A recent post in the Becker-Posner Blog (http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/) features the economic point-counter point discussions of University of Chicago Economist Gary Becker and legal scholar and Federal Judge Richard A. Posner. A recent post by Gary Becker deals with the issue of the U.S. Debt Ceiling. Gary Becker’s homepage is found here.
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Following are some excerpts from Gary Becker’s latest post (1/20/2012) titled “On The Debt Ceiling“, posted at the following web address: http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2013/01/on-the-debt-ceiling-becker.html
On the Debt Ceiling-Becker
Ultimately, the only way to evaluate debt ceilings is to determine how much they affect the level and composition of spending and taxation. That would not be easy to do in a credible way because of the difficulty in determining the counterfactual; that is, what would have been spending and taxation by the federal government in the absence of the debt ceilings?
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While federal government spending in real terms has grown manyfold since the end of World War II, the ratio of debt subject to the debt limit to GDP was a manageable 57% in the year 2000. This ratio has grown rapidly since then, especially during the past four years, and it is now about 98%, higher than most other rich countries. Clearly, debt ceilings have not prevented spending and taxation from growing significantly over time. Nor would the present ratio of debt to GDP be a big problem as long as interest rates remain low.
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…what counts most for an economy is not the ratio of debt to GDP, but that of government spending to GDP. This ratio will increase or decrease as GDP grows slower or faster than government spending. A decline in this ratio would be achieved if GDP resumes its long-term growth rate of a little over 3% per year, and if the growth in entitlement and other spending were kept under control. It remains to be seen whether the American economy will regain its long-term growth rate, and whether interest groups and politicians will resist the temptation to have government spending continue to grow at a rapid rate.