Ben S Bernanke: Fiscal sustainability and fiscal rules
Speech by Mr Ben S Bernanke, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
System, at the Annual Meeting of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, Providence,
Rhode Island, 4 October 2010.
* * *
The recent deep recession and the subsequent slow recovery have created severe
budgetary pressures not only for many households and businesses, but for governments as
well. Indeed, in the United States, governments at all levels are grappling not only with the
near-term effects of economic weakness, but also with the longer-run pressures that will be
generated by the need to provide health care and retirement security to an aging population.
There is no way around it - meeting these challenges will require policymakers and the
public to make some very difficult decisions and to accept some sacrifices. But history makes
clear that countries that continually spend beyond their means suffer slower growth in
incomes and living standards and are prone to greater economic and financial instability.
Conversely, good fiscal management is a cornerstone of sustainable growth and prosperity.
Although state and local governments face significant fiscal challenges, my primary focus
today will be the federal budget situation and its economic implications.1 I will describe the
factors underlying current and projected budget deficits and explain why it is crucially
important that we put U.S. fiscal policy on a sustainable path. I will also offer some thoughts
on whether new fiscal rules or institutions might help promote a successful transition to fiscal
sustainability in the United States.
Fiscal challenges
The budgetary position of the federal government has deteriorated substantially during the
past two fiscal years, with the budget deficit averaging 9-1/2 percent of national income
during that time. For comparison, the deficit averaged 2 percent of national income for the
fiscal years 2005 to 2007, prior to the onset of the recession and financial crisis. The recent
deterioration was largely the result of a sharp decline in tax revenues brought about by the
recession and the subsequent slow recovery, as well as by increases in federal spending
needed to alleviate the recession and stabilize the financial system. As a result of these
deficits, the accumulated federal debt measured relative to national income has increased to
a level not seen since the aftermath of World War II.
For now, the budget deficit has stabilized and, so long as the economy and financial markets
continue to recover, it should narrow relative to national income over the next few years.
Economic conditions provide little scope for reducing deficits significantly further over the
next year or two; indeed, premature fiscal tightening could put the recovery at risk. Over the
medium- and long-term, however, the story is quite different. If current policy settings are
maintained, and under reasonable assumptions about economic growth, the federal budget
will be on an unsustainable path in coming years, with the ratio of federal debt held by the
public to national income rising at an increasing pace.2 Moreover, as the national debt grows,
so will the associated interest payments, which in turn will lead to further increases in
projected deficits. Expectations of large and increasing deficits in the future could inhibit
current household and business spending - for example, by reducing confidence in the
longer-term prospects for the economy or by increasing uncertainty about future tax burdens
and government spending - and thus restrain the recovery. Concerns about the
government's long-run fiscal position may also constrain the flexibility of fiscal policy to
respond to current economic conditions. Accordingly, steps taken today to improve the
country's longer-term fiscal position would not only help secure longer-term economic and
financial stability, they could also improve the near-term economic outlook.
Our fiscal challenges are especially daunting because they are mostly the product of
powerful underlying trends, not short-term or temporary factors. Two of the most important
driving forces are the aging of the U.S. population, the pace of which will intensify over the
next couple of decades as the baby-boom generation retires, and rapidly rising health-care
costs. As the health-care needs of the aging population increase, federal health-care
programs are on track to be by far the biggest single source of fiscal imbalances over the
longer term. Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that the ratio of federal
spending for health-care programs (principally Medicare and Medicaid) to national income
will double over the next 25 years, and continue to rise significantly further after that.3 The
ability to control health-care costs as our population gets older, while still providing
highquality care to those who need it, will be critical not only for budgetary reasons but for
maintaining the dynamism of the broader economy as well.
The aging of the U.S. population will also strain Social Security, as the number of workers
paying taxes into the system rises more slowly than the number of people receiving benefits.
This year, there are about five individuals between the ages of 20 and 64 for each person
aged 65 and older. By 2030, when most of the baby boomers will have retired, this ratio is
projected to decline to around 3, and it may subsequently fall yet further as life expectancies
continue to increase. Overall, the projected fiscal pressures associated with Social Security
are considerably smaller than the pressures associated with federal health programs, but
they still present a significant challenge to policymakers.
The same underlying trends affecting federal finances will also put substantial pressures on
state and local budgets, as organizations like yours have helped to highlight.4 In Rhode
Island, as in other states, the retirement of state employees, together with continuing
increases in health-care costs, will cause public pension and retiree health-care obligations
to become increasingly difficult to meet. Estimates of unfunded pension liabilities for the
states as whole span a wide range, but some researchers put the figure as high as $2 trillion
at the end of 2009.5 Estimates of states' liabilities for retiree health benefits are even more
uncertain because of the difficulty of projecting medical costs decades into the future.
However, one recent estimate suggests that state governments have a collective liability of
almost $600 billion for retiree health benefits.6 These health benefits have usually been
handled on a pay-as-you-go basis and therefore could impose a substantial fiscal burden in
coming years as large numbers of state workers retire.
It may be scant comfort, but the United States is not alone in facing fiscal challenges. The
global recession has dealt a blow to the fiscal positions of most other advanced economies,
and, as in the United States, their expenditures for public health care and pensions are
expected to rise substantially in the coming decades as their populations age.7 Indeed, the
population of the United States overall is younger than those of a number of European
countries as well as Japan.8
The need for fiscal sustainability
Let me return to the issue of longer-term fiscal sustainability. As I have discussed,
projections by the CBO and others show future budget deficits and debts rising indefinitely,
and at increasing rates. To be sure, projections are to some degree only hypothetical
exercises. Almost by definition, unsustainable trajectories of deficits and debts will never
actually transpire, because creditors would never be willing to lend to a country in which the
fiscal debt relative to the national income is rising without limit. Herbert Stein, a wise
economist, once said, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop."9 One way or the other,
fiscal adjustments sufficient to stabilize the federal budget will certainly occur at some point.
The only real question is whether these adjustments will take place through a careful and
deliberative process that weighs priorities and gives people plenty of time to adjust to
changes in government programs or tax policies, or whether the needed fiscal adjustments
will be a rapid and painful response to a looming or actual fiscal crisis. Although the choices
and tradeoffs necessary to achieve fiscal sustainability are difficult indeed, surely it is better
to make these choices deliberatively and thoughtfully.
Arguably, the imperative to achieve long-term fiscal sustainability is an opportunity as well as
a challenge. Opportunities for both taxing and spending reforms are ample. For example,
most people agree that the U.S. tax code is less efficient and less equitable than it might be;
moreover, the code is excessively complex and imposes heavy administrative and
compliance costs. Collecting revenues through a more efficient, better-designed tax system
could improve economic growth and make achieving sustainable fiscal policies at least
somewhat easier. Likewise, many federal spending programs doubtless could be reformed to
achieve their stated objectives more effectively and at lower cost. Certainly, continued efforts
to reduce health-care costs and government health spending, while continuing to ensure
appropriate care for those who need it, should be a top priority.
Failing to address our unsustainable fiscal situation exposes our country to serious economic
costs and risks. In the short run, as I have noted, concerns and uncertainty about exploding
future deficits could make households, businesses, and investors more cautious about
spending, capital investment, and hiring. In the longer term, a rising level of government debt
relative to national income is likely to put upward pressure on interest rates and thus inhibit
capital formation, productivity, and economic growth. Larger government deficits increase our
reliance on foreign lenders, all else being equal, implying that the share of U.S. national
income devoted to paying interest to foreign investors will increase over time. Income paid to
foreign investors is not available for domestic consumption or investment. And an
increasingly large cost of servicing a growing national debt means that the adjustments,
when they come, could be sharp and disruptive. For example, large tax increases that might
be imposed to cover the rising interest on the debt would slow potential growth by reducing
incentives to work, save, hire, and invest. Finally, a large federal debt decreases the flexibility
of policymakers to temporarily increase spending as needed to address future emergencies,
such as recessions, wars, or natural disasters.
It would be difficult to identify a specific threshold at which federal debt begins to pose more
substantial costs and risks to the nation's economy. Perhaps no bright line exists; the costs
and risks may grow more or less continuously as the federal debt rises. What we do know,
however, is that the threat to our economy is real and growing, which should be sufficient
reason for fiscal policymakers to put in place a credible plan for bringing deficits down to
sustainable levels over the medium term. The sooner a plan is established, the longer
affected individuals will have to prepare for the necessary changes. Indeed, in the past, long
lead times have helped make necessary adjustments less painful and thus politically
feasible. For example, the gradual step-up in the full retirement age for Social Security was
enacted in 1983, but it did not begin to take effect until 2003 and will not be completed until
2027, thus giving future retirees ample time to adjust their plans for work, saving, and
retirement.
Fiscal rules
Amid all of the uncertainty surrounding the long-term economic and budgetary outlook, one
certainty is that both current and future Congresses and Presidents will have to make some
very tough decisions to put the budget back on a sustainable trajectory.
Can these tough decisions be made easier for our elected leaders? At various times, some
U.S. Congresses and foreign governments have adopted fiscal rules to help structure the
budget process. Fiscal rules are legislative agreements intended to promote fiscal
responsibility by constraining decisions about spending and taxes. For example, fiscal rules
may impose constraints on key budget aggregates, such as total government expenditures,
deficits, or debt. In the remainder of my remarks I will discuss the use of fiscal rules to
address longer-term budget problems, beginning with a review of the U.S. and foreign
experience.
The United States has seen several attempts to apply fiscal rules, with mixed results. In
1985, the Congress enacted the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law which, among other things,
specified a target path for the federal deficit, including the elimination of the deficit by 1991.
However, the target path proved to be unattainable, and eventually the entire structure was
abandoned. One problem with this approach was that its primary focus and measure of
success was the current budget deficit. Although the emphasis on the current deficit was
understandable, the approach ran aground of the fact that the budget deficit is driven not
only by the choices of the Congress, but also by the performance of the economy. If the
economy is strong, for example, the deficit is almost bound to improve, as tax revenues
increase and spending on the social safety net decreases; conversely, if the economy
weakens, the deficit is likely to rise, notwithstanding prior efforts by the Congress to better
manage government spending and taxes.
With fiscal concerns still prominent, in 1990 the Congress and the President adopted a new
approach, with two key elements. First, this alternative approach capped the level of
discretionary federal spending - that is, the spending subject to annual appropriations,
including defense and nondefense purchases of goods and services. Second, it imposed a
pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rule on tax revenues and mandatory spending, which is spending
that continues automatically without an annual reauthorization; entitlement spending such as
Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security makes up most of this category. The PAYGO rule
required that any tax reduction or mandatory spending increase be "paid for" with offsetting
tax hikes or spending cuts, so that projected deficits over the 5- and 10-year horizons would
not be worsened. Supported importantly by the strong economic growth of the 1990s, these
rules are seen by many observers as having helped put the deficit on a declining path;
indeed, the federal government generated a few annual surpluses. The discretionary
spending caps and the PAYGO rule were allowed to expire after the 2001 fiscal year, in part
because concerns about deficits were waning at the time.
Currently, the Congress operates under more-limited PAYGO rules. The rules require that
offsets for spending increases or tax cuts must be found within a 10-year budget horizon, but
they also exempt a number of significant tax and spending programs. Putting aside these
details of implementation, given current budgetary challenges, the key question is whether
the traditional PAYGO approach is sufficiently ambitious. At its best, PAYGO prevents new
tax cuts and mandatory spending increases from making projected budget deficits worse; by
construction, PAYGO does not require the Congress to reduce the ever-increasing deficits
that are already built into current law.
Many other countries have experience with fiscal rules. The European Union, by treaty,
established fiscal rules in the early 1990s, with the goal of ensuring that all members would
maintain sustainable fiscal policies. The rules specified that countries should keep their
government deficits at or below 3 percent of their gross domestic products (GDP), and that
government debt should not exceed 60 percent of GDP. Even before the recent financial
crisis and recession, however, the enforcement mechanisms for these rules did not prevent
these targets from being breached, and fiscal problems in several euro-area countries have
recently been a source of financial and economic stress. European leaders are working to
strengthen their tools for enforcing fiscal discipline.
Although fiscal rules have not been panaceas in the United States or the euro area as a
whole, a number of other economies, in Europe and elsewhere, seemed to have found fiscal
rules to be helpful in achieving greater budget discipline. For example, Switzerland, Sweden,
Finland, and the Netherlands all realized improvements in their fiscal situations after adopting
rules that limit spending. Canada saw improvement in its deficit after it implemented
spending limits in the early 1990s, and its ratio of public debt to national income fell
substantially after 1998 when it put in place a "balanced budget or better" rule. A number of
emerging market nations, such as Chile, have also applied fiscal rules with some success.
According to the International Monetary Fund, about 80 countries currently are subject to
national or supranational fiscal rules.10
Clearly, a fiscal rule does not guarantee improved budget outcomes; after all, any rule
imposed by a legislature can be revoked or circumvented by the same legislature. However,
although not all countries with fiscal rules have achieved lower deficits and debt, the weight
of the evidence suggests that well-designed rules can help promote improved fiscal
performance.11 I will discuss four factors that seem likely to increase their effectiveness.
First, effective rules must be transparent. By shining a light on the problem and the range of
feasible solutions, transparent policy rules clarify the budget choices that must be made, help
the public understand those choices, and encourage policymakers to recognize the broader
fiscal consequences of their decisions on individual programs. In particular, transparent fiscal
rules may help solve what economists refer to as a collective action problem. When faced
with spending decisions, most elected representatives want to be seen as garnering the
greatest possible benefit for their constituents. But if a prior agreement limits the size of the
available pie, it may be easier to negotiate outcomes in which everyone accepts a little bit
less. Of course, transparency is enhanced by good watchdogs. In the United States, the
nonpartisan CBO has ably served that role since 1974. Nongovernmental organizations that
focus on budget issues, such as nonprofit think tanks, can also promote transparency.
Second, an effective rule must be sufficiently ambitious to address the underlying problem.
As I mentioned, PAYGO rules, even when effective, were designed only to avoid making the
fiscal situation worse; they did not attack large and growing structural deficits. In the current
U.S. context, we should consider adopting a rule, or at least a clearly articulated plan,
consistent with achieving long-term fiscal sustainability. Admittedly, an important difficulty
with developing rules for long-term fiscal sustainability in the United States is that, given the
importance of health-care spending in the federal budget, the CBO would need to forecast
health-care costs and the potential effects of alternative policy measures on those costs well
into the future. Such forecasting is very difficult. However, any plan to address long-term U.S.
fiscal issues, whether or not in the context of a fiscal rule, would have to contend with
forecast uncertainties.
Third, rules seem to be more effective when they focus on variables that the legislature can
control directly, as opposed to factors that are largely beyond its control. For example, as I
noted, actual budget deficits depend on spending and taxation decisions but also on the
state of the economy. As a result, when a target for the deficit or the debt is missed,
ascribing responsibility may be difficult. Current congressional procedures generally require
the CBO to "score" proposed spending and tax programs for their budget effects over a
specified, longer-term horizon; this approach, although not without its problems, has the
advantage of linking budget targets directly to legislative decisions.
Fourth, and perhaps most fundamentally, fiscal rules cannot substitute for political will, which
means that public understanding of and support for the rules are critical. For example, the
fiscal rules that Switzerland adopted in 2001 had overwhelming popular support; the
widespread support no doubt contributed to their success in helping to reduce that country's
ratio of public debt to national income. Conversely, in the absence of public support and
commitment from elected leaders, fiscal rules may ultimately have little effect on budget
outcomes. Educating the public about the consequences of unsustainable fiscal policies may
be one way to help build that support.
Conclusion
Today I have
highlighted our nation's fiscal challenges. In the past few years, the recession
and the financial crisis, along with the policy actions taken to buffer their effects, have eroded
our fiscal situation. An improving economy should reduce near-term deficits, but our public
finances are nevertheless on an unsustainable path in the longer term, reflecting in large part
our aging population and the continual rise in health-care costs. We should not
underestimate these fiscal challenges; failing to respond to them would endanger our
economic future.
Well-designed fiscal rules cannot substitute for the political will to take difficult decisions, but
U.S. and international experience suggests that they can be helpful to legislators in certain
circumstances. Indeed, installing a fiscal rule could provide an important signal to the public
that the Congress is serious about achieving long-term fiscal sustainability, which itself would
be good for confidence. A fiscal rule could also focus and institutionalize political support for
fiscal responsibility. Given the importance of achieving long-term fiscal stability, further
discussion of fiscal rules and frameworks seems well warranted.