The Coming US Budget Disaster Will Impoverish Americans – OpEd

By Daniel Lacalle

Deficit spending is not a growth tool. It is the recipe for stagnation.

The latestCongressional Budget Office (CBO)budget and economic outlook estimates show the extent of the challenges of the United States fiscal nightmare.

The CBO expects a budget deficit of $1.9 trillion in 2024, a year of alleged robust economic growth and record tax receipts. They expect revenues to reach $4.9 trillion, or 17.2 percent of GDP, in 2024, which will rise to 18.0 percent by 2027 and remain at that level until 2034.

This report’s main finding is alarming. Despite expecting no recession and rising tax revenues from 2024 to 2034, the budget deficit will explode from $1.9 trillion to $2.8 trillion by 2034.

Estimates place the adjusted deficit at 6.9 percent of GDP by 2034, nearly twice the average of 3.7 percent over the previous 50 years.

What is the problem when the CBO sees solid growth and rising revenues? Deficits are always a spending problem. By 2034, they expect outlays to soar from $6.8 trillion to $10.3 trillion, or 24.9% of GDP. Interestingly, one of the major reasons for the significant increase in outlays cited by the CBO is the soaring cost of debt. According to the report, debt swells from 2024 to 2034 “as increases in interest costs and mandatory spending outpace decreases in discretionary spending and growth in revenues.” Public debt rises from 99 percent of GDP in 2024 to 122 percent in 2034, or $50.6 trillion, to which we must add the public debt held by other entities, including the Fed. The CBO considers “debt held by the public” to be $28 trillion in 2024, when public debt is already $34 trillion. Thus, United States public debt will increase by $22 trillion in a decade.

The CBO projections prove without a doubt that there is no way in which the United States could balance the budget through revenue measures. There is no set of revenue measures that can collect $2 trillion per year in additional annual receipts. Increases in taxes would inevitably slow down investment and growth and reduce long-term potential receipts. Furthermore, even if the United States government was able to increase revenues, the likelihood of a recession in the next ten years, added to the promises of more “extraordinary” expenses in election years, would make the deficit soar regardless of any revenue improvement.

An economy that generates an annual deficit of 6 percent of GDP to achieve a mere 2 percent annual growth is on a dangerous path, even if that kind of growth is sustained. Inevitably, at the first sign of a recession, the government would spend even more.

Why should Americans be worried about this reckless pace of borrowing? Because it will mean three things for them: higher taxes, weaker growth, and the declining purchasing power of their salary and savings.

If you hail deficit spending, you are embracing impoverishment. If you defend this kind of deficit spending, you are actively supporting stagnation.

Deficit spending is not a social policy; it is profoundly anti-social. It means passing the burden of the state on to the next generation, making the unborn poorer before they see the light of day.

The next administration is unlikely to eliminate this irresponsible borrowing path if they continue to increase taxes and entitlement programs. The only way in which this path of monetary and fiscal destruction is eliminated is with pro-growth policies that lift the GDP growth trend, incentivize productivity, and promote business growth.

The combination of a sound monetary policy and pro-growth fiscal policies will help the United States maintain its leadership status and the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

The current policy of imprudent monetary policy, disguising the rising size of government with inflationary policies, will only lead to stagnation and the loss of world reserve status.

If the next administration wants the best for Americans, it must stop the deficit bleeding and subsequent monetization through central bank policies that make citizens’ lives more expensive and their dreams of prosperity vanish.

The current budget trend leads to stagnation, a bloated government, and unacceptable taxes. If you copy the policies of France, you get the lack of growth, high debt, and elevated unemployment of France.

There is no magical revenue measure that will stop the borrowing bleeding in the United States. Monetizing debt will continue to erode the middle class and weaken the economy, as well as perpetuate inflation, the hidden tax.

The United States has tried the European way and failed. It has delivered a debt-bloated GDP with declining consumer confidence and the destruction of the purchasing power of the currency.

Now is the time to implement sound money and responsible fiscal policies. Any other policy will fail and accelerate the decline of America.

• About the author: Daniel Lacalle, PhD, economist and fund manager, is the author of the bestselling books Freedom or Equality (2020), Escape from the Central Bank Trap (2017), The Energy World Is Flat​ (2015), and Life in the Financial Markets (2014). He is a professor of global economy at IE Business School in Madrid
• Source: This article was published at the Mises Institute