

think about what a good tax cut is, think a good tax cut is one that 

will help the economy. It is something that lowers the margin rate. 

It is something that moves us toward a consumption tax. Right 

now, the place the U.S. tax policy is most out of whack with the 

rest of the world is the corporate tax code. Senator Kerry did recognize that and suggested a reduction in the rate. I think that a reduction in the rate that is significant is really important, because 

right now, our firms have an incentive to locate their activity overseas to pay a lower tax, and you can spend a gazillion dollars in 

enforcement to try to stop that, or you can just lower the rate a 

little bit so we are in line with everyone else. 

I think that the kind of tax reductions that don’t have an affect 

on the economy very often are there for other reasons, and you 

might still want to do them. For example, the child credit might 

stimulate fertility, but it is not going to stimulate the economy. With Peter’s $500 billion point, I thought that I would finish 

with a point of, perhaps, rare consensus which I think is worthy 

of note for the committee, and that is that many of these base narrowing features of the Code, like the mortgage interest deduction, 

don’t really have their intended consequence. The mortgage interest deduction really doesn’t stimulate homeownership, because the 

people who are going to own a home anyway are the ones who take 

it. So if you think that you should have a subsidy in homeownership because you want to get people in homes to build communities 

and make them join the school committees and so on, then you 

need a different animal than what we have. 

So I think if we look at our Code right now, it is a mess because 

we have a lot of things that narrow the base that don’t do what 

we intend, and that is really an opportunity for significant reform. 

Thanks. 

Senator GREGG. Thank you. 

Your testimony has been excellent and very valuable, and I hope 

somebody will take it beyond us, because I think we are in agreement with it, and we need to convince other folks of taking advantage of it. We are in general agreement with it. 

There is a vote on. So we are going to have to end this hearing. 

Again, thank you for taking the time. Thank you for your input. 

It has been superb. I appreciate it. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:56 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

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