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77–697 2013

S. HRG. 112–699 

FISCAL CLIFF: HOW TO PROTECT THE MIDDLE 

CLASS, SUSTAIN LONG-TERM ECONOMIC GROWTH, 

AND REDUCE THE FEDERAL DEFICIT 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

DECEMBER 6, 2012 

Printed for the use of the Joint Economic Committee 

( 
(II) 

JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 

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

SENATE 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania, 

Chairman 

JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

MARK R. WARNER, Virginia 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

DANIEL COATS, Indiana 

MIKE LEE, Utah 

PAT TOOMEY, Pennsylvania 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

KEVIN BRADY, Texas, Vice Chairman 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, M.D., Texas 

JOHN CAMPBELL, California 

SEAN P. DUFFY, Wisconsin 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina 

MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

WILLIAM E. HANSEN, Executive Director 

ROBERT P. O’QUINN, Republican Staff Director 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

OPENING STATEMENTS OF MEMBERS

Hon. Robert P. Casey, Jr., Chairman, a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania ......... 1 

Hon. Michael C. Burgess, M.D., a U.S. Representative from Texas ................... 3 

WITNESSES

Dr. Mark M. Zandi, Chief Economist, Moody’s Analytics, Philadelphia, PA ...... 6 

Dr. Kevin Hassett, Senior Fellow and Director of Economic Policy Studies, 

American Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC .............................................. 8 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Prepared statement of Dr. Mark M. Zandi ............................................................ 36 

Prepared statement of Dr. Kevin Hassett ............................................................. 47 

Chart titled ‘‘Grow the Economy & Cut the Deficit’’ ............................................ 56 

Chart titled ‘‘Fiscal Consolidations’’ ....................................................................... 57 

Chart titled ‘‘Private Business Investment Drives Job Creation’’ ....................... 58 

(1) 

FISCAL CLIFF: HOW TO PROTECT THE 

MIDDLE CLASS, SUSTAIN LONG-TERM 

ECONOMIC GROWTH, AND REDUCE THE 

FEDERAL DEFICIT 

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2012 

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, 

JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:32 a.m. in Room 216 

of the Hart Senate Office Building, the Honorable Robert P. Casey, 

Jr., Chairman, presiding. 

Senators present: Casey, Bingaman, Klobuchar, Coats, Lee, 

and Toomey. 

Representatives present: Brady, Burgess, Mulvaney, Maloney, 

and Cummings. 

Staff present: Conor Carroll, Gail Cohen, Will Hansen, Colleen 

Healy, Ian Jannetta, Madi Joyce, Jessica Knowles, Patrick Miller, 

Robert O’Quinn, Christina Forsberg, and John Trantin. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., 

CHAIRMAN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM PENNSYLVANIA 

Chairman Casey. The Committee will come to order. 

We want to thank everyone for being here today. I did not have 

a chance to personally greet our witnesses, but I will have time to 

do that later. I want to thank both of our witnesses for being here, 

Dr. Hassett and Dr. Zandi. 

I will have an opening statement that I will make, and then I 

will turn to Dr. Burgess who will be making the opening. I know 

that Vice Chairman Brady will be with us, as well. 

So thanks, everyone, for being here. We all know the challenges 

we confront here in Congress on a whole range of issues, which are 

sometimes broadly described under the umbrella of the terminology 

‘‘fiscal cliff,’’ but I think when we confront those difficult challenges 

we have to ask ourselves of course a couple of basic questions. 

One of the basic questions I think we must ask is: What will be 

the result, and what will be the impact as it relates to middle-income families? What will happen to them in the midst of all of 

these tough issues we have to work out? 

We know already that there is broad agreement that going over 

the so-called fiscal cliff would jeopardize the economic recovery. It 

would do that by increasing taxes on families, halting employment 

growth, driving unemployment up instead of down, and triggering 

deep cuts to programs that families across the country count on. 
2 

The job before the United States Congress is to reach an agreement that builds on the economic progress that we are making, and 

puts us on a path to fiscal sustainability. We need to cut more 

spending and generate more revenue, and we need to do it in a 

smart way that keeps our economy growing. 

Earlier this year Congress extended the payroll tax cut through 

2012. The 2 percentage point payroll tax cut has played an important role to sustain the recovery, boosting economic growth by an 

estimated one-half of a percentage point in 2012 alone, and saving 

or creating some 400,000 jobs. 

We should continue the payroll tax cut through 2013. And yesterday I introduced legislation that would keep the employee payroll 

tax at 4.2 percent next year. 

To keep the economy growing—and there is good evidence of that 

just in the last couple of months when we saw the numbers for August, September, and October, job growth of about 511,000—but to 

keep that momentum going, we should also provide tax credits to 

small businesses that add jobs or increase wages from one year to 

the next. My legislation includes such an incentive for small businesses to grow. 

I am confident that Congress will again be successful in reaching 

a compromise in the days ahead, and I look forward to hearing 

today from the experts that we have before us on how to reduce 

the deficit while protecting middle-income families. 

As we enter the holiday season, Americans should not have to 

face the uncertainty that many will face with regard to their taxes. 

There is no reason that middle-income families should go into this 

holiday season without knowing whether their taxes will go up 

next year. 

Last year, Democrats and Republicans worked together to cut 

nearly a trillion dollars of spending. Now we need to continue that 

bipartisan work to cut more spending, and to bring in additional 

revenues. 

If Congress fails to reach an agreement under the Budget Control Act of 2011, $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts will take 

place between 2013 and 2021. Republicans and Democrats agree 

that indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts are not the right thing to 

do at this time in our Nation’s history. 

If we go over the cliff, triggering the automatic spending cuts and 

tax increases, the gross domestic product will fall by half a percentage point in 2013, according to the Congressional Budget Office. In 

other words, we would return to recession, reversing the hardfought gains of the past few years. 

We cannot do this. We cannot afford to go backwards. Instead, 

we need a balanced and bipartisan approach, one that balances 

short- and long-term needs, distinguishes between core investments 

that must be preserved and spending that we can live without, and 

utilizes both spending cuts and revenue increases. 

The first order of business should be to protect those middle-income families I talked about, protect them from a tax increase. The 

CBO estimates that simply extending the middle-class tax cuts 

would boost GDP by 1.3 percent and create 1.6 million jobs. Let me 

say that again: Boost GDP by 1.3 percent and create 1.6 million 

jobs from that tax cut alone that we can enact. 
3 

Importantly, it would resolve much of the economic uncertainty 

facing these middle-income families. There is broad recognition 

that the wealthiest among us can help us reduce the debt by paying more. It is encouraging in the last couple of weeks to see Republican Members of the House and Senate speak out on the need 

for a balanced approach that includes raising taxes on the wealthiest individuals, and moving right away to ensure that 98 percent 

of families do not face a tax increase. 

We need to look at history, recent history, when it comes to the 

impact of raising individual rates at the highest income levels. As 

we saw in the 1990s and the 2000s, there is no relationship between lower marginal tax rates for the wealthiest among us and 

faster economic growth. 

First, during the Clinton Administration to address the growing 

budget deficit, the top marginal tax rate was raised on the wealthiest individuals and the economy grew at its fastest rate in a generation, adding more than 22 million jobs. 

During the following eight years, the top marginal rate was lowered for the wealthiest individuals, but the economy never regained 

the strength of the previous decade. Job growth slowed and wages 

stagnated, leaving middle-income families especially vulnerable 

when the Great Recession began at the end of 2007. 

I hope today’s hearing is helpful to people in not just Pennsylvania but across the country who are watching, who are weighing 

in, and who are waiting for Congress to act. 

I just want to say—and I will say more at the end about some 

of our Members who are leaving the Congress—I want to say that 

it has been an honor for me to serve as Chair of this Committee, 

and also a great honor to serve with my friend Kevin Brady as the 

Vice Chair. He has been great to work with. We have worked well 

together, and I think some of the ways we worked together I hope 

can be a harbinger of future bipartisan success here in the Congress and I look forward to working with him as I change seats in 

a sense for the next Congress. 

I am grateful to our witnesses that I will introduce, but before 

I do that I would turn to Dr. Burgess for his opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL C. BURGESS, M.D., A 

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS 

Representative Burgess. I thank the Chairman for the recognition. 

I observe that this is the concluding hearing of the Joint Economic Committee for the 112th Congress. So, Mr. Chairman, on behalf of Vice Chairman Kevin Brady, on behalf of the Republican 

Members and myself, I wish to thank you for your service as the 

36th Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee. 

The American people in their wisdom in 2010 gave us a divided 

Legislative Branch. Consequently, this unique Committee was also 

equally divided. People are used to seeing such division producing 

gridlock in Washington, but Chairman Casey and Vice Chairman 

Brady have worked together and shared responsibility for organizing the Committee hearings. Because of your bicameral and bipartisan cooperation, the Joint Economic Committee has emerged 
4 

as a widely respected national forum for debating important national issues. 

Therefore, I wish to thank you, Chairman Casey, for your leadership in the 112th Congress, and also I want to join you in recognizing the retiring Members from this Committee: Senator Bingaman from New Mexico, Representative Hinchey from New York, 

and Senator Jim Webb from Virginia. 

In Federalist 70, our first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander 

Hamilton observed, ‘‘Energy in the executive is a leading character 

in the definition of good government.’’ In a divided government, the 

President—the President—must lead and must not abdicate his or 

her responsibility. 

President Obama has the responsibility to propose a real, bipartisan plan to avert the fiscal cliff that can in fact pass both the 

House and the Senate. Drawing from the recommendations from 

the Simpson-Bowles Commission, the President could propose a 

plan that not only averts the so-called fiscal cliff but also helps us 

avert the yawning fiscal abyss by reforming Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and let us not overlook the looming Affordable Care 

Act. If President Obama were to offer such a plan, Republicans 

would likely act favorably. 

Going over the cliff in fact is unnecessary. Yet, as Kimberley 

Strassel observed in The Wall Street Journal, ‘‘The President is 

boxing in the Republicans—offering them a deal they cannot accept, a deal that they cannot even be seen as treating seriously.’’ 

First, the President has repeatedly called for a ‘‘balanced’’ solution involving both more revenue and less spending. But what is 

intuitively obvious to the most casual observer is this plan is not 

balanced. 

The fiscal cliff involves nearly $4 of anticipated revenue from 

higher taxes for every $1 of spending cuts. Yet, the President 

wants even more revenue and fewer spending cuts than if we in 

fact fell off the cliff. His plan includes a new round of stimulus 

spending. A new round of stimulus spending? You’ve got to be kidding me. 

What the President’s plan lacks is any reform in our entitlement 

system. The unrestrained growth in entitlement spending is driving federal spending, driving the budget deficits, and driving the 

debt even higher as a percentage of our Gross Domestic Product. 

The unfunded liabilities of the United States Government are estimated to be as high as $128 trillion. Even if we confiscate all of 

the income in excess of $1 million, we cannot pay for the entitlement commitments that the Federal Government has made. We 

have made promises to ourselves that we simply cannot keep. 

Without some sensible entitlement reform, our credit rating will 

likely be downgraded again, and we are well on the road to becoming a country that none of us would recognize. 

Secondly, fiscal consolidation plans such as the President’s, 

which were heavily weighted toward higher taxes, fail to achieve 

their government budget deficit and debt reduction goals. 

Dr. Hassett has examined fiscal consolidations in 21 other developed countries. On average, unsuccessful plans were composed of 

53 percent revenue increases and 47 percent spending cuts, while 
5 

successful plans were composed of 15 percent revenue increases 

and 85 percent spending cuts. 

Moreover, the higher revenues in successful plans were generally 

drawn from non-tax sources such as asset sales and adjusted fees 

for government services. 

Thirdly, the President argues that if the 2001 tax reductions for 

the middle class are extended, raising marginal tax rates on the 

top 2 percent will not harm the economy because it won’t affect 

consumption expenditures. 

However, Drs. Robert Carroll and Gerald Prante of Ernst and 

Young analyzed the combination of the expiration of the 2001 tax 

reductions for the top 2 percent and the expansion of the Medicare 

tax and its extension to capital income. 

Under the President’s preferred tax policy, the top rate will go 

from 35 percent to 40.9 percent on ordinary income; from 15 percent to 44.7 percent on dividends; and from 15 percent to almost 

25 percent on capital gains. 

The long-term consequences of President Obama’s preferred tax 

policies will have a profound negative effect. Output will fall, capital stock will be smaller, employment will fall by about 700,000 

jobs, and real after-tax wages would fall by almost 2 percent. 

Fewer jobs and lower wages resulting from higher taxes harm the 

middle class. 

The Statistics of Income data from the Internal Revenue Service 

reveal three important facts about the income and tax payments of 

high-income earners. 

The income and tax payments of the wealthy raise much faster 

than the income and tax payments on everyone else during economic booms, but they also fall much faster during economic busts. 

The wealthy earn and report more income when income tax rates 

are low than when they are high. Adjusting for the business cycle 

and stock prices, higher effective tax rates on the wealthy will actually generate only about 10 to 20 percent of the revenue anticipated on a static basis. 

There are better ways to increase federal revenue than hiking 

tax rates. Congress could enact a pro-growth tax reform that lowers 

rates while eliminating or limiting special interest tax deductions, 

credits, or exclusions. 

The President could open more federal lands and offshore areas 

for energy exploration. And his Administration could take a more 

balanced approach to new regulations. 

Economic growth can help solve our fiscal problems. If the economy had grown by 16.8 percent—as it had averaged in other postwar recoveries—instead of the 7.4 percent that occurred, and revenues had returned to the 18.2 percent of GDP that they were in 

the third quarter of 2007, the Treasury could have collected an additional $650 billion in fiscal year 2012, and the federal budget deficit would have fallen from more than $1.1 trillion to $436 billion— 

still bad, but remarkably better than where we find ourselves 

today. 

Republicans stand ready to work with President Obama for a 

truly balanced bipartisan solution. So far, we haven’t seen evidence 

of that. 
6 

Let’s temper our fears by creating a long-term solution that does 

not burden individuals and gives businesses the optimism that 

going forward they will again invest in the American economy and 

our economy can grow for all our citizens. 

With that, I look forward to the testimony of today’s witnesses 

and I yield back my time. 

Chairman Casey. Dr. Burgess, thanks very much. 

I want to introduce our two witnesses right now, Dr. Mark Zandi. 

Dr. Zandi is the Chief Economist of Moody’s Analytics. His research includes macro economics, financial markets and public policy. He is an influential source of economic analysis for policymakers, businesses, and journalists. Recently he published a report 

assessing the challenges of approaching the fiscal cliff and the most 

effective ways to achieve long-term fiscal stability. Dr. Zandi received his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. That will be a 

recurring theme in these introductions. 

[Laughter.] 

And he received his B.S. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Dr. Zandi, thank you for being here. 

Dr. Kevin Hassett is the Director of Economic Policy Studies and 

a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He holds a 

Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. His research areas include the U.S. economy, tax policy, and the stock 

market. Previously Dr. Hassett was a senior economist at the 

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, a professor at 

the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University, and a policy consultant to the Treasury Department during the George H.W. 

Bush and Bill Clinton Administrations. 

Dr. Hassett, we’re grateful you are here. And since you both 

went to Penn, I am sure you are going to agree on everything 

today. 

But I will turn to Dr. Zandi first. 

STATEMENT OF DR. MARK M. ZANDI, CHIEF ECONOMIST, 

MOODY’S ANALYTICS, PHILADELPHIA, PA 

Dr. Zandi. Thank you, Senator. I want to thank you and Dr. 

Burgess and the rest of the Committee for the opportunity here. It 

is really an honor to be here with Kevin, a good friend of mine. 

Let me say that these remarks are my views and not those of— 

they don’t represent the views of Moody’s Corporation. They are my 

own personal views. 

Lawmakers have to quickly resolve three issues: 

First is the fiscal cliff, scaling back the cliff so that it’s manageable. 

Second, raising the Treasury debt ceiling, which as you know is 

becoming an issue fairly soon. 

And third, achieving long-term fiscal sustainability. That is, deficit reduction, tax revenue increases, spending cuts that allow the 

Nation’s debt-to-GDP ratio to stabilize by the end of the decade. 

Those three things need to be done now. 

In terms of the fiscal cliff, by my calculation if policy is unchanged and we go over the cliff and there’s no change after that, 

the hit to GDP in 2013 will be 31⁄2 percentage points. So the econ-
7 

omy is growing 2 percentage points. If you subtract 31⁄2, that is a 

severe recession. And I think the CBO and other modelers like myself are probably under-estimating how severe it would be because 

confidence is very, very weak and I think businesses and consumers, investors, would pull back, and it is unclear how the Federal Reserve would respond to this. So we need to scale back the 

cliff. 

I think at the very minimum, the cliff needs to be scaled back 

so that it is only a hit to GDP of 11⁄2 percentage points, at most. 

That in my view is the fiscal speed limit. If you have cuts, tax increases that have more of a drag than that, then it becomes counterproductive in that the economy will weaken and the budget situation will deteriorate. 

We are seeing the limits of fiscal drag in Europe currently, and 

they are pulling back on some of their fiscal drag. 

I would argue that we should smooth in the fiscal drag even 

more. I would make policy changes so that next year the hit to 

GDP is half the speed limit, something like 7/10ths, 6 to 7/10ths 

of a percent of GDP. That would be consistent with extending the 

current Emergency UI program and some form of the Payroll Tax 

Holiday. 

In terms of the debt ceiling, that at minimum needs to be increased until the other side of the election, and it would be nice to 

extend it past the next Presidential election, and it would be even 

nicer than that to get rid of it altogether. I think it is an anachronistic law that is a problem. It creates a great deal of uncertainty 

and angst. As we can see, you can do a lot of damage to the economy. 

There are a lot of reasonable proposals that are being considered 

to eliminate the debt ceiling, and I think they should be carefully 

considered. 

But this is—at the very minimum, we should push this to the 

other side of the election. We do not want to address the debt ceiling on a regular basis. It is doing a lot of damage to confidence. 

And most importantly, in terms of fiscal sustainability, by my 

calculation we need deficit reduction over the next 10 years of 

about $3 trillion. And to get there, I think a balanced approach 

would be $1.4 trillion in tax revenue, half of which would come 

through tax reform, half of which would come through higher tax 

rates; $1.2 trillion in cuts to programs—Medicare, Medicaid, Social 

Security, and other budget items; and that would leave you with 

approximately $400 billion in net interest savings. 

So if you do the arithmetic, $1.4 [trillion] plus $1.2 [trillion] plus 

$400 billion gets to $3 trillion. 

I think it is appropriate to throw into the mix the spending cuts 

that were implemented as part of the Budget Control Act, the caps 

to discretionary spending which were worth about $1.1 trillion. And 

if you add it all up, if you go down the path I’ve just articulated, 

the spending cuts would be, to revenue, increases would be 2 to 1. 

I think that is appropriate, and I think that is very consistent 

with Simpson-Bowles. I think that is in the spirit of SimpsonBowles and would be a good goal to achieve. And I think it is doable both from an economic perspective and a political perspective. 
8 

Finally, let me say you’ve got to nail this down. Uncertainty is 

killing us. It is hurting business investment. You showed a very 

nice chart about that. It hasn’t affected hiring and layoff decisions 

yet, but it will if we get into next year and we get into February 

and we haven’t nailed this down. The economy and investors will 

bail and the economy will begin to struggle. 

But if you address this problem reasonably gracefully, I think the 

fundamentals of this economy are in very good shape. We have 

made a lot of progress since the Great Recession. And if we nail 

this down, we will be off and running and we will have created a 

lot of jobs and unemployment will be moving south in a very consistent way. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Mark M. Zandi appears in the 

Submissions for the Record on page 36.] 

Chairman Casey. Dr. Zandi, thanks so much. 

Dr. Hassett. 

STATEMENT OF DR. KEVIN HASSETT, SENIOR FELLOW AND DIRECTOR OF ECONOMIC POLICY STUDIES, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, DC 

Dr. Hassett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Members of the 

Committee. It is always a pleasure to appear before this Committee. I wish the rest of Washington could study the Joint Economic Committee. I think under your and Mr. Brady’s leadership 

this has always been a very collegial place to testify, and I am not 

trying to preempt tough questions later on, but thank you. It is an 

honor to be here. 

My testimony is broken up really into two parts. In the first part 

I discuss the short-term consequences of going off the fiscal cliff. In 

that section of my testimony I concur with Mr. Zandi that if we 

were to go off the fiscal cliff with no policy changes, then the nearterm negative economic consequences would be significant and 

would almost surely throw us into a recession. 

And then in the second part of my testimony, which I will focus 

on in my spoken remarks, I discuss the tradeoffs that we face, however, between sort of putting off the tough problems for tomorrow 

because we are worried about near-term effects. 

I think that the evidence of the long-term effects of high government debt and high government debt-to-GDP ratios is really now 

quite overwhelming. It began with an early analysis by Reinhart 

and Rogoff, two economists who analyzed the impact on economic 

growth of high debt levels. And subsequent work by economists at 

the IMF, Kumar and Woo, confirmed their findings that high levels 

of government debt lead to lower levels of growth. 

In fact, the paper that I like the best now because these literatures evolve and get more sophisticated, is a paper by Caner, 

Grennes and Koehler-Geib. And they identify actually a tipping 

point in gross debt-to-GDP ratios where if the gross debt-to-GDP 

gets above about 77 percent—and we’re above that now—then it 

has a significant, very significant negative effect on economic 

growth. 

To put their results in perspective, in my testimony I do a simple 

calculation which provides some intuition for the result. If we were 
9 

to, all else equal, run a deficit of 6 percent of GDP for the next 10 

years, then that would add to the debt-to-GDP ratio by about 60 

percent—not quite, because GDP is growing—but then that increase would be enough at the end of the decade to reduce, according to these econometric estimates, to reduce the annual growth 

forecasts by about a whole percentage point a year. 

These long-run crowding-out effects are very, very significant. 

Now that growth story might be alarming, but the picture looks 

even worse if you think about the potential of financial calamity 

and the kind of risks that we’re seeing actually become a reality 

in Europe. This year, much of Europe has been in turmoil because 

of the Greek debt crisis, but in many ways the sickest European 

nations are actually in better shape than us. 

While the U.S. debt may seem manageable to many who look at 

struggles in other countries and take consolation in our relative 

stability, the situation in the U.S. today when taken in the long 

run is actually farther from debt stability than many other developed countries. 

I cite in my testimony a recent study by the OECD that examined long-term projections for OECD countries’ debt burdens and 

found that the U.S. needs a bigger fiscal adjustment than any of 

the European nations. I think that puts in perspective the urgency 

that we have to try to act. 

Given the previous research that has estimated the effect of 

higher debt-to-GDP ratios on economic growth, it is also possible to 

theorize about how a continuation of today’s policies could hurt 

growth farther out into the future. 

I cite in my testimony a recent paper by Stanford’s Michael 

Boskin who shows that if we don’t act on this, then we basically 

are producing a fundamentally different America than the one that 

we’re used to. Boskin’s estimates, which again are based on this 

widely accepted literature, suggests that we’re going to move into 

a world by say 2040 where economic growth in the U.S. is not what 

we normally expect to see each year; that there is so much crowding out of private activity by the government that we are in a 

world where you do not wake up each January and expect that we 

will have positive GDP growth that year. 

So that is how urgent it is to act. 

So then what should we do? In my testimony I cite another now 

large and burgeoning literature that looks at fiscal consolidations. 

Using my own study as an example, along with two colleagues I’ve 

written an analysis exploring policy mixes of successful and unsuccessful consolidations. And our metric of success is did they just 

achieve their own objectives of deficit reduction? Based on our analysis, we found that the fiscal consolidations that were very heavily 

weighted towards spending were much more likely to be successful 

than fiscal consolidations that were heavily weighted toward tax 

increases. 

We speculate, Mr. Chairman, in our study that this is because— 

that we find this result because the tax-heavy fiscal consolidations 

tend to not take the tough choices on entitlements, and because 

spending reductions are more real and more sure than tax revenue 

increases when you lift marginal tax rates. 
10 

I know that it is very easy for an economist to discuss reforms 

that could put the U.S. back on a positive trajectory, and I think 

Mr. Zandi and I probably agree pretty much on the rough outline 

of what that would look like, and I know that the political challenge is a very, very heavy one, but I think if you look forward to 

the America that we are creating with this large and out-of-control 

deficit, then we all have to agree that the stakes could not possibly 

be higher. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Kevin Hassett appears in the 

Submissions for the Record on page 47.] 

Chairman Casey. Thanks so much, Dr. Hassett. 

I wanted to start with a comment about something we’re probably not talking enough about in Washington, and I think it is a 

component part of what we have got to confront. Even as we are 

wrestling with trying to get an agreement on the fiscal cliff, we 

cannot lose sight of the urgent priority of making sure that we 

have job growth and—job creation, I should say, that leads to economic growth. 

Dr. Zandi, many of the components that you have outlined, and 

both of you have, that comprise, or are kind of under the broad description of fiscal cliff, whether it is the expiring tax cut provisions, 

the expiring payroll tax cut extension, and of course spending cuts 

as well, if you consider all of those, and more that you could add 

to that list, which of those—and you may have several—but which 

of those would you consider having the biggest bang for the buck 

in terms of economic impact of those that we’re discussing here 

today, in terms of the impact that they will have? 

Dr. Zandi. Well I think, let’s just take as given that we will extend the current tax rates for taxpayers that make less than 

$250,000 on a joint basis. I mean, I think that is given and that 

is absolutely necessary. And then we consider the panoply of other 

things that are happening when we get to January 1st, in terms 

of bang-for-the-buck, or dollar-for-dollar, the Emergency Unemployment Insurance Program is very effective. It is small in the grand 

scheme of things. CBO is estimating that it would cost—if extended 

as currently configured for calendar year 2013, about $30–$35 billion. 

But the benefit to GDP, to economic activity, to job growth, to the 

unemployment rate would be measurably more than that. And I 

think the UI Program, the Emergency UI Program, is going to 

wind down on its own. It already is. At its peak, Emergency UI had 

5.96 million people in the program. We are now down to 2 million, 

and it is falling 800,000, 900,000 per year. I would expect it to fall 

even more than that in the coming year, just because unemployment rates are falling, the decline in the economy, the job market 

is slowly improving, and also there are some limits to how much 

emergency UI you can collect. 

There are downsides to the program. There are disincentive effects. There’s some really good work that’s come out of the Federal 

Reserve documenting that. So it’s not a slam-dunk positive, but on 

that it’s a very significant positive, and I would consider that to be 

very significant. 
11 

I think the payroll tax holiday has also been very effective. It has 

a very high bang-for-the-buck. It is kind of hidden. You know, people do not really recognize it. It is kind of a stealth tax cut. But 

it gets spent. And it is generally designed—it is designed a way 

that helps generally lower- and middle-income households. It is expensive, though. It is over $100 billion in calendar year 

2013. So you might want to consider scaling that back. Right now 

it’s a 2 percent holiday. You could go to 1 percent. Or there are 

some good proposals to go back to—remember ‘‘Making Work Pay?’’ 

That was a pretty good middle ground cost. It cost about half the 

current payroll tax holiday. And it was probably more effective in 

the sense that it is designed to help even more lower- and middleincome households, less than the payroll tax holiday. So I think 

that is also a very effective program. 

Chairman Casey. Dr. Hassett, do you have any comments on 

this question? 

Dr. Hassett. Yes. Thank you for asking me that, Mr. Chairman. 

I disagree with my distinguished friend on this. 

I think that Keynes himself wrote about the kind of place where 

we are right now, which is that you can get into a cycle of dependence on short-term measures, and that it can lead to a kind of a 

downward spiral as the national debt gets bigger and bigger because you keep trying to stimulate things with one-year shots. 

I think that—and perhaps I could—I don’t mean to ask Mr. 

Zandi a question, it’s not my place, but I speculate that he 

might—— 

Chairman Casey. You’re not allowed to do that. 

[Laughter.] 

Dr. Hassett. No, I understand that. But I speculate that he 

might concur that the best possible thing we could do right now for 

unemployed Americans is fix our big problems; that if all of a sudden America’s businesses had clarity about what the future would 

look like, people didn’t fear radical changes to fiscal policy because 

they could see that we have a sustainable policy over the next 10 

years, the sigh of relief rally from such a thing would dwarf anything you might get from tinkering with UI benefits or payroll 

taxes. 

Chairman Casey. I appreciate that. I am out of time, but I will 

try to come back to these issues in a moment. 

Dr. Burgess. 

Representative Burgess. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Well, Dr. Hassett, it’s an interesting proposition. Since you cannot ask the question, Dr. Zandi, let me pose Dr. Hassett’s question 

to you. 

If the best thing that could be done is a long-term fix for our 

problems—in other words, to get out of this cycle of recurring difficulties that we are in—would you agree with Dr. Hassett on that? 

Dr. Zandi. Yeah, I think that in a sense that I agree that we 

do not want to get into a cycle of dependency; that we need to 

phase out the temporary supports that we have been providing to 

the economy. And in fact that is what we have been doing. 

If you go back to 2009, federal fiscal policy was a source of major 

fiscal stimulus, adding 2.5 percentage points by my calculation to 

GDP. By 2011, federal fiscal policy was neutral with respect to the 
12 

economy. In this calendar year, 2012, it is going to subtract from 

growth .8 of 1 percent. So we have already gone from fiscal stimulus to fiscal drag. And all I am arguing is for calendar 2013 to 

smooth in the fiscal drag. 

Really, no one is talking about stimulus in the sense that the 

government is going to be providing a tailwind to the economy. All 

we are debating now is how much of a headwind it will be. So I 

think that we should smooth in that drag, and I think it would be 

easier for the economy to digest and in the longer run we will all 

be better for it. 

Representative Burgess. And since you are not allowed to ask 

Dr. Hassett a question, let me ask Dr. Hassett—— 

Dr. Zandi. Is that like a committee rule, or—— 

[Laughter.] 

Representative Burgess. It’s Mr. Casey’s rule. 

Chairman Casey. I don’t think it’s a rule; we’re just trying to 

keep it to a minimum. 

[Laughter.] 

Representative Burgess. But, Dr. Hassett, let me ask you for 

your response to Dr. Zandi’s observation on the cycle of dependency. 

Dr. Hassett. You know, I think that it is quite possible that that 

is where we are. And I think that—— 

Representative Burgess. Can I just interject here? It feels that 

way to me, just as a simple country doctor and a legislator; it 

seems like we are in the cycle of dependency, and we deal with 

2011 debt limit, and we dealt with the stimulus in 2009. It just 

seems like the same things with different labels keep coming to us 

over and over and over again. And quite frankly, I am having difficulty seeing the way out of this cycle. But I would be interested 

in your observations. 

Dr. Hassett. Thank you, Mr. Burgess. And in fact, the way I can 

think about this, I like to think about this, and I think at Moody’s 

they have always been careful to put this complete perspective into 

their analysis that has even often been quite supportive of the 

stimulus, is that the way you can think about what happens if 

you’re playing the Keynesian game, is that you, say, decide to 

spend a lot this year, or mail checks, helicopter checks to folks this 

year, that has some multiplier effects. 

So maybe if you spend 1 percent, you get 2 percent more GDP 

this year. But then when you take it away next year, then you are 

starting out with GDP growth of about 2 percent lower. The two 

effects are equal and opposite. You go up, and then you go back 

down. 

The hope is that you abate a calamity by going up. That would 

be the Keynesian hope. But the problem is that the Keynesian policy, really you have to look at all three acts. And the third act is 

when you pay for it. 

And so you go up. And then you go down. Those two effects are 

equal and opposite. And then there is a third phase where you pay 

for it, and that is a negative. 

And so if we look at sort of the 10-year full-cost of doing a 

Keynesian policy, it is a net negative. Because in the end it is going 
13 

to cost something, either to pay the interest or to have the tax 

hikes to pay for it. 

You see that even in the long-run CBO analysis of these policies. 

And the problem is that we are now kind of in the hangover phase 

from these things. 

Representative Burgess. It feels like a hangover. 

Dr. Hassett. But I can say that there is a way out, and it is a 

very promising way out, which is that again if we just now recognize that we are out of the emergency period, and if we fix our big 

problems we can get over the hangover, then I think that we can 

find bipartisan agreement for moving the Nation ahead. 

Representative Burgess. Let me just ask you on the issue of 

fiscal consolidations that you brought up, and the President is proposing the 47 percent spending cuts and 53 percent revenue increases. You argue for 85 percent spending cuts, 15 percent revenue, not all of it from taxes. 

Why in the world would we even consider the President’s plan 

under the scenario that you describe? 

Dr. Hassett. You could argue—the argument against our paper 

being a guide is that there are many smaller countries that maybe 

have to be more aggressive about spending because people who 

lend them money might head for the exits quicker. 

But the thing that I know is true is, if you want to base our consolidation on the things that succeeded in the past, then you would 

be 85 percent spending. And then I think that you could have quite 

a great deal of comfort that it would be successful, because I think 

the arguments that we might be able to handle having a little bit 

larger revenue share than that because we’re such a big lump of 

a country. But if we copied the successful ones, then we should almost surely succeed. But if we err towards the half-and-half approach—and you can look in our paper, when it came out almost 

two years ago now, we said in the paper ex ante that the UK consolidation was going to fail because it had too much revenue. 

And as we’re seeing now, like all the millionaires headed for the 

exits and so on, it’s exactly the kind of thing that will happen here 

if we lean on taxes on the rich only. 

Representative Burgess. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I will yield 

back. 

Chairman Casey. Dr. Burgess, thank you. Representative 

Maloney. 

Representative Maloney. Thank you. 

First I would like to congratulate the Chairman on his re-election, and on the fine work that he has done as Chairman of this 

Committee; and to congratulate Mr. Brady on being selected as the 

Chair of this Committee in the next Congress. 

Both of our distinguished witnesses agree that what we really 

need to do is have a long-term solution. I would like to first ask 

Dr. Zandi how we achieve that? We are roughly $700 billion apart 

between the President’s proposal and Leader Boehner’s proposal. 

How would you close that gap? 

First I would like you to outline briefly the President’s proposal, 

briefly Speaker Boehner’s proposal—I believe it’s $700 billion—how 

would you close that in a bipartisan way so that we could get this 

behind us, get people employed, and move our economy forward? 
14 

Dr. Zandi. O.K. Thank you, Congresswoman, for the opportunity 

to address this question. 

I apologize. There are going to be a few numbers, a fair number 

of numbers here. 

The President’s tax proposal, tax revenue proposal, amounts to 

about $1.6 trillion over a 10-year period. And I apologize if I don’t 

get the numbers exactly right. 

Representative Maloney. Yes, we understand. We want the 

broad picture. 

Dr. Zandi. Right. Of that $1.6 trillion, roughly $1 trillion is from 

higher tax rates; roughly $600 billion is from tax—some form of tax 

reform. He’s got his own proposal. There are a number of other different proposals that are all reasonably good proposals. 

Speaker Boehner’s proposal on the revenue—first I will do the 

revenue side, and then I will go to the spending side. Speaker 

Boehner’s proposal is roughly $800 billion in tax reform. So we’re 

about $800 billion apart on taxes. 

My view is that we should roughly split the difference. I would 

propose $1.4 trillion in tax revenue; $700 billion would come 

through tax reform. And again we can discuss what that might 

look like. And $700 billion would come from higher tax rates. 

So the President would scale back his trillion dollar target for 

tax—revenue from tax rates to about $700 billion. We could talk 

about how we might do that. 

On the spending side, the President has proposed $600 billion in 

spending cuts over the next 10 years. And of course this subtracting from the BCA spending cuts that are already in law. 

Of the $600 billion, $350 billion approximately is Medicare/Medicaid; $250 billion is Ag subsidies and other government programs. 

Speaker Boehner has come forward with some proposals, but it 

is unclear exactly how much it adds up to. I am not quite clear how 

much the spending cuts he has proposed. 

Let me just say this, though. I think the President’s proposal is 

short. I think to get to where we need to go, my $3 trillion target, 

fiscal sustainability, we need $1.2 trillion in spending cuts. And I 

do think we need to focus both on entitlements—now the President 

has put Social Security outside his plan. I think it is likely it 

should be part of the process, and we can do some things to reform 

Social Security. But at the end of the day, it has got to be almost 

double what he is proposing. 

Now one other point I would make. Because if you actually sit 

down and do the arithmetic on the spending cuts, particularly 

when you look at Medicare and Medicaid, when you kind of think 

through what we’re going to do here, it is really, unless you are 

proposing big structural change in the programs, which I do not 

think that’s on the table at the moment, it is difficult to get that 

six hundred—say go from $350 billion to $600 billion in Medicare 

and Medicaid cuts. It is really tough. 

So I think if you got to a run rate of about $600 billion in cuts 

by the 10th year of the plan, I think that is O.K. because again the 

bottom line is we want fiscal sustainability at the end of this 10- 

year horizon. If we do that, then investors are happy, rating agencies are happy, and we are off and running. 
15 

Representative Maloney. My time is about to expire, but Dr. 

Hassett, I would like to hear your analysis of how far we are apart 

and how we could close that $700 billion gap. 

Dr. Hassett. Thank you. I think the way to think about the 

challenges that we have are tremendous, as a Nation, a tremendous opportunity to make sure that we hand off a thriving economy 

to our kids. And in my testimony I mentioned that if we were to 

run $600 billion deficits for the next 10 years, then at the end of 

10 years the debt, just from that deficit, just the $600 billion a year 

over the next 10 years, would reduce our long-run GDP forecasts 

by about 1 percent per year forever. So that if we were to cut, with a fiscal consolidation, that $600 

billion deficit to $300 billion, then we would be buying future generations about half a percent a year of GDP growth in the long run. 

If we had a bigger cut, we would be buying even more. If we have 

a smaller cut, we would be buying even less. 

And so in terms of how big of a cut can we make, can we afford 

to make, then I think it is really ultimately a question of what kind 

of world do we want to live in 10 years from now. If we want to 

live in a world that grows kind of the way Europe has been growing for the last few decades, then we should have a very small consolidation like the smaller consolidation proposed by the President. 

I think that we are going to have very unacceptable growth if we 

do that. And I think that if we want to have the kind of growth 

that I hope we would have, you would have a bigger consolidation 

than has even been proposed by Mr. Boehner. 

Representative Maloney. My time has expired. Thank you. 

Chairman Casey. Thank you, Representative Maloney. Representative Mulvaney. 

Representative Mulvaney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to come back to do something—focus on something that 

is probably more of interest to the economists in the room than the 

ordinary people. 

I share, Mr. Hassett, your enjoyment of these Committee meetings. I swear, though, I think we will put people to sleep if we do 

this more frequently. 

Let’s talk about ratios. Because what I heard you lay out, Dr. 

Zandi, was your sort of ideal situation where we have a $1.4 trillion revenue increase, a $1.2 trillion spending reduction, and then 

you add an anticipated .4 trillion, $400 billion interest savings, it 

gets you to roughly a $3 trillion deficit reduction over the course 

of the 10 years. That is a roughly 1.1 ratio. And then you went on 

to add the $1.2 trillion that we have already saved as a result of 

the negotiations over last year’s debt ceiling. 

I would suggest to you, by the way, that while that does get you 

to 2-to-1, that the $1.2 trillion from last year is already in the baseline. So the new number would really be 1-to-1. But that is not my 

question. 

My question is, I want to go to what’s actually being discussed 

now. And you started in response to Mrs. Maloney to lay out the 

President’s offer. We looked at the President’s offer today and we’re 

trying to find any spending reductions at all. 

What we have found so far is what you mentioned accurately, the 

$1.6 trillion in tax increases. The stimulus spending. The extension 
16 

of the Unemployment Insurance, which is an increase in spending. 

The extension of the payroll tax cut, which is really an increase. 

The delay in the sequester cuts, which would be a reduction in the 

spending reductions we’re anticipating. And then no entitlement reform whatsoever. 

So I guess the question I have to ask you is: Does the President’s 

current offer meet your own test of a 2-to-1 ratio? We can have a 

discussion later as to whether or not 2-to-1 is sufficient, but do you 

think that what the President has offered meets the 2-to-1 test? 

Dr. Zandi. No. It is short. He needs to come up with more 

spending cuts. He needs to come up with, roughly in my calculation, about $600 billion more in spending cuts over the next 10 

years. 

I will say, though, in defense of the White House, I do think 

there are significant reforms in Medicare, Medicaid, agricultural 

subsidies, and other programs in the budget, at least what I looked 

at, and those are pretty difficult things to implement. I mean, it 

takes a lot of guts to propose those things. So I would not discount 

them. I think they are important. 

But to answer your question specifically, I think we need more 

spending cuts, yes, to get to my ideal. 

Representative Mulvaney. And I am looking now at your testimony from page 9. It says: ‘‘Fourth, to achieve the 2-to-1 ratio, policymakers need to reform entitlements.’’ You go on to say that 

some of the suggestions that my party has offered may be too radical for you, but I appreciate the candor, by the way, on entitlements. 

One of the disappointing things to me is that I do see members 

of the other party, most notably Mr. Hoyer, say that entitlements 

were on the table. Although then I read the details and it said ‘‘not 

now.’’ They are on the table for later discussion. 

But I have been disappointed that all of the discussion seems to 

be focused on the revenue side, and not on the spending side. Most 

specifically, on the entitlement side. 

I want to move very quickly to the debt ceiling. There was something very interesting in your testimony that caught my attention 

that I was not familiar with in this form, which is your support for 

the initiative offered by Senator Rob Portman. 

When we talk about the debt ceiling, you say, and I’ll read now: 

‘‘Separately, lawmakers could adopt a version of the so-called dollar-for-dollar rule first proposed by Ohio Senator Rob Portman to 

address the 2011 debt ceiling. Under Portman’s rule, policymakers 

would agree at the beginning of each fiscal year to cut spending 

equal to the amount the debt ceiling must be raised to cover that 

year’s budget. The spending cuts would be phased in gradually over 

the following 10 years. Adopting some form of this rule would be 

a good safeguard in case Congress misses its deficit reduction targets.’’ 

I can tell you that, while I appreciate Senator Portman’s input, 

that was actually I think the Speaker who was talking about exactly those types of same structure, which is a dollar of spending 

reduction for every dollar of debt increase. 

So my question to you, Dr. Zandi, is: Isn’t this exactly what we 

did in the BCA that now everybody is trying to get out of? We had 
17 

a dollar of spending reductions, 1.2 already in place, the other portion coming in the sequester, in exchange for the same amount of 

increase to the debt ceiling. Isn’t that what we did? And if that is 

such a good idea, why are you and others now suggesting that it 

is not a good idea; we need to peel back, or at least delay the implementation of the sequester cuts? 

Dr. Zandi. Well let me say a few things. 

First, you have to put this in the broad context. So I think we 

need to get rid of the debt ceiling law. That is anachronistic. I 

think it is a problem and we need to get rid of it. 

But I do think, if we are going to do that, we need to have some 

new budget mechanisms to ensure that there is some discipline 

going forward. I suggest in the testimony readoption of full 

PAYGO. I think that is a reasonable thing to do. 

And I did also suggest that some version of the dollar-for-dollar 

rule should be implemented, or at least considered, both on the 

spending side and on the tax revenue side. It doesn’t have to be 

one-for-one. It could be 50 percent; some mechanism to make sure 

that there is some future fiscal discipline. 

But that is now going forward. I mean, my view is we need to nail down how we get to fiscal sustainability, the $3 trillion that 

I propose. Get rid of the debt ceiling law as it is currently configured. And adopt some budget rule—and I am throwing that out as 

an idea—but we need some form of budget rule to make sure that 

there is some discipline going forward. 

Representative Mulvaney. Some structure. 

Dr. Zandi. Yes, some structure. Because the other thing, you 

can lay out a plan but it has to be a credible plan. I mean, it has 

got to convince everyone that we are going to stick to this plan. 

Representative Mulvaney. Thank you, Dr. Zandi. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Casey. Thank you, Representative Mulvaney. Senator Bingaman. 

Senator Bingaman. Thank you all very much for being here. I 

appreciate the testimony. 

Dr. Hassett, Dr. Zandi has indicated that he thinks the debt 

limit crisis we had in August of 2011 was bad for the economy and 

bad for the country and we should avoid that in the future. 

Do you agree with that? 

Dr. Hassett. Thank you, sir. Yes, I think that the best estimate 

of this was done by a University of Chicago economist Steve Davis 

and co-authors where they have this very cool index of economic 

uncertainty. It is a new way of doing it. It is a very innovative 

paper. 

And they estimated that that debt-limit struggle probably subtracted about 11⁄2 percent from GDP growth during that summer 

when it was happening because of the uncertainty and all of the 

sort of inactivity that was caused by high levels of uncertainty. 

And so I think that each time we go through that, we bear a negative short-run cost. But I would just like to add that if that is 

what it takes, though, to get spending under control, then we have 

to concede that in the long run there is a benefit, which is that we 

do not have these massive deficits that are crowding out long-run 

economic growth. 
18 

And so in the fullness of time, whether a struggle like we had 

last summer was worth it would really depend on whether the deficit reduction buys space for private capital or not. If we have the 

spending cuts and deficits are lower, then we might have higher 

economic growth in the long run because we went through that 

struggle last year. 

Senator Bingaman. So you think—your position is that we 

should be ready to go through that struggle again, and in fact default on the national debt if necessary in order to enforce spending 

limits? 

Dr. Hassett. That is of course not my position, Senator. My position is not that we should ever default on the national debt. My 

position is that the politics of deficit reduction, as you all know better than me, are very, very difficult. And I am not a political expert. And if there is a mechanism out there, a thing that we have 

to do now and then that helps deficit reduction occur, then I am 

not so willing to stop that process for all of time. 

Senator Bingaman. But you are saying that defaulting on the 

national debt may be one of those things we have to do now and 

then. 

Dr. Hassett. No, it is not. No, sir. We did not default on the debt 

last summer. 

Senator Bingaman. We did not, and—but the threat is there 

again that we might here in January or February default on the 

debt. Is it your position that we should be willing to default on the 

debt if that is necessary in order to force spending cuts? 

Dr. Hassett. I would not be willing to default on the debt under 

any circumstance. I could add that if you look at the history of debt 

limit increases, which I have done, that there is a long history of 

especially parties out of power using that debt limit as a moment 

to extract concessions from the party in power. And so the history 

of debt limits, it’s not obvious to me that if we had an academic 

seminar about the impact of the debt limit struggle on fiscal policy, 

that we would say that it was a negative. Because there are often 

times when having that extra little bit of power over the opposition 

is useful for either party, if they’re in the opposition. 

Senator Bingaman. Well I can say that, at least in the 30 years 

that I have been here in the Senate, I have never, until last—until 

August of 2011, I had not seen any serious effort, or any serious 

threat made by the leadership of Congress to refuse to give the 

Secretary of the Treasury the ability to borrow to meet the obligations Congress had already adopted. 

And so I thought that was a new experience for us. It certainly 

was for me to see that happen. 

Dr. Zandi, you have said you think we just ought to repeal this 

law that tries to set a debt limit and concentrate more on taxing 

and spending policies that cause us to raise the debt, as I understand it? 

Dr. Zandi. Absolutely. I think it is just a really bad law, a bad 

way to conduct policy, and it’s a big problem. I mean, we could see 

that in July and August of 2011. It was a mess, and it really undermined our economy. S&P downgraded the debt. And it really 

had an impact, dollars and cents. It means CBO is estimating the 
19 

interest costs—it’s costing us money because we’ve gone down this 

path. 

And, it’s pretty clear that this is not going to get any better going 

forward. It’s just going to get—the brinkmanship is just going to 

get worse. So this is a really bad way of doing things. We need to 

get rid of this. 

Now having said that, we need budget rules. We need to be able 

to figure out a way to try to be credible in terms of what we are 

saying about future tax and spending policy, but this approach, the 

debt ceiling approach, is just the wrong way of doing it. 

Senator Bingaman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Casey. Thanks, Senator Bingaman. 

Senator Coats. 

Senator Coats. Thank you. 

I want to just pursue that question a little bit, because this was 

on my mind also. My experience is that the political system, and 

the political animal finds it awfully difficult to say no to constituents, with re-election in mind, or just the natural human tendency 

to want to please people rather than not disappoint them. 

I had the privilege of having dinner with Christine Lagarde, the 

head of the IMF, and I asked her the question about the reforms 

taking place in Europe. And I asked her the question, ‘‘Would any 

of these reforms be taking place without Europe being in fiscal crisis mode?’’ 

Her answer was, ‘‘Absolutely not.’’ She said, unless the revolver 

is at the temple of the politician, with the finger on the trigger, 

they are not capable of summoning the collective will to take the 

necessary steps to tell the people that they represent that they 

have to take some steps to resolve the problem, and it will cause 

some disappointment and some pain in order to do so. 

And my experience in the years that I have had involved in politics is exactly that. We never would have gotten the BCA, whether 

you think that was enough or not enough, in August of 2011, in 

my opinion, without the threat of defaulting on our debt. 

And to think that we could put a structure in place today that 

perhaps we would all be comfortable with in terms of solving our 

long-term problem, and be assured that 10 years from now the 

Congress would not have modified that dozens of times to the responsive constituents who are banging on the door saying, ‘‘This is 

too much pain; we can’t sustain this in the long run.’’ We can hardly sustain a policy for months around here, let alone 10 years. 

And so if we really want to fix our long-term situation that’s 

been described, I think there is a consensus that without that longterm fix and a credible fix we can’t get from here to there, relative 

to where we want our debt-to-GDP ratio to be to provide that kind 

of growth and what we want to hand off to future generations. 

We have to factor in a big factor of the political system here and 

the way politicians think and react, and the history of that. And 

we need leverages in order to address that. 

I am really not asking for a response, because you have already 

responded to that, and I think stated your positions. I just wanted 

to add my two cents’ worth in terms of why I think it is so important that we had those leverage points. 
20 

Now maybe there are other ways of doing this, but my experience is the next Congress, or even the current Congress can undo 

that in a pretty big hurry, as the constituents line up outside our 

doors. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Zandi. Can I just, in response? 

Senator Coats. Yes. 

Dr. Zandi. Because you make some good points. I would say, 

though, it is a mistake to put your revolver to your head on a regular basis. In the case of Europe, this is hopefully a once-in-fivegeneration event that we are going through now, and they nailed 

this thing down. 

We do not want to do this on a regular basis, and that is what 

we are setting ourselves up for with the current law. And that is 

going to be a problem for our economy. Business people are not 

going to engage unless they have clarity with respect to this thing. 

The other thing I would say is, I have more faith in you than apparently you have in this institution. At the end of the day, you 

do the right thing. If you look at the history of this body, it ultimately comes up with roughly the right answer. And we have not 

done it with the debt ceiling since the beginning of our country. So 

I think we are very capable of doing it, and we can do it without 

this kind of an anachronistic law. 

Senator Coats. Well I would just respond by saying we have 

been talking about dealing with our cascading debt and deficit for 

decades, and I would say we have been far short of doing the right 

thing that has put us in the position to look for a healthy fiscal future. 

Chairman Casey. Thank you, Senator Coats. 

Senator Klobuchar. 

Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I 

would just add, Dr. Zandi, that I agree that we usually do the right 

thing. But what did Winston Churchill say? ‘‘After we try everything else.’’ 

And I think that time has come. And I actually see this obviously 

as a scary time in that we need to protect our still-fragile economy. 

But I also see it as an incredible opportunity to move forward to 

give the people of this country and the markets faith to invest and 

to really take what is now a time of relative stability, but move it 

forward if we can get this right. 

And so my first question is just based on, you know, your predictions that we need to get this done. What do you think the time 

frame is before we see a negative reaction from the markets and 

a possibility of further downgrades from the credit rating agencies? 

Dr. Zandi. First let me say, I am obviously not part of the rating 

agencies so I have no particular inside information. I read what 

they say, and so this is my interpretation of the perspective coming 

from the rating agencies. 

Obviously there is a lot of uncertainty here. I don’t know for sure 

but this is my guess based on experience. And I do think that people outside the Beltway have a lot more faith in you than you do. 

There will not be a reaction, a negative reaction, because we can 

even go into next year. And by the way, I would counsel not coming 

up—I would not come up with a deal unless it is a really good deal, 
21 

before the end of the year. I would take it into next year if that 

means you are going to get a better deal, a deal to solve the three 

fiscal issues that I brought up. 

Senator Klobuchar. So what you are saying is a deal that really does not mean much probably would not help us? 

Dr. Zandi. It would not be helpful. And if you read what the rating agencies say, to avoid a downgrade of the U.S. Treasury debt 

we need something that is pretty close to fiscal sustainability. You 

have to get to my $3 trillion. 

Senator Klobuchar. You have to show that you’re talking—— 

Dr. Zandi. Yes, because, if you read what they say, they say 

that if we fall short of that we’ve got a problem. 

Senator Klobuchar. O.K. You brought up Social Security. Do 

you see that as, and I think there is some general agreement we 

should do some reforms to make it more solvent, do you see that 

as the money going back into Social Security if we were to embark 

on that, set up a commission, do it separately? I think there is a 

lot of talk about, O.K., we should do that. But the funds should go 

back into Social Security to keep it solvent. 

Dr. Zandi. Yes, I think that is a perfectly reasonable way to do 

it. 

Senator Klobuchar. O.K. My colleague, Senator Coburn, said 

yesterday that in the near term he would rather see rates go up 

for the wealthiest Americans versus an approach that would simply 

close some of the deductions and loopholes that are available because he believes it gives us a greater long-term change to reform 

the tax code. 

Do you agree with his assessment? And then also, do you think 

this is a wise course? We have all talked about that we have to 

have these spending cuts in that $2.2 trillion we’re talking about, 

plus we can get $700 billion which I support by simply going back 

to the Clinton levels over $250,000. 

Do you agree with his assessment? 

Dr. Zandi. I’m not sure I exactly got it right. 

Senator Klobuchar. His assessment was that we have to look 

at tax rates. That we should look at raising tax rates on the 

wealthiest, instead of just saying we should look at deductions and 

loopholes. 

Dr. Zandi. Oh, I think we need to do both. To get to my $1.4 

trillion, if you’re going down my path, we need both. There is no 

way to get to that number with tax reform alone, if you consider 

that we are not going to take away charitable deductions, and if 

your goal is not to raise taxes from lower- and middle-income 

households. If it’s the folks that are at the top bracket, the 

$250,000 plus, then there is no way to do the arithmetic. 

There are a lot of good ways of doing reform, a lot of good proposals, but there is no good way of doing it to raise that kind of 

revenue. So we need to do both. We need tax reform, and we need 

higher tax rates on upper income households. 

Senator Klobuchar. And it would seem to me that you could 

do the tax rates at the end of this year, because then you could 

make the kind of deal that you want; and then do some of the closing of the loopholes and subsidies. And I would hope, as a state 

that has some incredibly strong businesses that support doing this, 
22 

you could bring the corporate tax rate down and work on the debt 

in part by closing these loopholes and subsidies. 

Dr. Zandi. Yes. I don’t think tax reform is complicated, and entitlement reform is even more complicated. I’m not arguing that you 

nail those down. I’m just saying nail down the framework, and 

then go to work and try to figure this out precisely. 

In terms of corporate tax reform, I think that is absolutely necessary. But I think the goal there would be to make that revenue 

neutral, if you can, because you want to bring down those corporate 

rates so that we can become more competitive. 

Senator Klobuchar. And, Dr. Hassett, what did you think of 

Senator Coburn’s assessment? You know that he’s worked very 

hard on this and wants dearly to reduce the debt, like so many people at this table. 

Dr. Hassett. Yes, I disagree with—I have a great deal of respect, 

of course, for the Senator, but in this I disagree. I think that the 

fact is that we have so many tax expenditures, both in the corporate and income tax side, that accomplish very little in terms of 

economic efficiency, that precisely now with unemployment still unacceptably high, and manufacturing jobs fleeing overseas, we need 

to seek ways to make ourselves a friendly place for investment, for 

capital, for small businesses. 

I am very concerned, for example, that I’ve seen that the President continues to say that 97 percent of small businesses would not 

be affected by the top rate. But it is a very, very misleading statistic because anyone who has any profit from a sale on eBay would 

put it on their Schedule C and we’re calling them a small business. 

But the fact is that real businesses that employ people, we are 

looking at more than half the income is in that bracket. And I 

think it is just a bad time to be keeping all of the tax candy, the 

tax expenditures, and lifting taxes on the few people who are actually creating jobs in this economy. And so I kind of very strongly 

disagree. 

Senator Klobuchar. Yes, I just heard different things from 

some of our businesses that want this major, big term deal, and 

they are willing to make some sacrifices as long as we really are 

on the right path. Because they see that as their own long-term viability if we go that way. 

But thank you to both of you. I appreciate it. 

Chairman Casey. Thank you, Senator Klobuchar. My colleague 

from Pennsylvania, Senator Toomey. 

Senator Toomey. Thank you to my colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Casey, and thanks for convening this hearing. 

First I would like Dr. Hassett to see if you agree with the way 

I am looking at the President’s proposal, the most recent proposal, 

that had some specifics in other areas. It was very unclear exactly 

what he is getting at, but I think it is clear that there is a headline 

tax increase that he wants of $1.6 trillion. And I think what the 

Administration would describe as $600 billion in spending reductions. 

But when you drill down, it looks to me like there is much less 

even than that in spending restraint. For instance, it looks like 

$200 billion of what they put under the $600 billion heading is in 
23 

fact revenue—fees and various other forms of revenue. That is not 

spending restraint at all. 

There is a deferral of the sequestration. I’m not sure it is clear 

how long that deferral is meant to be, but if it is for one year, that 

is $100 billion. And I would think it is intended to be at least that. 

Then there is additional stimulus spending, and various other 

forms of spending, the doc fix and other things that add up to at 

least $100 billion. So that is $400 billion, anyway, that you should 

legitimately I think deduct from the headline $600 billion if you 

wanted to arrive at what might be a legitimate spending restraint. 

So then if you go back and say, well, O.K., it is $1.6 trillion in 

new revenue, they certainly want that. And maybe we have got 

$200 billion in spending restraint. Is it fair to say that this is about 

an 8-to-1 ratio? 

Dr. Hassett. That is about right. 

Senator Toomey. Where revenue, tax increases are eight times 

the spending restraint? 

Dr. Hassett. That’s right, even in the specific proposal. But it’s 

sort of part of—there’s some recidivism here in the sense that I 

think that the spending reductions have systematically been overstated in recent years by the President, and often double-counting 

the Iraq War savings and things like that. 

Senator Toomey. Yes. 

Dr. Hassett. But it appears to me that there’s a heck of a lot 

of tax increase and almost no spending reductions. 

Senator Toomey. And in fact, you know, spending programs 

that you launch, they surely happen. That money gets spent. Promises of future savings? Much less so. And so when the President 

talks about new stimulus spending, if he had his way I’m quite 

sure that would happen. 

I am not sure the savings would materialize at all. What I am 

suggesting is, in reality the President’s proposal is almost entirely 

new taxes and virtually nothing—that is specific, anyway—on the 

spending restraint. 

And your research suggests, if I understood it correctly, that the 

most successful forms of consolidation are those in which the ratio 

is almost the reciprocal of that. 

Dr. Hassett. Exactly. 

Senator Toomey. Is that right? 

Dr. Hassett. Yes. In fact, I can say with absolute certainty that 

a consolidation that has the shape that the President has proposed 

would fail. 

The way to think about it is this, too. That in the economy that 

we have now, with the highest corporate tax in the developed 

world, very high individual income tax rates that are going up, and 

taxes on dividends maybe skyrocketing almost to 45 percent, in 

that kind of a world it’s impossible to envision generating the kind 

of healthy economic growth that would ever make us willing to 

have the spending cuts that we promised to do two years from now. 

Senator Toomey. Which—— 

Dr. Hassett. Two years from now, GDP growth will be 11⁄2 percent, and we will be saying, oh, we can’t afford to cut government 

spending because it will throw us into recession. 
24 

Senator Toomey. Right. So that kind of brings me to the next 

issue I would like to discuss. 

To get to the President’s tax increase package that he is looking 

for, he is calling—well he has been very clear about this—calling 

for higher marginal tax rates. And in addition, a reduction in the 

value of deductions and other expenditures. 

Higher taxes on capital gains. Higher taxes on dividends. The 

way I count this up, if you include the PEASE limitation, the top 

marginal tax rates for some would be between 41 and 45 percent. 

And that is just the federal level. We have states of course that 

have varying income tax rates from zero to double-digit levels, 

meaning that some Americans would be paying more than half of 

their income. Their marginal income tax rate would exceed 50 percent. 

If the President got all the tax increases that he wants in this 

form that he has asked for, is it likely that that could precipitate 

a recession? 

Dr. Hassett. It is not only likely, it would certainly do so. In 

fact, the dividend tax increase alone is positively cataclysmic. If we 

go from a 15 percent dividend tax to an almost 45 percent, once 

you are all in with the phase-out of itemized deductions and so on, 

then—I mean, that is ridiculously bad news for equity markets. 

And it is something we saw on the other side. 

There is a very large academic literature, including a few papers 

that I have written as well, that looked at how firms responded to 

the dividend tax reductions, and there is a lot of positive movement 

in things like equity prices. And so I think that as a package, you 

know—and I guess there is a question of how negotiations work, 

and maybe you want to start negotiation with an extreme position, 

but I just cannot imagine anyone looking at that proposal and arguing that it would throw us into a recession. 

Senator Toomey. You know, there is another approach that you 

can take in negotiations, and in my experience it has been a more 

successful one. 

Rather than taking an extreme that is very harmful and that you 

know the other side cannot accept, what you do is you actually look 

for areas where the other side could meet you halfway. And you 

say, for instance, if because of the political imperative that has 

been created here, if revenue has to be part of this—I don’t think 

that that’s economically or fiscally necessary or optimal—but if it 

is politically necessary, should it not at least be generated in a way 

that does the least economic harm? 

And in your view, would you do less economic damage by generating revenue through reducing the value of expenditures than 

raising marginal rates? 

Dr. Hassett. Yes. And if you phase it in far in advance. So, for 

example, changing my Social Security benefits when I retire now, 

but doing so absolutely credibly, then you would have a positive 

growth effect right now from a commitment to a spending cut because you would give clarity to all the people that are worried 

about the future of America. 

Senator Toomey. I see my time has expired. Thanks, Mr. 

Chairman. 
25 

Chairman Casey. Thank you, Senator Toomey. Representative 

Cummings. 

Representative Cummings. Good morning. 

Dr. Zandi. Good morning, sir. 

Representative Cummings. Mr. Zandi, health care inflation is 

a significant driver of Medicare’s escalating costs. What do you 

think should be done administratively to control that inflation? 

I heard what you said about Medicare. It seems that no matter 

what you do you have still got this inflation going on, and it is a 

major factor. I would like to have your thoughts on that. 

Dr. Zandi. That is a really big question. Let me say a few 

things, or a couple of things. 

One is that health care inflation actually in the last couple of 

years has slowed quite sharply. It has been about 31⁄2 percent per 

annum over the past two years, which is really a very positive development, some of the slowest growth in health care costs in decades. 

Now some of that probably is due to the weak economy, which 

means less demand for health care services, but some of it likely 

is due to Affordable Care Act—— 

Representative Cummings. I was hoping you would say that. 

Dr. Zandi. Yes. And I think there is growing evidence of that. 

We do not know for sure. We need more data points. 

Representative Cummings. But it’s happening. 

Dr. Zandi. I think so. The second thing I would say is, there are 

some positive experiments in the Affordable Care Act that I think 

could reap benefit. 

For example, the exchanges, the insurance exchanges should introduce competition and hopefully that will keep health care cost 

growth down. 

There is the IPAB, the Independent Payment Advisory Board. 

We will have to see how that works out, but there is some possibility that that could be a big plus, too. And I am most encouraged 

about the Cadillac tax. This is a tax on gold-plated health insurance policies for folks like me. So I get a very good health care 

package from Moody’s. So if I get sick, or if my family gets sick, 

I am unfettered in terms of my health care consumption. But with 

that tax, it is going to make it more costly and therefore I am going 

to start shopping for health care. And that I think will create more 

transparency with respect to pricing, and hopefully get the growth 

in health care cost down. 

So my point is, we do not really know what is going to work but 

there are some really interesting new programs that have been implemented by the Affordable Care Act that has significant potential, and we should see how those work out before we I think engage in some very significant structural changes to the Medicare 

or Medicaid programs like a voucher program or a premium support. 

You know, we may have to go down that path at some point, but 

it is much too premature in my view to do that. We should see how 

these developments work. They have some potential. 

Representative Cummings. Following up on Senator 

Klobuchar’s question, you wrote, and I quote: ‘‘If temporarily going 
26 

over the cliff is necessary to achieving a good agreement, then lawmakers should not hesitate to do so.’’ End of quote. 

How long do you think we could stay over the cliff without doing 

significant damage to the economy? 

Dr. Zandi. I think you could go into early February. By early 

February, if it looks like you are not coming to a deal and the market, the investors begin to discount the likelihood that you are not 

coming to a deal, then you will see stock prices decline, the bond 

market will react. Consumer, business confidence would begin to 

erode. By mid-February you would be doing a lot of damage. And 

by the end of February of course then the debt ceiling—you can’t 

navigate around the debt ceiling and really bad things will happen. 

So I think you have got about a month. Now a lot does depend 

on whether the Treasury will, and is permitted, to freeze withholding schedules. I am going under the assumption that they can 

and they will do that. If they can’t, then the damage will mount 

faster. You won’t have as much time. 

Representative Cummings. One of the things I have been saying is, a bad deal—a bad deal—well, no deal is better than a bad 

deal. And, you know, going back to—I’m just curious about, you 

know, given your findings, do you believe that the tax cuts say for 

the first $250,000 in income should be extended immediately, as 

the President has stated? 

And let me ask the second part. And is there any reason that the 

renewal of these tax cuts should be tied to tax cuts for the wealthiest in our Nation? 

Dr. Zandi. I think this has to be done as a package. I do not 

think you can break this apart, because it is just going to create 

brinkmanship, angst; and I think that nailing down the tax code, 

nailing down the spending cuts, nailing down the debt ceiling, and 

nailing down long-term fiscal sustainability, what we’re going to do 

over the longer run, you have to do this all at once. 

That is a good deal, and that is the only deal that I think works. 

Representative Cummings. You think that can be done by the 

end of the year? 

Dr. Zandi. No. I’m skeptical. But I do think it can be done before—early next year, before it does significant economic damage. 

Representative Cummings. I see my time—— 

Dr. Zandi. I am hopeful that you can. I am an economist. I’m 

playing a political observer, but my guess is we will probably have 

to go into next year to see that happen. 

Representative Cummings. Thank you very much. 

Chairman Casey. Thank you, Representative Cummings. 

Vice Chairman Brady. 

Vice Chairman Brady. Well, Mr. Chairman, first I apologize 

for being late. But I want to thank you for your leadership of the 

Joint Economic Committee. You have been a terrific leader and 

have been tremendous to work with. I really appreciate your approach and just how you handle yourself and this Committee. So 

thank you, very much, for your years of work on this Committee. 

Thank you. Appreciate it. 

I think there is a bit of a consensus in the sense that it is irresponsible to voluntarily go off this cliff, but it would be equally irresponsible to come to a solution that does not address the key issues 
27 

facing us both in authentic spending discipline, in fixing this broken tax code, and in dealing with our biggest challenges in Social 

Security and Medicare. 

And so I want to ask two quick questions, one of Dr. Hassett and 

one of Dr. Zandi. 

To you, Dr. Hassett, you know obviously economic growth works. 

Just an average recovery in this recession would have cut the deficit from $1.1 trillion to $430 billion. So more than half is just getting the economy going and returning to the pre-2008 levels. 

What is missing today? We know consumer spending is above 

what it was before the recession. We know government spending is 

above what it was before the recession. Business investments in 

buildings, equipment, software, that area that actually drives job 

creation, is what continues to lag. 

In your view, do you think raising taxes on the two marginal 

rates, as well as capital gains and dividends, does that encourage 

more business investment in the economy? 

Dr. Hassett. No. And I think the threat of those increases is a 

very big, significant negative. 

Mr. Brady, one of the things that economists use when they 

teach graduate classes in tax is something called The Handbook of 

Public Economics. And probably you [turning to Dr. Zandi] at some 

point had to study that too, Mark. I know I did. And in one of the 

later editions, there is a chapter on how taxes affect business capital spending that was co-authored by myself and Glen Hubbard of 

Columbia University. 

We go into very, very gory detail about how negative this can be, 

but the fact is that dividend taxes, capital gains taxes, statutory 

tax rates, have a big effect on investment through the user-cost-ofcapital. If the dividend tax is going to go up, then there are a lot 

of firms that are going to be hurt significantly by that, and they 

today would be paring back their capital spending in anticipation 

of higher taxes in the future. 

Businesses look to the future when they decide what they are 

going to do, and right now there are a heck of a lot of businesses 

that think that their taxes are going to be higher, and they are 

therefore appropriately now investing. And so you absolutely see it 

in the investment data. It is one of the reasons why this recovery 

has been so slow, is that businesses have a lot of cash and are not 

making a lot of investment. 

Vice Chairman Brady. Well do you think—so your point is this 

does not help the economy? In fact, it hurts the economy? 

Dr. Hassett. That’s right. And in fact you could go back and look 

at the writings of even Keynes himself who I think would have 

quite vehemently opposed President Obama’s stimulus approach; 

that Keynes was a business-cycle scholar who identified very early 

on that business cycles, recessions, and recoveries tend to be driven 

by investment because consumers are pretty steady, but investment can be really wildly fluctuating. It can go way down and way 

up. 

And so Keynes’s view of sort of the problem of stabilization policy 

was to try to stabilize investment, and not to really focus on consumption. And I think that one reason why we have had such a 

disappointing recovery is that we have not really addressed the 
28 

fundamental reason why investment is so weak, which is that we 

are really an unattractive place for investors to invest right now. 

Vice Chairman Brady. Right. Well, one of our questions the 

Republicans are often asked is why don’t you just accept the higher 

tax rates? Because it would be politically very convenient. And the 

answer is: It does not solve the economy; it hurts it. It does not 

solve the deficit; I think it is eight days of federal spending. It is 

not a serious deficit proposal. 

Dr. Zandi, I have often disagreed with you on some of your analysis of stimulus and other issues, but I think you are right in that 

the credit rating agencies are looking for a plan that ultimately 

lowers that debt-to-GDP ratio. I don’t think there is a magic number, but I do think the focus on our biggest drivers going forward— 

Social Security and Medicare—and are we acting to find a sustainable path forward on them, will be more important than in fact a 

number on discretionary spending or tax cuts themselves. 

Do you think the President’s plan adequately—that is on the 

table today—adequately addresses the sustainability of Medicare 

and Social Security? 

Dr. Zandi. I think he needs to go further. I don’t think it’s 

enough. I believe the proposals he has put forward are good ones. 

I think they are hard proposals to make because they are substantive. But to achieve fiscal sustainability in the context of $3 

trillion in 10-year deficit reduction, I do think we need to do more. 

Vice Chairman Brady. Looking at the Republican plan and the 

President’s proposal, do you see any common ground in addressing 

those two important programs? 

Dr. Zandi. I do. I think the common ground is that we are all 

looking at roughly the same proposals. The CBO has scored a number of different approaches to addressing Medicare and Medicaid. 

And I also think there is now general agreement that in the context of the current discussion we are not going to make any major 

structural changes to these programs. We are not going to block 

grant Medicaid. We are not going to voucher or premium-support 

Medicare. 

So in that, I think we can all roughly agree to that. So in this 

context it becomes dollars and cents and really doing the hard 

arithmetic. And actually, Congressman Brady, when you look at, 

actually sit down and do the arithmetic and look at these proposals, it is really very hard. This is not going to be easy. And so 

I would suggest that in this quest for more reform to Medicare and 

Medicaid, that if we can say by the 10th year of the budget horizon 

we are on the right path, then I think that is O.K. Maybe we 

shouldn’t because entitlement reform shouldn’t be done in a 10- 

year horizon. 

Vice Chairman Brady. Your point is, the number is not the 10- 

year point; it is whether we have solved the problem over the long 

term. 

Dr. Zandi. Yes. Because entitlement reform is tough, and you 

cannot do it in 10 years, right? Because this is a long-term problem. So really we should be thinking about this in a 20- to 30-year 

horizon. 
29 

Of course CBO’s scoring makes it incredibly difficult, but we 

don’t want to make that CBO structure—force us to make wrong 

decisions about these programs. 

Vice Chairman Brady. I agree. 

Chairman, thank you very much. 

Chairman Casey. Vice Chairman Brady, thank you. Senator 

Lee. 

Senator Lee. Thank you very much. 

I would like to take a step back for a minute and step in a slightly different direction from the fiscal cliff and talk more about the 

long-term and medium-term economic realities that we face. 

Mr. Zandi, in your written testimony to this Committee you 

warned against kicking the can down the road indefinitely because 

of the adverse effect that might have on the economy, the mediumand long-term impact that it might have. And I thought your analysis was definitely something that we need to pay attention to on 

this point. 

As you observed that any failure to make progress in this area 

now could signal that we’ve got bigger troubles ahead. And as you 

pointed out, the Moody’s Analytics’ model that you use breaks 

down in about 2028. And the reason it does that is because at that 

point the interest on our ballooning national debt will start to 

swamp and cripple our economy, thwarting our ability to fund everything from defense to entitlements, and everything in between, 

and we will be left without much recourse. 

I mean, at that moment I’m not sure there is a tax increase on 

the planet that could suddenly fix that. I’m not sure we can print 

money fast enough to fix that. And if we did, we would go the way 

of Argentina and other countries that have tried that. And that 

does not ever end except in blood and tears. 

So I tend to think of this medium- and long-term risk as the fiscal avalanche. The cliff is something we are approaching now. We 

can see where it is. Based on our current location, our direction, 

and our velocity we know when we are going to hit the cliff, if we’re 

going to hit it. 

But the avalanche is different. I come from a mountainous state 

where avalanches happen all the time. The only thing you know 

about avalanches is you know when the conditions are present 

when they might occur. You know when the snowpack has built up 

to the point when it could happen. You don’t know exactly when 

it is going to happen; you just know it is coming. And you try to 

deal with the risk of it. But once it hits you, the avalanche becomes 

completely impossible to control. 

Do you agree with this characterization about the avalanche? 

And could you sort of elaborate to us about that kind of threat? 

Dr. Zandi. Would you mind if I steal that from you? 

Senator Lee. Oh, I’d be happy for you to. 

Dr. Zandi. I will give you credit. 

Senator Lee. That would be great. It’s not copyrighted. 

Dr. Zandi. I love that imagery and the metaphor I think is 

right. I do think that that is why what you are doing right now is 

so important. I really think this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for you to nail these things down, and we are not that far 

apart. I really don’t think we are. 
30 

So if you are able to put us on a credible path to fiscal sustain- ability, roughly get to my $3 trillion, do it in a roughly balanced 

way, I think we are golden, I really do. And we are going to avoid 

that avalanche. But if we don’t do that, if we kind of kick the can 

down the road, then ultimately I think it means that we’re never 

really going to do it until we are forced by that avalanche to do it. 

Senator Lee. How soon would we need to do that in order to 

avoid the conditions that would lead to the avalanche? How soon 

would we need to get to balance? 

Dr. Zandi. I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know, and 

that’s why I put it into the testimony, my model breaks down—of 

course it’s going to happen long before that point. 

Senator Lee. Right. We’re not going to get anywhere close to 

2020 without it happening. 

Dr. Zandi. No, no. 

Senator Lee. In fact, it could happen within the next four, five, 

six years, certainly the next ten years, couldn’t it, if yield rates 

start to jump? 

Dr. Zandi. Yeah. Here’s the thing. The problem is that if we 

don’t address this and we kick the can, we are going to be stuck 

in this slow growth netherworld going forward. And most importantly, we are going to get nailed by something. 

I don’t know what it is but something bad is going to happen. 

And when that bad thing happens, that is going to be the thing 

that sets off that avalanche. Right? So—— 

Senator Lee. You mean like a credit downgrade, for example? 

Dr. Zandi. No, no. It’s going to be, something that we’re not 

even contemplating that happens in the world to oil prices, to other 

geopolitical—or even to our own economy. It’s just we don’t know 

what that will be, but it will happen, and we will have set ourselves up for that avalanche because we did not get our fundamentals in the right place. 

That is why it is so important to get this right right now. 

Senator Lee. What about a credit downgrade? If that were to 

happen, doesn’t that call into question all kinds of things like, you 

know, money market funds and other types of investment funds 

are chartered to invest only in a certain grade of funds. And if all 

of a sudden U.S. Treasuries were downgraded, would that not have 

a pretty significant effect on where we are relative to the avalanche? 

Dr. Zandi. Right. So if there’s downgrade to Treasury debt, this 

will likely trigger other downgrades. Anything that is backstopped 

by the government will be downgraded. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac 

debt, Federal Home Loan Bank debt, SIFI banks, too-big-to-fail 

banks, they’re still implicitly backstopped. They’ll get downgraded. 

You know, it’s the JPMorgan and Citi’s of the world. State and 

local government debt will get downgraded. 

And you are right. Money managers have in their relationships 

with their clients agreements not to invest in bonds that have ratings below a certain grade, and they will divest themselves because 

of the downgrades. And this will cause problems in the credit markets. 

Now the credit markets will ultimately adjust because the reality 

of what’s happened to the value of these bonds has not changed, 
31 

right? The economics have not changed for Fannie Mae and 

Freddie Mac. So you will see hedge funds, and private equity firms, 

and other players come in. But that is a process, and it will take 

time. In between now and then, it will create a great deal of turmoil. 

But the most important thing is not what the credit rating agencies do or say; it is what this means. It means that we do not have 

the political will to nail this thing down—and we won’t until we 

are forced by that avalanche. And people will recognize that, and 

we will go nowhere. 

Senator Lee. So what you’re saying is, if we want to preserve 

entitlements, get us to balance. If you want to preserve our ability 

to fund national defense, get us to balance. 

Dr. Zandi. Get us to sustainability. 

Senator Lee. O.K. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time has expired. 

Chairman Casey. Senator Lee, thank you very much. I just 

have maybe one more question. I know we could be here awhile if 

we had the time, but I am grateful for the patience of our witnesses 

and the testimony. 

I was looking at the testimony of Dr. Hassett, and on page 8— 

it gets into this question of the balance, the question of how you 

do the balance between cuts and revenue. And in the second full 

paragraph he says: 

‘‘Using a range of different methodologies, we find that the average unsuccessful fiscal consolidation relied upon 53 percent tax increases and 47 percent spending cuts, while a typical successful 

consolidation consisted of 85 percent expenditure cuts.’’ So 85–15. 

Dr. Zandi, I wanted to get your sense of that, whether you agree 

with that 85–15. And if not, why not? And what do you think is 

a—what would your approach be, if you can articulate it by way 

of a number? 

Dr. Zandi. I think—I respect Kevin’s work a lot, but I think that 

number varies considerably depending on the country, and it depends on where the economy is in the business cycle. It also depends on where the Federal Reserve is with respect to monetary 

policy. 

I mean it is one thing if interest rates are 4 or 5 percent and 

they can lower rates in the context of consolidation. It is another 

thing if we are at zero, which is where we are today. 

And there has been a lot of really good work revolving around 

these issues in trying to get good benchmarks for fiscal consolidation. In fact, there’s a really great paper that came out of the IMF 

in just the last couple of days on this issue, and it makes a very 

strong case that, first, there was this fiscal speed limit. You can’t 

have too much fiscal consolidation too quickly; otherwise, it becomes counterproductive in terms of your fiscal situation. You can 

see that in Europe. 

And the other is that this balance between tax and spending in 

the context of the U.S., and particularly when the economy is weak 

and the Federal Reserve is at zero, the spending multipliers, when 

you cut spending they are very, very large, much larger than was 

previously thought. 
32 

So I don’t buy into Kevin’s 85–15. I think in the context of where 

we are today, that is not—I would think that is not right. That is 

not what we are observing today. 

Now having said that, I would do something like I proposed, a 

2-to-1 kind of ratio. If you do that, I think that is balanced. I think 

that gets us to a reasonably good place. I think that gets us to fiscal sustainability in avoiding that avalanche. It is still more spending than a tax, but it is more balanced. 

The last thing I would say, to a point that Senator Toomey made, 

because we’re talking about taxes and spending, and this is a really 

important point, tax reform is spending cuts. There is no difference 

if I give you a mortgage interest deduction or I cut you a check. 

No difference. You can treat it as a tax, or you can treat it as 

spending. 

From an economic perspective, they are one and the same thing. 

So when we do tax reform, you know from an economic perspective 

that is a spending cut. That is a spending cut. 

Chairman Casey. I don’t have any more questions, unless the 

Vice Chairman does, or Representative Maloney. 

Vice Chairman Brady. Thirty seconds? 

Chairman Casey. Sure. 

Vice Chairman Brady. I will be very brief. 

I think concerning Dr. Hassett’s work and looking at our global 

competitors who find themselves in significant fiscal financial crises, as we did, showed, if I recall, more than 20 times in 9 different 

countries, countries both cut what they owed in their spending and 

grew the economy at the same time. 

They did that because their cuts were large, credible, and politically difficult to reverse. In other words, they were real and they 

were believable. What that did was create the confidence to make 

investments to grow an economy and it was proven over, and over, 

and over again. 

I actually think that is the model for this fiscal cliff discussion: 

Making both the cuts and the reforms that are real, and credible, 

and politically difficult to reverse because that is the only signal we 

can send. I think the right signal to send to investors that we are 

serious about getting our financial house in order. I hope that we 

do that. 

And again, Mr. Chairman, thank you again. This is your last 

Committee meeting and you will be missed. Thank you, again. 

Chairman Casey. Thank you, Vice Chairman Brady, soon-to-beChairman. Representative Maloney, you had something? 

Representative Maloney. Yes. Going back to the analogy of the 

avalanche, when we had the subprime crisis there was no warning. 

Just one day it just, the avalanche came, a total loss of confidence 

and a total really fall in the market. 

And likewise we could have the same type of avalanche come tomorrow. There’s no more confidence. No one buys our debt. They 

want to sell it, and we would have increased interest rates and 

huge economic problems. 

We have two things in front of us. Not only the fiscal slope, but 

also the debt ceiling that Treasury estimates at the end—we have 

until February for the debt ceiling. So they are very close together. 
33 

In solving it, would it be better to put the debt ceiling in the 

package with the fiscal slope for a comprehensive solution? Or 

would it be better to do them separately? Dr. Zandi. 

Dr. Zandi. My view is they should be done together; that this 

will not work if we try to break this thing apart. We need to scale 

back the cliff. We need to raise or eliminate the debt ceiling, and 

we need to achieve fiscal sustainability. This needs to be a package, 

and it has to be done relatively, you know, very soon. 

Representative Maloney. And Dr. Hassett. 

Dr. Hassett. I agree with Mr. Zandi. 

Representative Maloney. Great. 

Dr. Hassett. Thank you. 

Representative Maloney. I want to thank both of you for your 

testimony, and really thank the Chairman for his outstanding leadership on the Committee. 

Chairman Casey. Representative Maloney, thank you very 

much. I appreciate your good work and your leadership, as well. 

Dr. Zandi, Dr. Hassett, thank you for your testimony. I think we 

made it a 90-minute meeting, or pretty close to that. That is pretty 

good. 

I want to make a couple of final comments. First of all I want 

to thank both of our witnesses again for their testimony. And by 

the way, without objection both the full text of your opening statements will be in the record of this hearing. 

We are grateful because I think it is clear to most Americans we 

do have a substantial challenge with regard to the cliff. We know 

that if we do not take the right steps that it could jeopardize our 

economic recovery. And we cannot afford to lose ground on the 

gains we have made the last couple of years. 

I am confident though we can get this done, that the Congress 

of the United States can come together and successfully reach the 

compromise that we need that puts us on a path to fiscal sustainability while protecting middle income families. 

I mentioned before this is my last hearing, and Vice Chairman 

Brady mentioned it a couple of times. I have really enjoyed this 

work as Chairman and also as a member of the Committee the last 

six years, and am looking forward to more work on this Committee 

as well. 

But our work on job creation, deficit reduction, manufacturing 

issues that we raised, and other issues has been informed by the 

perspective of many of our Nation’s top economists, two of them 

with us today, and from other leaders in the business community 

and the nonprofit sector. 

So we are grateful for those insights as we seek to get answers. 

I mentioned at the outset the great working relationship I have 

had with Vice Chairman Brady. I am grateful for his work and the 

work of both parties on this Committee. 

I would also like to recognize three retiring Members. Dr. Burgess mentioned them at the beginning, but I wanted to mention 

them again: 

Senator Bingaman, who was here with us earlier, has served on 

the Joint Economic Committee continuously from 1987 forward, 25 

years of service on the Committee. Congressman Hinchey from 

New York served from 1996 to 1998 and then from 2005 to the 
34 

present. And third, Senator Webb serving since 2007. They will all 

be retiring from Congress at the end of the year, and I would like 

to thank them for their contributions and wish them luck in the 

next chapter of their life. 

The record for all here, the record will remain open for five business days for any member of the Committee who wishes to submit 

a statement or additional questions. 

If there is nothing further, we are adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 11:12 a.m., Thursday, December 6, 2012, the 

Committee hearing was adjourned.] 
(35) 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 
36 

Written Testimony of Mark Zandi 

Chief Economist and Cofounder, Moody's Analytics 

Before the Joint Economic Committee 

"Fiscal CNtf: How to Protect the Middle Class, Sustain Long-Term Economic 

Growth, and Reduce the Federal Deficit" 

December 6, 2012 

Lawmakers have three critical fiscal tasks to accomplish in the current budget 

negotiations: Scaling back the fiscal cliff, increasing the Treasury's statutory debt limit, 

and establishing a credible path to fiscal sustainability. 

Unless Congress agrees to change current law, and reduces the coming tax increases 

and spending cuts, the U.S. economy will be in a severe recession by the spring. Equally 

important, policymakers must make long-term tax and spending changes that can, at a 

minimum, stabilize the nation's debt-to-GDP ratio by the end of the decade. Whether and 

how policymakers do this will determine how the economy performs for years. 

Policymakers have a number of options. One is to do nothing after the economy hits 

the January I fiscal cliff. The tax hikes and spending cuts scheduled to take effect at the 

beginning of2013 would precipitate a new economic downturn, which would likely be 

severe, as households and businesses panic and pull back. The Federal Reserve would 

attempt to mitigate the damage with more quantitative easing, but this would be 

insufficient. Fiscal sustainability would ultimately be achieved, but at great cost. 

Congress could also decide to kick the can down the road by extending current 

policy, deferring significant tax increases and spending cuts. This would also be costly, 

because it would signal that political will is lacking to put the nation on a sustainable 

fiscal path. The U.S. Treasury would almost certainly lose its Aaa rating, adding to the 

uncertainty and doubt that already hang over business decisions and weigh on economic 

growth. 

By far the most desirable choice would be an agreement that reduces the scale of the 

fiscal cliff, raises the Treasury debt ceiling, and credibly promises long-term fiscal 

sustainability. Such an agreement will not be achieved easily, and the economy will 

suffer iflawmakers remain deadlocked far into 2013. But there is room for compromise, 

and if Congress and the president can reach one in a reasonable time frame the 

economy's prospects will quickly brighten. 
37 

Policy uncertainty 

Much work remains, and concern about Washington's ability to manage the 

developing crisis already appears to be taking a toll. Nervous businesses have pulled back 

sharply on investment in recent months (See Chart I). This may partly reflect decisions 

by owners ofS-corporations expecting higher personal tax rates next year. Since their 

business profits are taxed as personal income, it makes economic sense for them to delay 

investment into next year. 

Chart 1: Nervous Businesses Pull Back 

Orders for nondefense capital goods ex aircraft, $ bil 

210,-----------~----------~~--~--_, 

200+---~~~.F~~----------------~~ 

l00+F~----------~------------~----14 

180 

170 

100+-------------~-----f----------__4 

100+---------------4.~~-

07 08 09 10 11 12 

Sources: Census Bureau, Mo<XIy'sAnatytics 

More important, businesses are simply unsure what lawmakers will do. Executives 

and planners cannot construct a plausible narrative of how the president and House 

Republicans will address fiscal issues. Business managers also know that iflawmakers 

botch the job, the economy will fall back into recession. Unable to handicap such a 

possibility, firms feel safer postponing risky investments. 

Curiously, businesses have not significantly altered hiring and layoff plans. But after 

slashing payrolls and significantly increasing productivity during the Great Recession, 

firms know they cannot do so again. Additional job cuts would reduce output. CEOs also 

know that it costs less to delay a major equipment purchase than to halt hiring or layoff 

workers. Consumers also seem unfazed by the drama in Washington, perhaps because the 

job market has stabilized, gasoline prices have fallen, and house prices have begun to rise. 

Consumer confidence is as strong as it has been since before the Great Recession. Yet it 

is hard to see how this will last iffiscal uncertainty continues to mount. 

Investors will also lose faith eventually. There already are some indications of 

market nervousness. Stock prices have weakened since the election, credit spreads have 

widened, and credit default swaps on Treasury bonds have begun to edge higher. 

Financial markets are more upbeat than they were when Congress battled over the 

Treasury debt ceiling in summer 2011--but as that period shows, market sentiment is 

fickle and unpredictable. 
38 

Over the cliff 

The fiscal cliff is huge. Federal tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to take 

effect in 2013 total more than $700 billion, equal to 4.4% ofGDP. Iflawmakers were to 

allow all ofthem to take effect, GDP next year would be nearly 3.4% less than it would 

be otherwise. (See Table 1). 

Table 1: Sizing Up the 2013 Fiscal Cliff 

If all tax and spending changes slated for 2013 happen as currently planned" here is how it will affect the 

federal dejkit and the economy. 

The federal deficit will shrink ... ... but 50 will U.S. GOP Implled 

Fiscal Policy SbU SbU %ofGDP Multiplier 

Bush-era tax cut (below $2501< income) -198 -174 -1.06 0.88 

Personal income -171 -147 -0.90 0.86 

Stimulus, EITe" erc, AOTe -27 -27 -0.17 1.00 

AMTpatch -120 -59 -0.36 0.49 

Payroll tax holiday -115 -100 -0.60 0.87 

Automatic spending cuts (sequestration) -100 -105 -0.64 1.05 

Defense cuts -50 -54 -0.33 1.08 

Nondefense cuts -50 -51 -0.31 1.02 

Bush-era tax cut {above $25Ok income) -83 -40 -0.24 0.48 

Personal income. PEP and Pease -44 -31 -0.19 0.70 

Capital gains & dividend income -8 -5 -0.03 0.60 

Estate tax -31 -4 -0.03 0.14 

Emergency unemployment insurance -36 -51 -0.35 1.42 

Affordable Care Act (Obamacare~ -23 -11 -0.06 0.48 

Medicare doc fix -20 -8 -0.06 0.40 

Tax extenders -20 -4 -0.02 0.20 

Bonus depredation -12 -3 -0.01 0.25 

Total -727 -555 0.76 

%ofGDP -4.4 -3;4 

Notes: 

The difference in the budget deficit is based on a static analysis-it does not include the impact of the changing 

economy and the reaction of financial markets. 

The difference in real GOP is based on a dynamiC analysis using the Moody's Analytics macro model-it does include 

the impact of the changing economy and the reaction of financial markets. 

Sources: CBD, OMB, Moody's Anolytics 

This would precipitate another recession. Total economic output in 2013 would 

decline by an estimated 0.3% from 2012, and the unemployment rate would continue to 

rise through 2014, peaking near double digits (See Table 2). This is similar to the 

Congressional Budget Office's estimate ofthe economic impact ofpermanentIy going 

over the cliff.i 
39 

Table 2: Real GDP Impact of Different Budget Scenarios 

Calender year 2013 

Real GDP After Going OVer the Cliff Real GOP After Kicking the Can Real GDP After Going the Speed Limit 

2005$ bil % change 2005$ bi! % change 2005$ bil % change 

2012 13,587 2.2 13,587 2.2 13,587 2.2 

2013 13,546 -0.3 14,008 3.1 13,859 2.0 

2014 13,741 1.4 14,466 3.3 14,405 3.9 

2015 14,112 2.7 14,900 3.0 15,005 4.2 

2016 14,635 3.7 15,273 2.5 15,519 3.4 

2017 15,251 4.2 15,551 1.8 15,931 2.7 

2018 15,844 3.9 15,831 1.8 16,314 2.4 

2019 16,338 3.1 16,098 1.7 16,669 2.2 

2020 16,763 2.6 16,362 1.6 17,038 2.2 

2021 17,149 2.3 16,629 1.6 17,413 2.2 

2022 17,526 2.2 16,892 1.6 17,789 2.2 

Average Annual Growth 2.6 2.2 2.7 

2012-2022 

While a 0.3% drop in GOP would be about average as modem recessions go, the 

balance of risks to this outlook are tilted sharply to the downside. Most macroeconomic 

models, including those used by Moody's Analytics and the Congressional Budget Office, 

do not adequately account for the national mood, which is very fragile, Nervous 

businesses, investors and households, still feeling the fallout from the Great Recession, 

are likely to recoil more than the models suggest if they have to grapple with much higher 

taxes and slashed government budgets . 

. The models also fail to fully pick up the implications that flow from the weakened 

ability of policymakers to respond to a new recession. Unable to lower interest rates 

further, the Fed will be forced to undertake even more quantitative easingY And by 

definition, fiscal policymakers would have done nothing to mitigate the downturn. 

With so many people out of work, and for a much longer stretch, a more virulent 

form of hysteresis would set in. The increase in the number of long-term unemployed 

workers has already raised estimates of the nation's full-employment unemployment rate, 

from 5% before the Great Recession to almost 6% now. More than 40% of the 

unemployed have not worked in six months or longer. A return to recession could add 

millions more to the long-term jobless rolls and raise the "natural" rate of unemployment 

still higher. 

Some argue that going over the fiscal cliff would solve the government's longerterm sustainability problem. Tax revenues would rise and spending would fall, shrinking 

future budget deficits enough to stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio. But this may be true only 

on paper. Ifthe resulting recession were deep enough to weaken the economy's potential 

growth rate, fiscal sustainability could become elusive. Over the last two decades, Japan 

has had the highest ratio of government debt to GOP in the industrialized world, not 

because of imprudent fiscal policies, but because of painfully slow economic growth. 
40 

Breaking the ceiling 

Adding to the economic threat posed by the fiscal cliff is the approaching Treasury 

debt ceiling. The law currently caps federal debt at $16.394 trillion. Based on recent 

government expenditures and receipts, the Treasury will approach that limit in a few 

weeks and be forced to use extraordinary accounting techniques to avoid crossing it (See 

Chart 2). However, the Treasury can only do this for so long, and by early March the 

Obama administration will be forced to make some difficult decisions. 

Chart 2: The Debt Ceiling Is Fast Approaching 

Treasury debt outstanding, $ bil 

17.000 ,------------------, 

Debt ceiling=$16,394 trillion 

16,000 +-------------""'-""c::~-~-.. ___1 

15,000 +-----------7'''"'--

14,000 +-------:;~=------------l 

ProjedlonsoIOebtsubje:ctrolillltarebasedoncurreffieroI1OO11c<ll1d 

policy assufl1,>lkmaod aresoqect II) a hl\tl degee ofU1loorl:ail1~ 

13,000 t-~.c--- ~~~V:or:;:~=:::~:~=r::e~ 

projections, likely would allow the !)(Wemrrvmt to oontiooepayIfI9 bills 

ill tJll3fldOl1 time unt! some pQintil1 MaJdl2013. 

12,000 -H-t-HH--t++-H-t-HH--t++-H-t-HH--t++-H-t-HH--t++-H-H 

10 11 12 13 

Sources: Treasury, Moody'sAnalytics 

The administration could default on the nation's debt, but this would produce 

financial chaos and is inconceivable. The federal government could stop paying some 

bills, cut payments to Social Security recipients or Medicare providers, or shut some 

operations. Some 40% of government spending is financed by borrowing, so the cuts, 

would have to be draconian. This also seems a highly unlikely outcome. 

The president's other option would be to ignore the law and order the Treasury to 

continue issuing debt above the legal ceiling. During the debt-ceiling crisis in 2011, some 

argued that the president may do this under the Constitution's 14th amendment. The 

amendment was passed to deal in part with Civil War debts, but the courts could interpret 

it more broadly, Regardless, a constitutional crisis would ensue. 

Fiscal sustainability 

Most worrisome over the long run is whether lawmakers are up to the task of 

achieving fiscal sustainability. This means shrinking deficits enough, through some 

combination of higher tax revenues and lower spending, to stabilize the nation's debt-toGDP ratio. The ratio nearly doubled during the Great Recession, through the automatic 

stabilizers in the budget and the additional costs of fiscal stimulus measures and the 

bailouts. Without changes to fiscal policy, the ratio will continue to rise, ultimately 

precipitating a fiscal crisis.li! 
41 

Under reasonable economic assumptions, policymakers need to reduce deficits by 

close to $3 trillion over the next decade to achieve fiscal sustainability. (This is on top of 

the more than $1 trillion in spending cuts via caps to discretionary spending agreed to as 

part oflast summer's increase in the Trcasury debt ceiling, but not the $1 trillion in 

automatic spending cuts known as sequestration agreed to as part ofthat deal.) Doing so 

will produce deficits later in the decade that equal less than 3% of GOP. Given expected 

GOP growth, this will stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio. 

The 2010 Simpson-Bowles commission called for even more deficit reduction. 

Simpson-Bowles proposed tax rcvenue increases through tax reform, higher rates on 

upper-income households and a gasoline tax, and enough cuts to discretionary and 

cntitlement programs to substantially reduce the nation's debt-to-GOP ratio.iv This goes 

bcyond simply achieving fiscal sustainability. 

The Simpson-Bowles goals are appropriate. Reducing deficits by about $3 trillion will 

rebuild the fiscal cushion we will almost certainly need to cope with future events such as 

wars or recessions. Doing so would also help mitigate concerns that policymakers could 

backtrack on taxes and spending. A more aggressive program of deficit reduction could 

ensure that rating agencies do not downgrade the nation's debt. The agencies are looking 

for a plan that ultimately lowers the debt-to-GOP ratio. 

Kicking the can 

Going permanently over the fiscal clifT or colliding with the debt ceiling would have 

such widespread negative impacts on the economy that it is implausible to think 

lawmakers will allow it. Congress could avoid the cliff and debt ceiling altogether, 

extending current tax and spending policy for a few months or even another year, and , 

raising the ceiling enough to keep the Treasury from hitting it in this period. 

Without any fiscal drag, the economy would grow more quickly in 2013, but much 

more slowly over the long term. (See Table 2). A failure to make any progress toward 

fiscal sustainability now would signal that lawmakers are incapable of doing so without a 

serious financial crisis at hand. 

When such a crisis might occur is unknowable, but it is instructive that in such a 

scenario the Moody's Analytics model breaks down in 2028, with interest on the 

ballooning federal debt swamping the budget and crippling the economy. Yet a crisis 

would almost surely erupt sooner than that, as global investors would sell off U.S. 

Treasury debt long before Washington was unable to make interest payments. 

Fearful ofthis outcome, credit rating agencies would likely downgrade U.S. Treasury 

debt, and also the debt of institutions supported by the federal government, including 

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Bank system, state and municipal 

governments, and systemically important financial institutions: Unlike in 2011, when the 

decision by Standard & Poor's to cut the nation's rating from AAA to AA caused few 
42 

financial repercussions, unified action by all the ratings agencies would likely affect 

financial markets significantly. Money market and other investment funds that are 

chartered to hold only top-rated securities could be forced to sell assets en masse, for 

example. 

The cloud of uncertainty, meanwhile, would keep busincsses unsure about their tax 

obligations, future government contracts, and the nation's long-term fiscal situation. The 

economy would throttle back to a new normal, characterized by much slower long-term 

growth. Real GDP growth toward the end ofthis decade would be almost half a 

percentage point per year slower than otherwise. 

Fiscal speed limit 

Given these dark prospects, lawmakers must do the right thing: Scale back the fiscal 

cliff, raise the debt ceiling, and establish a reasonably credible path to fiscal sustainability. 

The cliff should be scaled back just enough to ensure that the recovery stays on 

course next year. Tax hikes and spending cuts together should equal no more than 1.5% 

ofGDP, a level that can be characterized as a fiscal speed Iimit.VI The economy would 

still face a significant headwind, particularly during the first half of 20 \3, but it would be 

manageable. The U.S. would avoid another recession, with real GDP growing almost 2%, 

about the same as this year. It is important to remember that the economic drag from 

federal, state and local government in 2012 has also been considerable, amounting to 

1.3%ofGDP. 

Changes to tax and spending policy could be combined in various ways to keep the 

fiscal drag from exceeding 1.5% ofGDP. A reasonable course would involve letting the 

2011-2012 payroll tax holiday expire (adding a fiscal drag equal to 0.6% .0fGDP), 

phasing out the emergency unemployment insurance progr~ (0.35% ofGDP), allowing 

the Bush-era tax rates for U.S. households making more than $250,000 per year to end 

(0.24%), and allowing taxes to rise on higher-income households to help pay for 

healthcare reform (0.06%). Together, these changes would create a fiscal drag on the 

economy in 2013 equal to 1.25% of GDP, safely below the recessionary limit. 

Adopting this course would mean lawmakers also extend the Bush-era tax rates for 

households making less than $250,000 a year, eliminate spending cuts scheduled under 

the 2011 sequestration agreement, and extend such "tempor.ary" policies as the inflation 

adjustment to the alternative minimum tax and Medicare's reimbursement schedule for 

doctors and hospitals. 

As part of the fiscal cliff agreement, the debt ceiling should be raised enough so that 

it does not become an issue again until after the 2014 elections. Political brinksmanship 

surrounding the debt ceiling has escalated dramatically in recent years, weighing heavily 

on the confidence of households, businesses and investors. The last time the Treasury 

approached the debt ceiling in summer 2011, Congressional bickering nearly pushed the 
43 

economy into recession and prompted a downgrade ofthe nation's debt by rating agency 

Standard & Poor's. 

To avoid an even worse outcome early next year, lawmakers need to agree to a 

broader program of deficit reduction, including reforms to the tax code and entitlements. 

Doing all this will be impossible in a short period; lawmakers should thus instead layout 

a broad framework and leave it to congressional committees to hash out the details next 

year. 

A plausible framework could include $1.4 trillion in revenue increases over the next 

decade, $800 billion through higher tax rates on upper-income households, and $600 

billion through loophole closing and other reforms. A deal could also contain $1.2 trillion 

in spending cuts, including cuts to the entitlement programs.VII Including the 

approximately $1.1 trillion in spending cuts agreed to in the 2011 debt-ceiling deal and 

the net interest savings, the ratio of spending cuts to tax increases would be almost 2-to-l. 

If lawmakers could pull off something like this, future deficits would be small enough to 

stabilize the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio by the end of this decade. This would please 

financial markets and likely keep the credit rating agencies at bay. 

To be sure, generating the political will to reach this kind of an agreement may take 

into 2013. That means the U.S. may temporarily go over the fiscal cliff. The economy 

will not suffer significantly right away, particularly if the Treasury can hold off changing 

tax withholding schedules until a deal is reached. Government agencies could also delay 

their most draconian budget cuts for a while. However, the economic damage will mount 

if businesses, investors and consumers begin to doubt policymakers will come to terms. 

By early February, as the Treasury runs out of options to avoid the debt ceiling, stock 

prices will slump, bond and CDS spreads will widen, and business and consumer 

confidence will slide. Political pressure will become intense-but this may be precisely 

the stress needed to forge a substantive and durable agreement. 

Achieving fiscal nirvana 

As lawmakers hash out an agreement in the coming weeks, they may want to 

consider a few suggestions that could meaningfully improve thc fiscal and economic 

outcome. 

First, policymakers should not rush to reach a deal before the end of the year, unless 

it adequately addresses the fiscal cliff, the debt ceiling, and fiscal sustainability. If 

temporarily going over the cliff is necessary to achieving a good agreement, then 

lawmakers should not hesitate to do so. As has been appropriately pointed out, the fiscal 

cliff is really more like a slope. That is, the economy will not crater on January I if there 

is no budget deal in place. Lawmakers have until early February to reach an agreement 

before investors, businesses and consumers begin to lose faith and the economic costs 

become severe. 
44 

At the same time, any proposal to extend current tax and spending policy for even a 

few months should be rebuffed. Such a diversion would create policy uncertainty that 

will ensure the economy remains stuck in slow-growth mode and vulnerable to anything 

else that might go wrong. There is no guarantee, moreover, that lawmakers will find it 

easier to come to terms later. If anything, achieving a durable agreement will become 

more difficult the closer we get to the 2014 elections. 

Second, given the still-fragile economy, policymakers should consider scaling back 

the January tax hikes and spending cuts well below 1.5% of GDP, the level at which a 

recession becomes likely. If the fiscal drag next year were only 0.6% of GDP, real GDP 

would grow closer to 3% in 2013. This would be sufficient to push unemployment 

definitively lower and speed growth enough to make it self-sustaining. The economy 

would experience a greater amount of fiscal drag in the future, but would be in a better 

position to handle it. 

One way to lower the fiscal drag to 0.6% of GDP is to allow the Bush-era tax cuts 

for upper-income households to expire, increase taxes to pay for Obamacare, and even 

begin to implement tax reform. The 2% payroll tax holiday and the emergency 

unemployment insurance programs could be extended for another year. Taxes would rise 

on upper-income households but be unchanged for everyone else, thus cushioning the 

blow to economic activity. 

Third, lawmakers should adopt a deficit reduction plan that both increases tax 

revenue and cuts spending. Simpson-Bowles proposed a 4-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to 

revenue increases, but the plan also assumed that the Bush-era tax cuts for upper-income 

households would end. Moreover, there have been substantial cuts to discretionary 

spending since the Simpson-Bowles plan was proposcd at th~ end of20 I 0, including the 

caps included in the 2011 debt-ceiling deal. vllI An updated version of Simpson-Bowles 

would thus propose deficit reduction with a spending-to-revenue ratio closer to 2-to-l, 

which seems an appropriate goal. 

Fourth, to achieve the 2-to-l ratio, policymakers need to reform entitlements. There 

is no need to radically change Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, at least not yet. 

Privatizing Social Security, voucherizing Medicare, or block-granting Medicaid seem to 

be steps too far. But these programs do need significant changes to shore up their 

finances and to buy time to see whether the Affordable Care Act can bend the healthcare 

cost curve. The tax on high-end health insurance plans, the competition of health care 

exchanges, and the discipline of the Independent Payment Advisory Board may slow the 

growth of health care costs and thus put entitlement programs on firmer ground. 

Fifth, tax reform is preferable to higher tax rates.ix Several approaches would limit 

deductions and credits in the tax code. Governor Romney suggested capping them at 

some dollar amount. President Obama proposed capping the top marginal rate to which 

deductions can apply. Harvard economist Martin Feldstein would cap them at a 

percentage of adjusted gross income. Each approach has pluses and minuses, but they all 
45 

raise significantly more revenue from higher-income households without raising their tax 

rates. 

Given the strong lobbies for each deduction and credit, it seems politically unlikely 

that caps could raise enough tax revenue to meet the 2-to-1 .spending-to-revenue goal. 

Some tax rate increases will thus be necessary. Moreover, since President Obama 

campaigned successfully on an explicit promise to allow the Bush-era tax cuts to expire 

for upper-income households, this seems a reasonable approach. 

Finally, to solidify the credibility of their deficit reduction plan, lawmakers should 

revive the pay-as-you-go rule: Any future proposal to increase spending or lower taxes 

must be offset in full for by other spending cuts or tax increases. PA YGO has been 

around for some time but has not been implemented in recent years. 

Separately, lawmakers could adopt a version of the so-called dollar-for-dollar rule 

first proposed by Ohio Senator Rob Portman to address the 20 II debt ceiling. Under 

Portman's rule, policymakers would agrec at the beginning of each fiscal year to cut 

spending equal to the amount the debt ceiling must be raised to cover that year's budget. 

The spending cuts would be phased in gradually over the following 10 years. Adopting 

some form of this rule would be a good safeguard in case Congress misses its deficit 

reduction targets. 

Conclusions 

The next few months will be trying for the nation's collective psyche and the 

economy. The political battle between the president and Congress may extend into 2013, 

with nerve-wracking brinksmanship that causes businesses to rein in expansion plans 

even more than they already have. Growth is expected to come to a near standstill early 

in the new year. 

But out of this political cauldron, a substantive budget deal must emerge. Nearly all 

parties agree that we must address our fiscal problems, and the political stars seem 

roughly aligned to do it. The fiscal cliff will be scaled back to a manageable size; the debt 

ceiling will be raised enough to get past thc 2014 elections, and a credible path to fiscal 

sustainability will be established. 

The economy will quickly regain its footing once a deal is struck. By this time next 

year, the U.S. recovery should be back on track. Real GDP will grow around 2% in 2013, 

doubling that pace in 2014 and remaining near 4% in 2015. Job growth will accelerate 

from approximately 2 million jobs per year to a pace closer to 3 million. Unemployment 

will fall definitively as job creation picks up pace, and the economy will be back to full 

employment-a jobless rate below 6o/o-by summer 2016. 

But this upbeat forecast will come to pass only if the president and Congress address 

our fiscal problems in a reasonably graceful way. The beauty of the American political 
46 

system is that our elections, however contentious, have always shown us the way. 

Hopefully, the most recent election did the same. 

, This study can be found at http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43694. 

i, According to the Moody's Analytics model, going over the cliff permanently would cause the Federal 

Reserve balance sheet to double in size from $3 trillion to $6 trillion. The IO-year Treasury bond yield 

would fall to almost 0.75% through much of20 14. 

iii The direct cost ofthe policy response to the Great Recession was $1.8 trillion, including several rounds 

of fiscal stimulus measures; the bailouts of the banking, auto and housing industries; and the takeovers of 

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The nation's publicly traded Treasury debt-to-GDP ratio rose from close to 

35% in fiscal 2007 to 70% in fiscal 2012. 

" The Simpson-Bowles plan assumed that personal tax rates for households making more than $250,000 a 

year would rise back to their pre-Bush rates. 

v The rating agencies give a ratings premium to systemically important financial institutions under the 

assumption that they are too big to fail and will be backstopped by the federal government. A downgrade of 

Treasury debt would weaken that backstop and therefore reduce the rating premium. This premium is 

already smaller than it was prior to the passage of Dodd-Frank, suggesting that regulatory reform reduced 

the too-big-to fail risk, at least in the eyes of the rating agencies. 

vi This fiscal speed limit varies across nations. Smaller, open economies with flexible exchange rates, 

independent monetary policies, and interest rates above the zero bound have higher speed lim its. For 

example, the U.K. has a high fiscal speed limit, while peripheral European countries have lower speed 

limits. The U.S. is closer to the U.K., even though it is a more closed economy that possesses the globe's 

reserve currency. 

~i This is on top of the spending cuts related to the spending caps on discretionary spending agreed to as 

part ofthe Budget Control Act and savings from the end of the Iraq and Afghan wars. This totals 

approximately $1.9 trillion over the next decade. The $1.2 trillion in spending cuts excludes approximately 

$400 billion in net interest savings from the lower debt load due to the other program spending cuts and 

higher tax reven ues. 

,ii, The expiration of the Bush-era tax cul~ for upper-income households is worth approximately $1 trillion 

over 10 years. The caps on discretionary spending that came with the debt-ceiling deal are worth another $1 

trillion. Lawmakers also agreed to nearly $500 billion in lO-year spending cuts in an April 20 II deal. 

" It is important to note that from an economic perspective, there is no difference between a cut in 

government spending and a reduction in tax deductions and credits. For example, there is no difference 

between receiving the mortgage interest deduction via the tax code or via a check Irom the government. 
47 

American Enterpri5e Institute fo7' Public Policy Research 

Testimony before the Joint Economic Committee 

Fiscal Cliff: How to Protect the Middle Class, Sustain long-Term Economic 

Growth, and Reduce the Federal Deficit 

Kevin A. Hassett 

Director of Economic Policy Studies 

American Enterprise Institute 

December 6, 2012 

The views expressed in this testimony ore those of the author alane and do not necessarily represent 

the views of the American Enterprise Institute. 

1 
48 

Chairman Casey, Vice Chairman Brady, and Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to 

appear today to discuss the effects of the fiscal cliff on the economy. 

The "fiscal cliff," that is, the combination of automatic spending cuts and the end of multiple 

temporary tax cuts scheduled to expire at the end of this year. is estimated by the CBO to reduce the 

federal deficit in fiscal year 2013 by around $607 billion, or $560 billion after taking into account its 

effect on the overall economy'. Around two thirds of the $607 billion in savings stern from fourtax 

increases that are scheduled to take place in 2013. 

This dramatic budgetary shift would, of course, have a very large impact on the overall economy. In 

this testimony, I examine the potential short and long term effects of failing to address the fiscal 

cliff, and then relate lessons from the economics literature on the likely impact of various policy 

responses to the coming deadline. 

What is the "Fiscal Clift"? 

Coined by Ben Bernanke in February, the "fiscal cliff' comprises multiple scheduled tax increases 

and spending cuts that will take place at the beginning of 2013. The chart below lists the major 

components of the budgetary shifts, along with the amount that they will reduce the deficit in 

calendar year 2013. There are different estimates as to the cost of each policy, but these estimates 

give a rough picture of what we are to expect at the beginning of2013 under current law. 

Scheduled Revenue Increases 

Income, capital gains, and dividend rate increases on high income earners $52 billion 

Remainder of2001 and 2003 tax cuts $171 billion 

End of 2 percent payroll tax cutthat wentinto effectin January 2011 $115 billion 

Expiration of AMT patch $40 billion 

Increased tax rates on earnings and investment income of high-income $24 billion tax payers & Medicare surtax due to Affordable Care Act 

Estate and gift tax expirations $31 billion 

Expiration of business tax provisions, including partial expensing of $59 billion investmentpropcrty 

Total: $492 billion2 

Scheduled Spending Cuts 

Automatic cuts in Defense spending due to Budget Control Act I $37 billion 

Other cuts in spending due to Budget Control Act I $42 billion 

1 Congressional Budget Office. "Economic Effects of reducing the Fiscal Restraint that is Scheduled to Occur in 

2013". May 2012. < http://www .cbo.gov /sites! default!files! cbofiles!attachments!Fiscal Restraint_ O. pdf> 

2 Based on: Williams, R., E. Toder, D. Marron, and H. Nguyen. "Toppling off the Fiscal Cliff: Whose taxes rise and 

how much?". Tax Policy Center. October 1, 2012. <http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/412666-

toppling-off-the-fiscal-cliff.pdf> 

2 
49 

Expiration of extended emergency unemployment benefits I $30 billion 

Reduction in Medicare payments rates to physicians I $14 billion 

Total: $123 billion 

Based on estJrnates by the CBO, Macroeconormc AdvIsors, and the Tax Pohey Center 

Scheduled payroll tax and income tax rate increases will affect all income earners, while higher 

income earners will also face the expiration of an AMT patch and increased tax rates on their 

income due to legislated changes in the Affordable Care Act Meanwhile, government expenditures 

will decline due to provisions of the Budget Control Act. 

Short-Term Effects 

The economic consequences of all of that fiscal tightening would be profoundly negative. In May of 

this year, the CBO released a study estimating the effects of the spending cuts and revenue 

increases on economic growth in the short term. Their estimation predicts that real GOP will grow 

by.5 percent in 2013 if these scheduled budgetary changes come into effect, as opposed to their 

estimate of 4.4 percent growth if all current policies are continued. Further, they predict that the 

first half of 2013 will experience an annual rate of contraction of 1.3 percent of GOP, followed by 

growth in the second half of 2013 at an annual rate of 2.3 percent3• In an updated analysis in 

November, the CBO predicted that GOP would actually shrink by .5 percent over 2013 with 

scheduled budgetary changes'. This pattern of growth, they note, would likely be considered a 

recession by the National Bureau of Economic Research. 

Macroeconomics Advisors LLC has a similar analysis, stating last week that in their analysis, "GOP 

would contract in the first half of 2013 and grow just 1.1 % overthe four quarters of the year"s. This 

growth rate is slightly more optimistic than that of the CBO, but predicts a similar dynamic. The 

unemployment rate is also expected to increase in 2013 if all of the spending cuts and tax increases 

are realized. 

While there is a significant amount of uncertainty regarding the exact scale of these effects, the fact 

that the fiscal cliff contains both tax increases and spending reductions means that even the most 

devout Keynesians and Supply Siders should agree that a recession would be likely next year if no 

deal can be struck to avoid these large and sudden changes. 

The one bit of good news associated with this dire scenario is the dramatic improvement of the 

budgetary situation that would ensue. The CBO estimated that the deficit would be reduced by 4.7 

percent of GOP between 2012 and 2013, resulting in an average annual deficit of 1.4 percent of GOP 

between 2013 and 2022, even when factoring in the weaker economic growth that they predict will 

happen in 2013. 

3 Congressional Budget Office. "Economic Effects of reducing the Fiscal Restraint that is Scheduled to Occur in 

2013". May 2012. <http://www .cbo.gov Isitesl default/fi lesl cbofiles/attachments/FiscaIRestraint_ O.pdf> 

4 Congressional Budget Office. "Economic Effects of Policies Contributing to Fiscal Tightening in 2013". November 

2012. <http://www .cbo.gov /sites/ default/files/ cbofiles/attach ments/ll-08-12 -FiscalTighteni ng.pdf> 

5 Macroeconomic Advisors llC. "Is the Cliff a Bargain?" Macroeconomic Advisors' Macro Focus, Volume 7, Number 

2. November 29,2012. 

3 
50 

Long-Term Effects 

While the short term effects of the fiscal cliff have received wide spread attention throughout the 

past few months, discussion of the long term effects of high deficits that would result from an 

extension of current policy has been less prevalent. At the end of the CBO's November report on the 

economic effects of the policies comprising the fiscal cliff, after long discussion of growth effects in 

the short term, they conclude with a statement that: 

"Although reducing the fiscal tightening schedule to occur next year would boost output and 

employment in the short run, doing so without imposing a comparable amount of additional 

tightening in future years would reduce the nation's output and income in the longer run 

relative to what would occur if the scheduled tightening remained in place." 

Large government deficits crowd our private resource accumulation, reducing economic growth in 

the medium and long terms. While a steep recession would follow from failure to make a deal, 

growth prospects In the medium and long term could improve if deficit reduction of that scale is 

accomplished. 

These beneficial long term growth effects, of course, would depend on the form that the deficit 

reduction might take. But holding off discussion of that for a moment, research into the long term 

effects of high government debt has confirmed that it can negatively impact GOP growth, especially 

above a certain threshold. Ifwe extend current policy and continue incurring annual deficits of 

dose to 6 percent of GOP, then we will surely experience slower GOP growth in the long term as a 

consequence. Any discussion of the fiscal cliff and its consequences must include an examination of 

the tradeoffs between short term and long term growth, because while the short term effect of the 

fiscal cliff is negative, reversing it would have negative effects in the long term. 

Evidence of the long term effects of high government debt to GOP ratios has been supplied by a 

number of recent studies. In a widely cited paper reviewing forty-four countries over about two 

hundred years, Reinhart and Rogoff document a strong relationship between high debt levels and 

slow GOP growth6. They find that this relationship is especially strong when countries exceed a 

gross debtto GOP level of 90 percent. This relationship holds true when examining all of the 

countries in their sample and when they restrict their analysis to developed economies. 

Although the Reinhart and Rogoff analysis has been criticized for implying only correlation and not 

controlling for other factors that may impede growth and lead to high levels of debt, a separate IMF 

Working Paper by Manmohan S. Kumar and Jeajoon Woo confirmed their findings that higher levels 

of government debt lead to lower levels of growth7• They estimate that a 10 percentage point 

increase in Oebt as a percentage of GOP is associated with an annual decrease in .2 percentage 

points of GOP growth. They also find some evidence that this effect is stronger with. higher levels of 

debt. 

'Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff, "Growth in a Time of Debt." National Bureau of Economic Research 

Working Paper 15639. January 2010. <http://www.nber.org/papers/w15639> 

7 Manmohan S. Kumar and Jaejoon Woo, "Public Debt and Growth." IMF Working Paper WPj10j174. July 2010. 

<http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2010/wpl0174.pdf> 

4 
51 

These results are further corroborated in a study by Mehmet Caner, Thomas Grennes, and Fritzi 

Koehler-Geib which tries to identilY a "tipping point" in debt to GDP ratios that leads to lower 

growth8• In their estimate, debt to GDP ratios above about 77 percent lead to slowed annual GDP 

growth, with an increase in each percentage point of debt reducing annual growth by about .017 

percentage points. 

A simple calculation can help provide some intuition for this result. If we were to, all else equal, 

run deficits of 6 percent of GDP for the next 10 years, then the debt to GDP ratio would climb by 

nearly 60 percentage points. That increase would be enough, at the end of the decade, to reduce 

annual growth forecasts by around 1 percentage point per year. 

Taken together, these studies suggest that the United States is headed down a path to lower annual 

growth if we maintain our current policies. A simple chart of the growth in the Debt to GDP ratio 

shows why. 

toO 

90 / 

80 -'" r.... 70 / "-..... 60 I 50 

!-... ./ " I --8aseline 

40 '" /' v-' 

30 ~ --Alternative 

Scenario 20 

10 

0 0 M '"' '" N '" 0:> ,... .". t- o M '"' '" N U1 co ,... '" t- o 

'" '" '" '" t- "- t- eo 0:> eo '" '" '" '" 0 0 0 ,... ,... ,... N 

'" ~ '" ~ '" '" '" '" '" '" '" '" '" ~ 0 0 0 ~ 0 0 0 M ,... ,.... ,.... ,... ,... ,... ,... .-; ,... ,... N N N N N N 

Source: C80 

Under the CBO's "Alternative fiscal scenario" prOjection, which assumes that all current tax levels 

are extended, with the exception of the payroll tax holiday, the AMT is indexed for inflation, 

Medicare's payment rates are held constant and the sequester required by the Budget Control Act 

does not happen, deficits between 2013 and 2022 will average 5.3 percent of GDP. This would lead 

to an increase in the deb to 93 percent of GDP within ten years. In its "baseline" projections, the 

debt as a percentage ofGDP would decrease to 61.3 percent by the end of 20129 • 

• Mehmet Caner, Thomas Grennes and Fritzi Koehler-Geib, "Finding the Tipping Point - When Sovereign Debt 

Turns Bad." May 19,2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1612407 

9 Congressional Budget Office. 'Updated Budget Projections: Fiscal years 2012 to 2022." March 2012. 

<http://www.cbo.gov/sites/ default/files/ cbofiles/attachments/March2012Baseli ne.pdf> 

5 
52 

12 

0.. 10 0 

\lI 8 -

0 

... 6 c: 

.. 4 ~ 

.. 

0.. 

Fiscal Gaps 

Required change in government finances to reduce debt to 75 percent 

of GDP by 2050 

.!!! .. E .. .;! -c '0 11 >- 11 ~ '0 >- iii .. e:> ~ '0 '0 'iii .;! ,,; C '0 

.~ 11 iii c c ~ 1:' '0 C C '" '" c [ii ::> :n .. ~ .. OJ .. ~ ::> c .. '" :n .. '0 .. ';;;, iii ::> E C E 1:' .. ~ 0 0 .. 'iii a ::> ::> a. OJ ;:: 1;; ::> a. c '" .0 ;:: '5 a. VI 

::> <C ., u OJ c u:: iii <!J ::> E OJ OJ "- OJ :;: 

<C a:l OJ N VI ~ '" CI <!J ::r: ~ -.5 "- <x: 

'5 OJ :;: 'l;i ':ii 

.3 z '" VI 

5 z > 0 

Vi 

Source: Merola, R. and D. Sutherland (2012) DECO. 

E ~ 

0 E '0 

.. fl c VI 

'U ;;:: 

'0 E 

E 'c 

:::J 'c 

:::J 

That growth story might be alarming, but the picture looks even worse when we compare ourselves 

to our developed trading partners. This year, much of Europe has been in turmoil because of the 

Greek debt crisis, but in many ways, the sickest European nations are actually in better shape than 

us. While the US debt may seem manageable to many who look at struggles in other countries and 

take consolation in our relative stability, the situation of the US today, when taken in the long run, is 

actually further from debt stability than many other developed countries. A recent study by Merola 

and Sutherland of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (DECO) examined 

long-term projections for OECD countries' debt burdenslo• Taking into account growth in the cost of 

pensions and health care in the future (but including assumptions that poliCies will be put in place 

to control their quickly rising costs). the researchers calculate how much governments would need 

to immediately and permanently change their fiscal patterns to reduce their debt to 75 percent of 

GDP by 2050. For the US. this number is 7.78 percent of GOP - the third highest in the sample. 

As bad as the medium growth outlook becomes, if we look past the medium term, the story gets 

even worse. For most of us, we have grown accustomed to living in an America that can be 

expected to post positive economic growth each year. Our irresponsible fiscal policies suggest our 

children may expect no such thing. 

Given that previous research has estimated the effect that higher debt to GOP ratios have on 

economic growth, it is possible to theorize about how a continuation of to day's policies could hurt 

10 Merola, R. and D. Sutherland (2012), "Fiscal Consolidation: Part 3. Long-Run Projections and Fiscal Gap 

Calculations", OEeD Economics Department Working Papers, No. 934, DECO Publishing. 

http://dx.doi.org/lO.1787 /Sk9h28p42pfl-en 
53 

growth in the future. Michael Boskin, in a recent SIEPR policy brief11, did just that. Using both the 

IMF Working Paper's estimates and estimates from Reinhart and RogofFs work, Boskin calculates 

the effect on GOP if current policies are continued and compares it to a scenario in which deficit 

reduction is started and the debt is stabilized at its 2016 level and a baseline in which growth is not 

affected. The chart below is a representation of GOP growth factoring in the effect of debt as 

estimated in the IMF Kumar and Woo study. 

- Baseline 

Debt Stabilized at 2016 Level 

Year 

Factoring in lowered GOP growth, Boskin calculates that if current policies are continued GOP will 

be 30.4 percent lower in 2050 than if there were no effect of debt on growth. Even if the debt is 

stabilized in 2016, GOP will still suffer in the future; its level in 2050 would be 12.1 percent lower 

compared to the baseline. According to his calculations, growth will essentially stagnate by the 

2040s. 

What can we do? 

While the fiscal C\iffmay lead to smaller economic growth in the short term, it may also provide us 

with an opportunity to discuss the deficit reduction that will become necessary to prevent further 

stagnation in the future. The path of current policy is clearly not sustainable in the long term, and a 

change is needed in order to stabilize the debt in the long run and provide ourselves a path to 

economic prosperity in the coming decades. 

11 Boskin, Michael. "A Note on the effects of the Higher National Debt on Economic Growth." SEIPR Policy Brief. 

Stanford University. October 2012. 

<http://siepr.stanford.edu/?q=/system/files/shared/pubs/papers/briefs/pb_ll_2012.pdf> 

7 
54 

Luckily for policy makers here, other countries have undergone fiscal consolidation in the past, 

providing us examples of what policies are successful and which ones have failed. Along with two 

colleagues, I have written an analysis12 exploring policy mixes in successful and failed fiscal 

consolidations in 21 OEeD countries. Based on the evidence that we found, along with previous 

economic literature on the subject, we have concluded that fiscal consolidations based more heavily 

on expenditure cuts than revenue increases are more likely to be successful at producing lasting 

reductions in debt. 

Using a range of different methodologies, we find that the average unsuccessful fiscal consolidation 

relied upon 53 percent tax increases and 47 percent spending cuts, while a typical successful 

consolidation consisted of85 percent expenditure cuts. We also found that cuts to social transfers 

were more likely to reduce deficits than other expenditure cuts. The chart below shows the 

composition of average successful and unsuccessful consolidation plans, along with a few measures 

taken recently by other countries. 

100% 

90% 

80% 

70% 

c 

0 60% 

~ 50% a.. 

(lJ 40% ;::l 

c 

(lJ 30% :> 

ILl 

cr; 20~ .. & 

10% 

0% 

x 

.. Greek Consolidation 

PI;cm 2010-2013 

Irish Consolidation 

Plan 2008-2014 

.... United Kingdom 

Consolidation Plan 

2011-2014 

-M-Average of Historical 

Successes 

-M-Aver<>ge of Historic,,1 

1 Failures 

0% 10% 20% 30%40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 900/0100% 

Expenditure Portion 

Other research has reported similar findings, most notably and earlier paper by Alesina and 

Perottj13, which found that consolidations successful in reducing debt consisted of 64 percent 

spending cuts and 36 percent tax increases. Similarly, McDermott and Wescott1• found in a survey 

12 Andrew G. Biggs, Kevin A. Hassett, and Matthew Jensen, "A Guide for Deficit Reduction in the United States 

Based on Historical Consolidations That Worked," AEI Economic Policy Working Paper 2010-04 (2010) 

http://www.aeLorg/paper/100179. 

13 Alberto Alesina and Roberto Perotti, "Fiscal Adjustments in OECD Countries: Composition and Macroeconomic 

Effects," NBER Working Paper 5730 (1996) 

14 McDermott, C. John and Wescott, Robert, An Empirical Analysis of Fiscal Adjustments (June 1996). IMF Working 

Paper, Vol. pp. 1-26, 1996. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=882959 

8 
55 

of fiscal consolidations that expenditure-based consolidations had a 41 percent chance of success; 

while revenue-based consolidations have only a 16 percent success rate. 

Recently, AJesina, Favero, and GiaVezzi have produced an analysis IS of the effect of fiscal 

consolidations on growth. In examining evidence from seventeen OECD countries between 1980 

and 2005, they find that consolidations consisting mainly of tax increases generally have a more 

negative effect on growth than policy mixes dominated by cuts in expenditures. This is important, 

as one great concern of deficit cutting policies is their effect on short term growth. What their 

research suggests is that we may be able to avoid some of the expected effects of fiscal 

consolidation if policy is designed correctly. Indeed, a recent analysis by Cogan, Taylor and Wolters 

underscores how important fiscal consolidation will be for growth in the US, even in the short 

terml6• The economists studied the potential effect of a gradual reduction in spending on growth in 

the overall economy. Even in the short term, implementation of this debt reduction strategy, they 

found, would lead to an increase in GDP, and the level of the overall economy remains higher than a 

baseline without deficit reduction in the long run. 

Alesina and Ardagna added to this research by looking at how other policies adopted with fiscal 

consolidation can help or harm growth. Along with confirming that cutting expenditures was 

preferable to increases in taxes, they find that pro-growth reforms, such as labor market 

liberalization, can mitigate some negative outcomes of fiscal consolidation policies17• These lines of 

research, based upon previous fiscal consolidations and their outcomes, can inform the debate 

today about what policy mix we should aim for in addressing the growing debt. 

Under current law, the fiscal cliff consists of about 80 percent revenue increases, with an estimated 

increase of $492 billion dollars in tax increases and $123 billion in spending cuts. This differs 

greatly from those consolidations that the economics literature identifies as successful. The 

proposal put forward by President Obama is even more unattractive and, indeed, would be 

guaranteed to fail given our past experience. 

It is easy for an economist to design a reform that puts the U.s. back on a positive and sustainable 

economic path. I understand how difficult the politics of spending reduction can be, but if deficit 

reduction is pursued with a "balanced approach" that is weighed heavier on tax increases than 

about 15 percent, then the consolidation will almost surely fail. At that point, the pessimistic 

growth outlook discussed above would become a reality, and our children would live in a 

fundamentally different America than the one we are accustomed to. The stakes could not be 

higher. 

15 Alesina, Alberto, Carlo Favero and Francesco GiaVazzi, "The output effect of fiscal consolidations", August 2012. 

NBER Working Paper 18336. 

16 Cogan, John F., John B. Taylor, Volker Wieland, and Maik Wolters, "Fiscal Consolidation Strategy" September 21, 

2012 

17 Alesina, Alberto and Silvia Ardagna, "The Design of fiscal adjustments", October 2012. NBER Working Paper 

18423. 

9 
56 
57 
58 

Æ