Two Videos

My Hoover colleague Russ Roberts just finished a nice video on inequality:

Among other takeaways, he stresses that the people who were rich in 1980 are not the same people or even families who are rich now. It is not true that "the rich got richer." He also tracks individuals through time, and poor individuals got richer to.  There is a lot more economic mobility in the US than the standard talking points.

The video is part of Hoover's Policy Ed initiative, and comes with lots of background information. I'll be curious to hear your comments.

A few months ago I went to the Friedberg Economic Institute to give an evolving talk I call "Free to grow" bringing together various themes of this blog and other writing. It's not nearly as polished as Russ's, and I'm still struggling to keep it under 10 hours!

(Click here to see the video.) The Friedberg Institute is a nascent free-market oriented organization in Israel. It mostly sponsors talks and classes for undergraduates, and for alumni of their program. As a result it is forming a club of sorts of talented and interesting young Israelis interested in economic freedom. If you're in Israel, check it out, and if you're invited to talk there, accept!

Ip on carbon tax

Over the weekend, Greg Ip at WSJ wrote a  nice piece on the carbon tax.

Greg addresses some common objections.

This urge to stop at nothing to find an effective solution is understandable. How can you put a price tag on the future of the planet?

..Green New Deal backers make another powerful argument: Global emissions levels are still rising, and to reverse them, carbon prices would have to be so high they’d be politically toxic. Better, the activists argue, to simply go straight to a massive, government-directed transition. 

This attitude is common. But there is no evading economics. Either you have visible economic damage (carbon tax) of $1,000 per ton or invisible economic damage of $10,000 per ton.  Prices are better than restrictions because you can see where you're wasting $10,000 per ton, which money could reduce 9 times as much carbon properly deployed.

There is also a political judgment here that people will not stand for a visible tax, but will stand politically, or perhaps be too stupid to notice, the much larger shadow price of direct controls. They won't pay $5 at the pump for gas, but will stand for banning cars. I don't think that's true. I don't think the left thinks it's true either. The way the Green New Deal and even the IPCC reports now bundle carbon reduction with a vast left-wing political agenda, and a rather Orwellian drive to silence criticism confirms it.

Smith, MMT, and science in economics

Many blog readers have asked for my opinions of "Modern Monetary Theory." I haven't written yet, because I try to read about things in some detail, ideally from original sources, before reviewing them, which I have not done. Life is short.

From the summaries I have read, some of the central propositions of MMT draw a false conclusion from two sensible premises. 1) Countries that print their own currencies do not have to default on excessive debts. They can always print money to pay off debts. True. 2) Inflation in the end can and must be controlled by raising taxes or cutting spending, sufficiently to soak up such printed (non-interest-bearing) money. True. The latter proposition is the heart of the fiscal theory of the price level, so I would have an especially tough time objecting.

It does not follow that the US need not worry about deficits, and may happily borrow tens of trillions to finance all sorts of spending. Borrow $50 trillion or so. When bondholders revolt, print money to pay off the bonds. When this results in inflation, raise taxes to soak up the money. OK, but this latter step is exactly raising taxes to pay off the bonds. Moreover, if bondholders see that the plan is to pay off bonds with printed money, they refuse to buy or roll over bonds in the first place and the inflation can happen right away.

This may reflect a common confusion between today's money with the new money that pays off debt. It would only take $1.5 trillion in extra taxes or lower spending to retire current currency (non-interest bearing government debt) outstanding. But  that's not the task after the great bond bailout. Then we have to raise taxes or cut spending by, in my example,  the $50 trillion printed to pay off the bonds. Large debts are either paid or defaulted, and inflation is the same thing economically as default. Period. (Currency boards run in to some of the same problem. Backing today's currency is not enough to avoid devaluation, if one does not back all the debt which promises to pay currency.)

I must admit some amusement that Keynesian commentators, having urged fiscal stimulus and decried evil "Austerians" for years, are apoplectic to be passed on the left. But that does not make the ideas of those passing on the left any more right.  There is also a different and interesting strain of thought, exemplified by recent writings by Larry Summers and Olivier Blanchard, that the current low interest rate environment might allow for somewhat, but not unlimited, extra borrowing. Those ideas are completely different analytically. I hope to cover them in a later blog post.

Noah Smith and guru-based theory

But, as I said, I have not studied MMT, so perhaps I'm missing something. Enter Noah Smith, who has delved in to figure out just what MMT is and whether or how it hangs together.

Noah interestingly characterizes MMT as  "Guru-based theory." Noah:

Carbon tax update

An interesting question emerged from some discussion surrounding my last carbon tax post. How big will the tax be? The letter says $40 a ton, but then rising. But how far? And in response to what question?

It occurs to me that the two obvious targets lead to radically different answers.

1) The social cost of carbon. This is what economists usually think of as the appropriate Pigouvian tax. In order to pollute, you pay the cost you impose on others by your pollution.

Even the worst-case scenarios now put the cost of carbon emissions at 10% of GDP in the year 2100. Discount that back, divide by all the carbon emitted between now and then, and, you're going to get a pretty small tax.

2) Temperature or quantitative guidelines. Or, "whatever it takes to stop the global temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees C." Such a tax has to be high enough to basically stop us  from using fossil fuels. It would be radically higher, and impose economic costs far higher than 10% of GDP.

When you set a goal of a quantity with no attached price, the price can get pretty high.

I see now some of the back and forth chatter. Anti-carbon types warn that any tax "won't be enough." Now I know what they mean.

So who sets the tax, and on what basis, are important issues we're all fudging over.

Of course, a cynic would take the view that the tax will be set to

3) Maximize government revenue.

Given the behavioral elasticities, that is likely to be a good deal less than #2, as to high a tax will quickly erode the tax base.

PS: to my may CO2-is-not-a-problem commenters. If (or perhaps when) it's all proved to be a hoax, a carbon tax is a lot easier to undo than the alternative regulatory approach!

Lend the shutdown?

The Federal Government seems to be obeying with rather remarkable accuracy the constitutional mandate that the government may not spend money that has not been appropriated by Congress.

I would be curious to hear from legal experts, however, what stops the government from lending money to federal employees, or just guaranteeing loans.

After all the government lends money all over the place, and credit guarantees are even larger. Is the Treasury no longer operating small business loan programs? (Honest question.) Is the Fed no longer lending money to banks, if they want it? Are Fannie and Freddy refusing to buy home mortgages because the funds to guarantee home mortgages (which it does) are not appropriated? No. As far as I can tell, Federal lending and loan guarantee programs are up and running.

If so, what stops the Treasury, from either lending money directly to Federal employees, or guaranteeing private lending. After all, the Treasury will write their back paychecks when the time comes, so these are potentially risk free loans. What stops the Treasury from just writing on a federal employees' paycheck "this is a loan against your back pay?"

Or... Social security and Medicare are still running. Can they write advances against social security payments that will be deducted from future federal paychecks?

I presume there is something stopping this -- that it is a step too clever, like the trillion dollar coin solution to the debt limit. But I would be curious to hear what the limitation is.

(HT Marginal Revolution on federal employees' other sources of financing, at pretty high interest rates.)

Property tax present value

How much is the property tax? In Calfornia, we pay 1%  per year.

That doesn't seem bad, except that property values are very high. You can't get a tear-down in Palo Alto for under $2 million. If you buy a house that costs 5 times your income -- say someone earning $200,000 per year buying a $1 million house -- then that is equivalent to 5 percentage points additional income tax.  On top of 42% federal, 13.2% state, 9% sales, and other taxes, it's part of my view that we're past 70% top marginal rate now.

The other way to look at taxes is in present value. At 1% interest rate, the value of a 1% payment is $1.00. What that means: Suppose you bought a $1,000,000 house. It's going to cost you $10,000 in property taxes per year. Let's set up an account that will pay your property taxes. If you get 1% interest on that account, you need to put $1,000,000 in the account!

A 1% property tax at a 1% interest rate is equivalent to a 100% tax on houses. That $1,000,000 house is really going to cost you $2,000,000!

There is a general paradox here: The top two things our politicians say they want to encourage are jobs and homeownership. Jobs are perhaps the most highly taxed economic activity in the economy, and by this calculation houses come in a close second.

(California also assesses a 1% personal property tax, on top of a sales tax, for anything they can prove you own, which usually means boats and airplanes. That too is an additional 100% tax.)

The second lesson, the value of wealth taxes depends sensitively on the interest rate, as I'm sure some of you are chomping at the bit to point out. If the interest rate is 2%, then the tax rate is "only" 1/0.02 = 50%. If the interest rate is 5%, then the tax rate is 1/0.05 = 20%. I suspect these taxes were put in place in a time of higher interest ares and nobody is really thinking about the effect of lower rates.

Similarly, suppose the government puts in a 1% per year wealth tax. If wealth generates a 5% rate of return, then the 1% wealth tax is the same thing as a 20% one-time confiscation of value*.  If wealth generates a 1% rate of return, a 1% wealth tax is a 100% confiscation of value**. Mercifully, our income tax system taxes the rate of return, not the principal, and avoids this conundrum. Others do not.

What is the right rate? We can have a lot of fun with that one. The current 30 year TIPS (inflation indexed) rate is 1.19%. The 30 year nominal Treasury rate is 2.97%.  In California, under Proposition 13, you pay 1% of the actual purchase price per year, but that quantity never increases. (This fact results in the paradox of extremely high property taxes on new purchasers, older people staying in huge old houses, and low property tax revenues.) So you might say that the nominal rate applies.

In Illinois, you pay a percentage of assessed value, which is usually a good deal lower than the actual value. (It also leads to a fun game of fighting over what the assessed value is. No surprise some of Illinois' most powerful politicians are also lawyers whose firms argue property assessment cases. ) That means however that the real interest rate matters.

But in both cases, we need to use the after-tax rate. If you put your money in a 30 year treasury (or a long-term bond fund that keeps a long maturity), you pay taxes on the interest. If your marginal tax rate (federal + state + local) is 50%, that means you only get half the interest. So that 3% nominal yield is really a 1.5% nominal yield, and the Californian should use a 1.5% rate, resulting in a 1/0.015 = 66% tax rate.

The tax treatment of TIPS is more complicated. (Really, inflation protected bonds are a great idea, but did the Treasury have to screw up the tax treatment so thoroughly?) You pay taxes on the nominal interest payments, and also on increases in principal value. This causes an accounting mess that I don't want to get into here, but as a rough guide, if you are in a 50% marginal tax bracket, then you need to buy $200 worth of TIPS to generate a $1.00 after-tax stream. So, if you live in a state where property tax assessments rise over time, we're really talking about 2  x 1/0.01 = 200% tax rate on the initial assessed value.

Now, house prices rise more than inflation. That argues for an even higher present value of taxes.

On the other hand, you're not going to keep your house forever. But you will sell it, and the price reflects the property tax. On one extreme, if there is no house supply, then the price reflects the full property tax. Without property tax, you could sell it for double the current value. Then these calculations are right. That's a good approximation for Palo Alto. If house supply is flat, then the house price equals construction costs, and we need to cut off these present values at your horizon for owning the house.

The back of my envelope is full.

I'm not very good at taxes, so I welcome comments and corrections on this.  Also if it's all standard stuff, send a pointer to the source.

*sum_j=0^inf (0.05 - 0.01)/(1.05)^j = 0.04/0.05 = 0.80 = (1-0.20) x sum_j=0^inf 0.05 / (1.05)^j

**sum_j=0^inf (0.01 - 0.01)/(1.01)^j = 0 = (1-1) x sum_j=0^inf 0.01 / (1.01)^j 

Update: Thanks to several commenters who point out that California property tax rises at the lesser of inflation or 2%. This means that the lower real interest rate is the right discount rate, not the higher  nominal interest rate. 

Krugman on optimal taxes

As you may have noticed, I try very hard not to get in to the business of rebutting Paul Krugman's various outrages. The article "The economics of soaking the rich" merits an exception. I will ignore the snark, the... distoritions, the ... untruths, the attack by inventing evil motive, the  demonization of anything starting with the letter R, and focus on the central economic points.

Paul correctly cites recent work by Diamond and Saez, estimating the optimal top marginal tax rate at 70%, and Christina Romer's concurring opinion.

The howlers are well epitomized by

"Why do Republicans adhere to a tax theory that has no support from nonpartisan economists and is refuted by all available data? Well, ask who benefits from low taxes on the rich, and it’s obvious.

And because the party’s coffers demand adherence to nonsense economics, the party prefers “economists” who are obvious frauds and can’t even fake their numbers effectively."

1) 70% is not carved in stone.

Diamond and Saez made a big splash precisely because their estimates were so novel and so much higher than the prevailing consensus. For example, Greg Mankiw, also a previous CEA chair, and not a fraud, writing the excellent "Optimal Taxation in Theory and Practice" in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, a nonpartisan (or left-leaning) academic journal, not a fraud, with with Matthew Weinzierl and Danny Yagan, writes

A well-known early result of the Mirrlees (1971) model is the optimality of a zero top marginal tax rate. ...

All this leaves the policy advisor in an uncomfortable position. Early work, following Mirrlees (1971), assumed a shape for the ability distribution, a social welfare function, an individual utility function, and a pattern of labor supply elasticities that yielded clear and surprising results— declining marginal tax rates at the top of the income distribution. Some recent work has yielded dramatically different results more consistent with existing policy, but many of the key assumptions are open to debate.

... 

Lesson 3: A Flat Tax, with a Universal Lump-Sum Transfer, Could Be Close to Optimal 

The claim that the optimal marginal tax schedule is generally flat has been challenged often in the nearly four decades since Mirrlees (1971). Most prominently, Saez (2001) finds optimal tax rates that increase steadily from incomes around $50,000 to $200,000. Of course, the optimal tax schedule is sensitive to assumptions about the inputs discussed in the previous lesson: the shape of the distribution of abilities, the social welfare function, and labor supply elasticities. None of these three components of the problem is easily pinned down. 

You get the picture, the optimal top tax rate is in fact a highly contentious number, depending on many assumptions, all very hard to measure or even to define really.

As Mankiw et al point out, the position "let's implement textbook optimal taxation theory" might be a bit uncomfortable for Krugman's position that all things that start with D are holy.

Lesson 6: Only Final Goods Ought to be Taxed, and Typically They Ought to be Taxed Uniformly

Lesson 7: Capital Income Ought To Be Untaxed, At Least in Expectation

There is a lot of controversy on these too -- the best way to get an AER publication is to disagree with orthodoxy, but they are still the rough orthodoxy, and there are sensible non-evil people who agree with them.

2) Even in Diamond, Saez, et Al, 70% is the total tax, not the federal income tax, and it is the marginal rate not the average rate.  (Though not always as you'll see in a minute)

We have to add up every wedge between one dollar of extra revenue you create for your employer, and the value of what you receive in turn. That includes the  federal income tax, plus state and local income taxes,  property taxes, excise taxes, estate taxes, and so forth. We have to include sales taxes, personal property taxes, payroll taxes on employees you might hire. We have to include your share of corporate and business taxes (corporations raise prices to pay their taxes, so you're paying in the end). It's a marginal rate -- we have to include phaseouts of tax benefits, and loss of income-related subsidies.

Greg Mankiw calculated his marginal tax rate at over 90% (Sorry, I can't find the link anymore). He thought about, what if he takes a consulting job, pays all tax on it, saves it, paying taxes on dividends and intrerest, gives it to his kids, paying estate taxes, and they spend it. Even greg forgot about sales taxes and property taxes (if they buy a house) in this calculation. In California, where I live, the top rate is at least 42% federal + 13.2% state (not deductible anymore)  + about 10% sales tax + about 6% property tax (1% of house value per year, house = 5 times income) +  .. it goes on like this.

Watch what you wish for. A 70% all in marginal rate might well be a tax cut for many households. I once semi-humorously proposed an alternative maximum tax.

Krugman and company are proposing a 70% top federal rate on top of all the others, which is... a bit deceptive relative to the 70% total marginal tax rate even in his cherry-picked sources.

3) Disincentives. Krugman correctly points out the central tradeoff.

So why not tax them at 100 percent? The answer is that this would eliminate any incentive to do whatever it is they do to earn that much money, which would hurt the economy. 

But then Krugman, and those he cites, take an extremely narrow view of this disincentive effect.

By and large the "optimal redistribution" theory considers only the static question, how many hours will you work.

 If a rich man works an extra hour, adding $1000 to the economy, but gets paid $1000 for his efforts, ...

 And, correctly, I think, this literature by and large agrees with the labor supply literature that once people have found jobs and careers, they tend to work about 40 hours a week or so even at pretty high tax rates. We can argue about that, but I think it's more productive to look at all the margins that are ignored here.

The big margin for economic growth is peoples human capital decisions -- the decision to go to school, to take hard courses (computer programming) rather than softer more pleasant ones, the decisions to start businesses and invest enormous time when young developing them. The optimal redistribution literature just ignores all of this. And, like the decision to relocate, it depends on the total tax bite, not just the marginal tax bite. How much will I earn, after all taxes -- what lifestyle will I lead -- if I go to med school, or just stay where I am? High tax countries do not immediately see people staying home from work. But they do not see vibrant business formation and human capital investment. (Chad Jones has a great new paper on this.)

The other margin is avoidance. Throwing around high statutory tax rates in the 1950s as if anyone actually paid them is past disingenuous at this point, as often as the opposite has been pointed out. (Diamond and Saez engaged at least recognized that nobody paid 90%, but engage in a subtle .. sleight of hand. They assume that all corporate taxes were paid by wealthy people in the 1950s -- the one and only burden or indirect calculation in the paper, and contrary to the usual assumption that capital supply curves are flatter than labor or product demand.)

The one thing we should learn from the New York Times and others' probes in to Trump Tax Land is just how far very wealthy people will go to avoid paying taxes. Especially estate taxes -- there is nothing like the government coming for nearly half your wealth to concentrate the mind. I venture that we would have gotten a lot more out of the Trump family with a 20% VAT and no income tax or estate tax!

A 70% or 80% marginal federal income tax would be first and foremost a boon for tax lawyers and accountants. If one were in the mood to match Krugman's attacks of which party has which dark motives to serve which evil interest, the direction would be easy.

Moreover, Krugman gets the benefit of labor to society wrong in an astonishing econ 1 way

If a rich man [or woman, Paul, please!] works an extra hour, adding $1000 to the economy, but gets paid $1000 for his efforts, the combined income of everyone else doesn’t change, does it? Ah, but it does — because he pays taxes on that extra $1000. So the social benefit from getting high-income individuals to work a bit harder is the tax revenue generated by that extra effort — and conversely the cost of their working less is the reduction in the taxes they pay.

If you are paid your marginal product, as you are in a competitive market, then you are paid how much revenue your efforts add to your employer's bottom line. But society benefits by the consumer surplus, the area under the demand curve, and loses that consumer surplus when taxes put a wedge between your effort and your wage. When Steve Jobs worked hard and sold us all Iphones, he made a ton of money, and apple made a huge profit. But we all benefitted by far more than we paid Apple for the phones.

No, the world is not a static, zero-sum game.

I should add though, that economics really doesn't care how much taxes you, or "the rich" pay. Economics cares about the marginal rate, how much you pay on the extra dollar. There is not much of an economic case, really, for low taxes on the rich, or anyone else, so long as taxes do not distort economic decisions. That's the case for a very broad base -- and a low rate. Krugman et al are beyond misleading if they characterize the case for low taxes as handouts for the rich. No, the case is incentives for the rich -- and everyone else. (Incentives are particularly bad at the low end, where you lose a dollar of benefits for every dollar of earnings.)

4) Garbage in, garbage out.

Every result in economic theory starts from assumptions and derives conclusions. This one is the same. Before we get to the distribution of talent, the accumulation of human capital, and the rest, this whole business starts with the presumption that the US Federal Government is a benevolent dictator, whose job it is to take from Peter to give to Paul -- to maximize the sum of everyone's utility, and yes making intrapersonal comparisons to do it -- constrained only by Peter's willingness to work if faced with a steep tax rate.

If you don't buy that basic assumption, along with all the others along the way, you don't buy the result. If, in particular, you look at the world circa 1850, or even in Krugman's cherished 1950, and you look at how amazingly better off we all are today, and you conclude that the government's job is to foster economic growth as fast as possible, then all bets are off.

No, the world is not a static, zero-sum game, in which we fleece the rich one just enough to keep him playing.

I think it's time to reactivate my no-Krugman new year's pledge.

Carbon Tax

Source: Seattle Times

"The carbon tax is dead; long live the carbon tax" is the headline of Tyler Cowen's Bloomberg column on the failed (again) Washington State carbon tax.  And rather decisively, per the picture on the left.

"Maybe its failure on the ballot in Washington state will inspire economists to come up with better arguments" challenges the subhead. I can't resist.

The key question for a carbon tax is, what do you get in return? What do you do with the money? Washington's carbon tax would have, according to the Seattle Times,

It would have taken effect in 2020, rising year after year to finance a multibillion-dollar spending surge intended to cut Washington greenhouse-gas emissions. The initiative reflected proponents’ faith that an activist government can play a key role in speeding up a transition to cleaner fuels.

The fee would have raised more than $1 billion annually by 2023, with spending decisions to be made by a governor-appointed board as well as the state’s utilities

Well, perhaps the voters of Washington State were not so much against a carbon tax per se, but had less than full faith that a large increase in green boondoggle spending by Washington State government was a good idea. They need only to look south at California's high speed train to see cost-benefit analysis at work in dollars per ton of carbon saved.

And in fact it violates the whole idea of a carbon tax. The point of a carbon tax is to give people and businesses an incentive to figure out their own ways to cut carbon emissions. The whole point is not to fund big government projects. If you want to fund big government projects, you do it out of the broadest based and fairest tax you can find.

As Tyler suggested,

But maybe it’s time for a change in tactics. These new approaches might start with the notion that we can address climate change without transferring more money from voters to politicians.

Here are three ideas:

Idea 1: One answer is obvious: a revenue-neutral carbon tax. Use the carbon tax to offset other taxes. Tyler anticipates this with

The economist can respond, correctly, that a carbon tax will ease the path to greener outcomes, and that other taxes can be cut as recompense if necessary. But it seems right now there is not enough trust for such a grand bargain to be struck. 

Perhaps. But if the carbon tax were coupled with an explicit reduction in other taxes, it might help to convince people. If carbon taxes were coupled with elimination of other taxes, it would help more. Taxes are like zombies. If you just lower the rates they tend to come back. If you eliminate them entirely, perhaps requiring referendum for their reinstatement, there can be more trust. Couple the carbon tax with elimination of, say, state property taxes, income taxes, or sales taxes.

And in the end we all know taxes must equal spending. You can convince voters there won't be more taxes if there isn't more spending. Advertising the carbon tax as a substitute for carbon spending; simultaneously eliminating green boondoggles, would help to seal the deal.

Idea 2: The Baker-Shultz plan, or Americans for Carbon Dividends, (previous blog post here) has another bright idea: Send the proceeds back to the voters. Write everyone a nice check. This ensures that the money doesn't go to boondoggles, and gives every voter a stake in keeping the scheme going. It is highly progressive, which Democrats should like.

I had a similar idea a while ago: Rather than a tax, give each American a right to, say x tons of carbon emissions that they can sell on a carbon market. That also gives everyone an incentive to vote for the system. And it states the issue squarely. You, a voter, are having your air polluted. You have a right to collect on that damage. It makes it clear that carbon is a fee, a penalty, not a "tax." The point is to disincentivize the use of carbon, not to raise revenue for the government to spend. "Tax" is a loaded word in American culture and politics. Carbon rights takes the whole discussion away from "tax."

Idea 3: Lastly, one could pair the carbon tax and fee with a trade: A hefty fee, in return for elimination of all the other carbon subsidies and regulations. To those who don't believe in climate change: ok, but our government is going to do all sorts of crazy stuff. Let's cut out the rot and just pay a simple fee instead. No more electric car subsidies -- $15 k from taxpayers to each Tesla owner in Palo Alto -- HOV lanes, windmill subsidies, rooftop solar mandates, washing machines that don't wash clothes anymore (hint: do NOT buy any washing machine built since Jan 1 2018), and so on and so forth.

I think on the left the strategy has been to ramp up climate hysteria: if we just yell louder and demonize opponents more, the voters will buy it. No matter how much of a problem you think climate is, let's admit that's not working. In part the claims are now so over the top that everyone can tell it's gone too far. No, the way to put out fires in California is not to build a high speed train.

When, in the name of science the IPCC writes things like this -- right up front in the executive summary --

D3.2. ...For example, if poorly designed or implemented, adaptation projects in a range of sectors can increase... increase gender and social inequality... adaptations that include attention to poverty and sustainable development (high confidence).  

D6. Sustainable development supports, and often enables, the fundamental societal and systems transitions and transformations that help limit global warming to 1.5°C. ... in conjunction with poverty eradication and efforts to reduce inequalities (high confidence).... 

D6.1. Social justice and equity are core aspects of climate-resilient development pathways that aim to limit global warming to 1.5°C... 

D7.2. Cooperation on strengthened accountable multilevel governance that includes non-state actors such as industry, civil society and scientific institutions, coordinated sectoral and cross-sectoral policies at various governance levels, gender-sensitive policies.... (high confidence). 

D7.4. Collective efforts at all levels, ... taking into account equity as well as effectiveness, can facilitate strengthening the global response to climate change, achieving sustainable development and eradicating poverty (high confidence)

You can't blame the suspicious Washington State voter from wondering if perhaps a larger agenda isn't being financed here.

There is a sensible middle. Voters who want to do something about carbon, but not finance massive boondoggles or a collectivist progressive agenda. Environmentalists who want to do something about carbon that actually will work. Skeptics who understand, as long as we're going to so something, let's do it efficiently via a carbon fee rather than at massive cost as we are doing now.

The Tax-and-Spend Health-Care Solution

A Wall Street Journal Oped, From July 29 2018. Now that 30 days have passed, I can post the whole thing.

The Tax-and-Spend Health-Care Solution

Honest subsidies beat cross-subsidies. They’d encourage competition and innovation.

By John H. Cochrane

Why is paying for health care such a mess in America? Why is it so hard to fix? Cross-subsidies are the original sin. The government wants to subsidize health care for poor people, chronically sick people, and people who have money but choose to spend less of it on health care than officials find sufficient. These are worthy goals, easily achieved in a completely free-market system by raising taxes and then subsidizing health care or insurance, at market prices, for people the government wishes to help.

But lawmakers do not want to be seen taxing and spending, so they hide transfers in cross-subsidies. They require emergency rooms to treat everyone who comes along, and then hospitals must overcharge everybody else. Medicare and Medicaid do not pay the full amount their services cost. Hospitals then overcharge private insurance and the few remaining cash customers.

Overcharging paying customers and providing free care in an emergency room is economically equivalent to a tax on emergency-room services that funds subsidies for others. But the effective tax and expenditure of a forced cross-subsidy do not show up on the federal budget.

Over the long term, cross-subsidies are far more inefficient than forthright taxing and spending. If the hospital is going to overcharge private insurance and paying customers to cross-subsidize the poor, the uninsured, Medicare, Medicaid and, increasingly, victims of limited exchange policies, then the hospital must be protected from competition. If competitors can come in and offer services to the paying customers, the scheme unravels.

No competition means no pressure to innovate for better service and lower costs. Soon everybody pays more than they would in a competitive free market. The damage takes time, though. Cross-subsidies are a tempting way to hide tax and spend in the short run, but they are harmful over years and decades.

We have seen this pattern over and over. Until telephone deregulation in the 1970s, the government wanted to provide telephone landlines below cost. It forced a cross-subsidy from overpriced long distance and a telephone monopoly to keep entrants out and prices up. The government wanted to subsidize small-town air service. It forced airlines to cross-subsidize from overpriced big-city services and enforced an oligopoly to keep entrants from undercutting the profitable segments. But protection bred inefficiency. After deregulation, everyone’s phone bills and airfares were lower and service was better and more innovative.

Lack of competition, especially from new entrants, is the screaming problem in health-care delivery today. In no competitive business will they not tell you the cost before providing service. In a competitive business you are bombarded with ads from new companies offering a better deal.

The situation is becoming ridiculous. Emergency rooms are staffed with out-of-network anesthesiologists. Air ambulances take everyone without question, and Medicare, Medicaid and exchange policies underpay. You wake up with immense bills, which you negotiate afterward based on ability to pay. The cash market is dead. Even if you have plenty of money, you will be massively overcharged unless you have health insurance to negotiate a lower rate.

Taxing and spending is not good for the economy. But it’s better than cross-subsidization. Taxing and spending can allow an unfettered competitive free market. Cross-subsidies must stop competition and entry at the cost of efficiency and innovation. Taxing and spending, on budget and appropriated, is also visible and transparent. Voters can see what’s going on. Finally, broad-based taxes, as damaging as they are, are better than massive implied taxes on very few people.

This is why continued tinkering with the U.S. health-care system will not work. The system will be cured only by the competition that brought far better and cheaper telephone and airline services. But there is a reason for the protections that make the system so inefficient: Allowing competition would immediately undermine cross-subsidies. Unless legislators swallow hard and put the subsidies on the budget where they belong, we can never have a competitive, innovative and efficient health-care market.

But take heart—when that market arrives, it will make the subsidies much cheaper. Yes, the government should help those in need. But there is no fundamental reason that your and my health care and insurance must be so screwed up to achieve that goal.

Mr. Cochrane is a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute

Who will pay unfunded state pensions?

Homeowners. So says a nice WSJ op-ed by Rob Arnott and Lisa Meulbroek, and a proposal by Chicago Fed Economists Thomas Haasl, Rick Matton, and Thomas Walstrum.

The latter was a modest proposal, in the Jonathan Swift tradition. Despite Crain's Chicago Business instantly labeling it "foolish," "inhumane," and "the dumbest solution yet, the first article points out its inevitability. If indeed courts will insist that benefits may not be cut, then state governments must raise taxes, and this is the only one that can do the trick.

States can try to raise income taxes. And people will move. States can try to raise business taxes. And  businesses will move. What can states tax that can't move? Only real estate. If the state drastically raises the property tax, there is no choice but to pay it. You can sell, but the new buyer will be willing to pay much less. Pay the tax slowly over time, or lose the value of the property right away in a lower price.  Either way, the owner of the property on the day the tax is announced bears the burden of paying off the pensions.

There is a an economic principle here, the "capital levy." A government in trouble has an incentive to grab existing capital, once, and promise never to do it again. The promise is important, because if people know that a capital levy is coming they won't invest (build houses). If the government can pull it off, it is a tax that does not distort decisions going forward. Of course, getting people to believe the promise and invest again after the capital levy is... well, let's say a tricky business. Governments that do it once have a tendency to do it again.

In sum, a property tax is essentially the same thing as the government grabbing half the houses and selling them off to make pension obligations. And unless a miracle happens, it is the only way out.

Update: We're there already, say Orphe Divounguy, Bryce Hill, and Joe Tabor at Illinois Policy. The bulk of recent increases in property taxes have gone to pay for pensions, not more teachers, police, etc.

Update 2: I should clarify, that I found this an interesting piece of economics more than anything else. I do not think this is the right solution, nor is it the only one. Most other countries around the world, having made unsustainable pension promises, find some way around them and reduce pensions. It happens. Some sort of federal bailout is not unthinkable either. Moreover, the suddenly announced surprise once and for all property tax increase is unlikely, see update 1. So the states are likely to reap many disincentive effects of expected increases in property and other taxes.

Finally, most importantly property tax payers vote! They are unlikely to sit still for such a mass expropriation of their wealth.

Single payer sympathy?

A July 30 2018 Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal, titled "The tax and spend health care solution"

Why is paying for health care such a mess in America? Why is it so hard to fix? Cross-subsidies are the original sin. The government wants to subsidize health care for poor people, chronically sick people, and people who have money but choose to spend less of it on health care than officials find sufficient. These are worthy goals, easily achieved in a completely free-market system by raising taxes and then subsidizing health care or insurance, at market prices, for people the government wishes to help. 

But lawmakers do not want to be seen taxing and spending, so they hide transfers in cross-subsidies. They require emergency rooms to treat everyone who comes along, and then hospitals must overcharge everybody else. Medicare and Medicaid do not pay the full amount their services cost. Hospitals then overcharge private insurance and the few remaining cash customers. 

Overcharging paying customers and providing free care in an emergency room is economically equivalent to a tax on emergency-room services that funds subsidies for others. But the effective tax and expenditure of a forced cross-subsidy do not show up on the federal budget. 

Over the long term, cross-subsidies are far more inefficient than forthright taxing and spending. If the hospital is going to overcharge private insurance and paying customers to cross-subsidize the poor, the uninsured, Medicare, Medicaid and, increasingly, victims of limited exchange policies, then the hospital must be protected from competition. If competitors can come in and offer services to the paying customers, the scheme unravels. 

No competition means no pressure to innovate for better service and lower costs. .....

...

As usual, I have to wait 30 days to post the whole thing.  It synthesizes some of my earlier blog posts (here here here)  on how cross subsidies are worse than straightforward, on budget, taxing and spending.

Let me here admit to one of the implications of this view. Single payer might not be so bad -- it might not be as bad as the current Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, VA, etc. mess.

But before you quote that, let's be careful to define what we mean by "single payer," which has become a mantra and litmus test on the left. There is a huge difference between "there is a single payer that everyone can use," and "there is a single payer that everyone must use."

Most on the left promise the former and mean the latter. Not only is there some sort of single easy to access health care and insurance scheme for poor or unfortunate people, but you and I are forbidden to escape it, to have private doctors, private hospitals, or private insurance outside the scheme.   Doctors are forbidden to have private cash paying customers. That truly is a nightmare, and it will mean the allocation of good medical care by connections and bribes.

But a single provider or payer than anyone in trouble can use, supported by taxes, not cross-subsidized by restrictions on your and my health care -- not underpaying in a private system and forcing that system to overcharge others -- while allowing a vibrant completely competitive free market in private health care on top of that, is not such a terrible idea, and follows from my Op-Ed. A single bureaucracy that hands out vouchers, pays full market costs, or pays partially but allows doctors to charge whatever they want on top of that would work. A VA like system of public hospitals and clinics would work too.  Like public schools, or public restrooms, you can use them, but you don't have to; you're free to spend your money on better options if you like, and people are free to start businesses to serve you. And no cross-subisides.

Whether we restrict provision with income and other tests, and thus introduce another marginal disincentive to work, or give everyone access and count on most working people to choose a better product, I leave for another day. It would always be an inefficient bureaucratic problem, but it might not be the nightmare of anti-competitive inefficiency of the current system.

The free market describes well how your and my health care and insurance should work. It does not offer nearly so clear advice on how the government should manage the finances and bureaucracy that provide subsidies (if we want to provide them).  There are always tradeoffs, generosity vs. moral hazard and disincentives. Economics is crucial to understanding those tradeoffs, of course, but the answer will always be a muddy middle of tradeoffs. I have offered that taxing and spending -- on budget and appropriated -- to provide those subsidies may be better than the current mandated cross subsidies. We already have a "single payer" -- the federal government. The argument that a  single point of entry, a single payer, or a single provider, may be more rational and cost effective than the current system  for the purpose of providing subsidized care is not as crazy as it sounds -- if it allows a free the market for the majority of Americans who own cars, houses, TVs and cell phones and can pay for better services in that free market.

"Single payer" also usually means "single price-setter." It means a gargantuan Federal bureaucracy that will somehow produce health care cost savings by simply decreeing that doctors and hospitals be paid less. Good luck with that.

Both left and right forget that "negotiation" means only you pay less and somebody else pays more. We can't all pay less by negotiation. Price controls mean rationing. Period. This is the heart of current "single payer" proposals, and they are doomed.

My "single payer" is just that, a "payer," operating in a completely free market.

Still, when a politician endorses "single payer," ask "does that mean we all can use a single payer? Or does that mean we all must use a single payer?"

Cross-subsidies

Cross-subsidies are an under-appreciated original sin of economic stagnation. To transfer money from A to B, it would usually be better to raise taxes on A and to provide vouchers or otherwise pay competitive suppliers on behalf of B. But our political system doesn't like to admit the size of government-induced transfers, so instead we force businesses to undercharge B. Since they have to cover cost, they must overcharge A. It starts as the same thing as a tax on A to subsidize B. But a cross-subsidy cannot withstand competition. Someone else can give A a better price. So our government protects A from that competition. That ruins the underlying markets, and next thing you know everyone is paying more for less.

This was the story of airlines and telephones: The government wanted to subsidize airline service to small cities, and residential landlines, especially rural. It forced companies to provide those at a loss and to cross-subsidize those losses from other customers, big city connections and long distance. But then the government had to stop competitors from undercutting the overpriced services. And as those deregulations showed, the result was inefficiency and high prices for everyone.

Health care and insurance are the screaming example today. The government wants to provide health care to poor, old, and other groups. It does not want to forthrightly raise taxes and pay for their health care in competitive markets. So it forces providers to pay less to those groups, and make it up by overcharging the rest of us. But overcharging cannot stand competition, so gradually the whole system became bloated and inefficient.

A Bloomberg article "Air Ambulances Are Flying More Patients Than Ever, and Leaving Massive Bills Behind" by  John Tozzi offers a striking illustration of the phenomenon, and much of the mindset that keeps our country from fixing it.

The story starts with the usual human-interest tale, a $45,930 bill for a 70 mile flight for a kid with a 107 degree fever.

At the heart of the dispute is a gap between what insurance will pay for the flight and what Air Methods says it must charge to keep flying. Michael Cox ... had health coverage through a plan for public employees. It paid $6,704—the amount, it says, Medicare would have paid for the trip.   

The air-ambulance industry says reimbursements from U.S. government health programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, don’t cover their expenses. Operators say they thus must ask others to pay more—and when health plans balk, patients get stuck with the tab.

Seth Myers, president of Air Evac, said that his company loses money on patients covered by Medicaid and Medicare, as well as those with no insurance. That's about 75 percent of the people it flies. 

Source: Bloomberg.com

According to a 2017 report commissioned by the Association of Air Medical Services, an industry trade group, the typical cost per flight was $10,199 in 2015, and Medicare paid only 59 percent that. 

So, I knew about cross-subsidies, but $45,950 vs. $6,704 is a lot!

OK, put your economics hats on. How can it persist that people are double and triple charged what it costs to provide any service? Why, when an emergency room puts out a call, "air ambulance needed, paying customer alert" are there not swarms of helicopters battling it out -- and in the process driving the price down to cost?

DB warns of US debt crisis.

"A coming debt crisis in the US?" warns a Deutsche Bank report* by Quinn Brody and Torsten Slok.

Source: DB

This graph is gorgeous. US deficits have, historically, been driven overwhelmingly by the state of the business cycle, and have very little to do with tax policies and spending decisions that dominate press coverage. In booms, income rises, so tax rate times income rises. In busts, the opposite, plus "automatic stabilizer" spending kicks in.

Until now.

There is a good reason past deficits did not really spook markets. They understood the deficit was a temporary phenomenon, due to temporary poor demand-side economic performance. We do not have that excuse now.

In case you thought this was some alarmist crank sheet, the report starts by quoting the latest CBO
report:

the CBO argues that, assuming current policies and trends are not changed, “the likelihood of a fiscal crisis in the United States would increase. There would be a greater risk that investors would become unwilling to finance the government’s borrowing unless they were compensated with very high interest rates.” 

Buybacks redux

Two more points occur to me regarding share buybacks. 1)When buybacks increase share prices, and management makes money on that, it's a good thing. The common complaint that buybacks are just a way for managers to enrich themselves is exactly wrong. 2) Maybe it's not so good that banks are buying back shares.  3) The tax bill actually gives incentives against buybacks. What's going on is despite, not because.

Recall the example. A company has $100 in cash, and $100 profitable factory. It has two shares outstanding, each worth $100. The company uses the cash to buy back one share. Now it has one share outstanding, worth $100, and assets of one factory. The shareholders are no wealthier. They used to have $200 in stock. Now they have $100 in stock and $100 in cash. It's a wash.

Why do share prices sometimes go up when companies announce buybacks? Well, as before, suppose that management had some zany idea of what to do with the cash that would turn the $100 cash into $80 of value. ("Let's invest in a fleet of corporate Ferraris"). Then the stock would only be worth $180 total, or $90 per share. Buying one share back, even overpaying at $100, raises the other share value from $90 to $100.

That was the big point. Share buybacks are a good way to get money out of firms with no ideas, into firms with good ideas. We want firms to invest, but we don't necessarily want every individual firm to invest. That's the classic fallacy that I think it turning Washington on its head. Best of all we want money going from cash rich old companies to cash starved new companies. Buybacks do that.

1) Management getting rich on buybacks is good.

OK, on to management. Management, buyback critics point out, often has compensation linked to the stock price. They might own stock or own stock options. So when the buyback boosts the stock price, then management gets rich too. Aha! The evil (or so they are portrayed) managers are just doing financial shenanigans to enrich themselves!

The fallacy here, is not stopping to think why the buyback raises the share price in the first place. If it is the main reason given in the finance literature, that this rescues cash that was otherwise going to be mal-invested, then you see the great wisdom of giving management stock options and encouraging them to get rich with buybacks.

Why not taxes?

Reaction to the Washington Post oped (blog post, pdf) on debt  has been sure and swift. We suspected we might get criticized by Republicans for complaining about deficits are a problem.  Instead, the attack came from the left.  Justin Fox hit first, followed by a joint oped by Martin  Baily, Jason Furman, Alan Krueger, Laura Tyson and Janet Yellen. It's almost an official response from the Democratic economic establishment.

Their bottom line, really, is that entitlements and deficits are not a problem. They put the blame pretty much entirely on the recently enacted corporate tax cut.   (I'm simplifying a bit. As did they, a lot.)

By contrast, we focused on entitlement spending -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, VA, pensions, and social programs -- as the central budget problem, and entitlement reform (not "cut") together with a strong focus on economic growth as the best answer. Our warning was that interest costs could rise sharply and unexpectedly and really bring down the party.

Well, deficit equals spending minus tax revenue, so why not just raise taxes to solve the budget problem?

First, let's get a handle on the size and source of the problem. 

I. Roughly speaking the long term deficit gap is 5 rising to 10 percentage points of GDP. And the big change is entitlements -- social security, medicare, medicaid, pensions. 

For example, even Fox's graph shows social security spending rising from 11% of payroll in 2006 and asymptoting at 18%.

The most recent 2017 CBO long-term budget outlook is quite clear. Long before the tax cut that so upsets our critics was even a glimmer in the President's eye, they were warning of budget problems ahead:

If current laws generally remained unchanged, the Congressional Budget Office projects, ..debt...would reach 150 percent of GDP in 2047. The prospect of such large and growing debt poses substantial risks for the nation....

Why Are Projected Deficits Rising?

In CBO’s projections, deficits rise over the next three decades—from 2.9 percent of GDP in 2017 to 9.8 percent in 2047—because spending growth is projected to outpace growth in revenues (see figure below). In particular, spending as a share of GDP increases for Social Security, the major health care programs (primarily Medicare), and interest on the government’s debt.

The CBO gives us this nice graphs to make the point:

Another CBO's graph follows. Top graph -- where is the spending increase? Social security, health, and interest. Not "other noninterest spending."

(In the bottom graph you see a rosy forecast that individual income taxes will rise a few percent of GDP to help pay for this. Don't be so sure. This comes from inflation pushing us into higher tax brackets and assuming congress won't do anything about it. Notice also how small corporate taxes are in the first place.)

The more recent CBO budget and economic outlook is equally clear: The near term problem is 5 percentage points of GDP:

CBO estimates that the 2018 deficit will total $804 billion....[GDP is $20 Trillion, so that's 4% of GDP]  ... In CBO’s projections, budget deficits continue increasing after 2018, rising from 4.2 percent of GDP this year to 5.1 percent in 2022... Deficits remain at 5.1 percent between 2022 and 2025 ... Over the 2021–2028 period, projected deficits average 4.9 percent of GDP..

Then, things get worse,

In CBO’s projections, outlays for the next three years remain near 21 percent of GDP, which is higher than their average of 20.3 percent over the past 50 years. After that, outlays grow more quickly than the economy does, reaching 23.3 percent of GDP ... by 2028. 

That increase reflects significant growth in mandatory spending—mainly because the aging of the population and rising health care costs per beneficiary are projected to increase spending for Social Security and Medicare, among other programs. It also reflects significant growth in interest costs, which are projected to grow more quickly than any other major component of the budget, the result of rising interest rates and mounting debt. ... 

And that's only 2028.

You see the problem in our critic's complaint:

"The primary reason the deficit in coming years will now be higher than had been expected is the reduction in tax revenue from last year’s tax cuts, not an increase in spending. This year, revenue is expected to fall below 17 percent of gross domestic product." 

Let us take the estimate that the recent tax cut cost $1.5 trillion over 10 years, i.e. $150 billion per year or 0.75% of GDP.  Compared to the $800 billion current deficit it's small potatoes. Compared to the 5 percent to 10 percent of GDP we need to find in the sock drawer, it's peanuts.   (Compared to the $10 trillion or more racked up in the last 10 years it's not huge either!)

[Update: Thanks to commenters, I now notice the "had been expected." OK, we expected 4% of GDP deficits, and then they passed a tax cut and now it's 5% of GDP. Sure. On the day that the tax cut was passed, the entire increase in the deficit was due to the tax cut. But our article, and the economy, is about the overall level of the deficit. The problem is what had been expected, not the recent minor change!]

Here is what the CBO has to say about it: 

For the next few years, revenues hover near their 2018 level of 16.6 percent of GDP in CBO’s projections. Then they rise steadily, reaching 17.5 percent of GDP by 2025. At the end of that year, many provisions of the 2017 tax act expire, causing receipts to rise sharply—to 18.1 percent of GDP in 2026 and 18.5 percent in 2027 and 2028. They have averaged 17.4 percent of GDP over the past 50 years.

17, maybe 18. We're waddling around in the 1% range, when the problem is in the 10 percent range. The long run budget problem has essentially nothing to do with the Trump tax cut. It has been brewing under Bush, Obama, and Trump. It fundamentally comes from growth in entitlements an order of magnitude larger. 

It is simply not true that "The primary reason the deficit in coming years will now be higher than had been expected is the reduction in tax revenue from last year’s tax cuts, not an increase in spending."

To call us "dishonest" -- to call George Shultz "dishonest," in the printed pages of the Washington Post -- for merely repeating what's been in every CBO long term budget forecast for the last two decades really is a new low for economists of this stature. Is Krugmanism infectious?

Put another way, US government debt is about $20 trillion. Various estimates of the entitlement "debt," how much the government has promised more than its revenues, start at $70 trillion and go up in to the hundreds.

To be clear, I agree with the critic's complaint about the tax cut.

"The right way to do reform was to follow the model of the bipartisan tax reform of 1986, when rates were lowered while deductions were eliminated."

Yes! As in many previous blog posts, I am very sad that the chance to do a big 1986 seems to have passed. A large, revenue neutral, distribution neutral, savage cleaning and simplification of the tax code would have been great. There are some elements in the current one -- the lower marginal corporate rate is nice, and there is some capping of deductions, which is why it was a "good first step." But it fell short of my dreams too in many ways.

If only these immensely influential authors had been clamoring for their friends in the Resistance to join forces and pass such a law, rather than (Larry and Jason in particular) spend the whole time arguing that corporate tax cuts just help the rich, perhaps it might have happened. Having to do the whole thing under reconciliation put a lot of limits on what the Republicans could accomplish.

All that aside though, we're still talking about 0.75% of GDP cut compared to a 5%-10% of GDP problem. The long run deficit problem does not come from this tax cut.

II OK, so why not just tax the rich to pay for entitlements? 

I hope I have sufficiently dismissed the main line of this particular criticism -- that deficits are all due to the Trump tax cut and all we have to do is put corporate rates back to 35% and all will be well.

On to the larger question, echoed by many commenters on our piece. OK, social security and health are expensive. Let's just tax the rich to pay for it. Like Europe does, so many say.

I do think that roughly speaking we could pay for American social programs with European taxes. That is, 40% payroll taxes rather than our less than 20%; 50% income taxes, starting at very low levels; 20% VAT; various additional taxes like 100% vehicle taxes and gas that costs 3 times ours.

I don't think we can pay for European social programs with European taxes, because Europe can't do it. Their debt/GDP ratios are similar to ours. And their lower growth rates both are the result of this system and compound the problem. Many European countries are responding exactly as we suggest, with deep reforms to their social programs -- less state-paid health insurance, more stringent eligibility requirements and so on.

But that's the option: heavy middle class taxes for middle class benefits, at the cost of substantially lower growth, which itself then drives the needed tax rates up further.

America in fact already has a more progressive tax system than pretty much any other country. Making it more progressive would increase economic distortions dramatically.

A key principle here is that the overall marginal tax rate matters.  There is a tendency, especially on the left, to quote only the top Federal marginal rate of about 40%, and to say therefore that high income Americans pays less taxes than most of Europe. But that argument forgets we also pay state and sometimes local taxes.

The top federal rate is about 40%. In California, we add 13% state income tax, and with no deductibility we're up to 53% right there. But what matters is every wedge between what you produce for your employer and the value of what you get to consume. So we have to add the 7.5% sales tax, so we're up to 60.5% already.

But we're not done.  The Federal corporate tax is now 21%, and California adds 8.84%, so roughly 29% combined. Someone is paying that. If, like sales tax it comes out of higher prices, then add it to the sales tax. Those on the left say no, corporate taxes are all paid by rich people, which is why they were against lowering them. OK, then they contribute fully to the high-income marginal rate.

What about property tax? The main thing people do with a raise in California is to buy a bigger house. Then they pay 1% property tax. As a rough idea, suppose you pay 30% of your income on housing and the price is 20 times the annual cost (typical price/rent ratio). Then you are paying 6% of your income in property taxes. Add 6 percentage points.

I'm not done. All distortions matter. In much of  Europe they charge taxes and then provide people health insurance. We have a cross subsidy scheme, in which you overpay to subsidize others. It's the same as a tax, except much less efficient.  In terms of economic damage, and the overall marginal rate, it should be included. If you live in a condo, whose developer was forced to provide "affordable housing" units, you overpaid just like a tax and a transfer. And so on. I won't try to add these in, but all distortions count.

In sum, we're at a pretty high marginal tax rate already. The notion that we can just blithely raise another 10% of GDP from "the rich" alone without large economic damage does not work.  This isn't a new observation. Just about every study of how to pay for entitlements comes to the same conclusion.

Again, my argument is not about sympathy for the rich. It is a simple cause and effect argument. Marginal tax rates a lot above 70% are going to really damage the economy and not bring in the huge revenue we need.

Bottom line: Paying for the current entitlements entirely by taxes would involve a big tax hike on middle income Americans. 

III Answers

The most important answer is economic growth. 30 years of 3% growth rather than 2% growth gives you 35% more GDP, and thus 35% more tax revenue. If federal revenues are 20% of GDP, that's 7%
of the previous GDP right there.  Deregulation and tax reform -- get on with the lower marginal rates and simplification that we agree on -- are important.

(The CBO also writes,

In CBO’s projections, the effects of the 2017 tax act on incentives to work, save, and invest raise real potential GDP throughout the 2018–2028 period....

The largest effects on GDP over the decade stem from the tax act. In CBO’s projections, it boosts the level of real GDP by an average of 0.7 percent and nonfarm payroll employment by an average of 1.1 million jobs over the 2018–2028 period. During those years, the act also raises the level of real gross national product (GNP) by an annual average of about $470 per person in 2018 dollars.

This is not a terrible result!)

Our oped was clear to say social program "reform" not just "cut." Little things like changing indexing and retirement ages make a big difference over 30 years. We argue for reducing the growth and expansion of entitlements, not "cut."  Removing some of the very high work disincentives would help people get off some programs. Europe is facing this too, and many countries are a good deal more stringent about qualification than we are.

Our critics say that to point out America cannot pay for the entitlements we have currently promised "dehumanizes the value of these programs to millions of Americans." No. Failing to reform entitlements now and gently will lead to chaotic cuts in the future, on programs that people depend on. If we're going to throw around accusations of heartlessness, denying the problem is the heartless approach.

Unraveling

Economists delight in unravelings -- behavioral responses that undo bright ideas. A subsidy for skunks produces cats with white stripes. Two good ones came up this week.

As hare-brained as they are, I have to opine that the actual economic consequences of US steel import tariffs and Chinese soybean tariffs are essentially zero.

(Political comment: tariffs are taxes on imports. It would do fans of the Administration's trade policies good to utter the correct "tax" word to describe tariffs. Or "self-inflicted sanctions." )

Why do I say that? Each country is assessing a tariff on goods produced only by the other country. Well then, why not park the ships overnight in Vancouver, or Tokyo, fill out some paperwork, and say steel is imported first from China to Canada, and then Canada to the U.S., and vice versa?

Trade bureaucrats are smart enough to catch that. But they cannot hope to stop essentially the same thing: China sells steel to Canadian steel users, who currently buy from Canadian firms. Canadian steel producers reorient their production to the US, and sell to US companies who formerly bought from China. The steel is genuinely Canadian.

Debt Oped

An oped on debt in the Washington Post. Growing debt and deficits are a danger. If interest rates rise, debt service will rise, and can provoke a crisis. Really the only solution is greater long-run economic growth and to reform -- reform, not "cut" -- entitlements. And the sooner the better, as the size and pain of the adjustment is much less if we do it now.

This is written with Mike Boskin, John Cogan, George Shultz, and John Taylor. George Shultz was the inspiration, and wrote the first draft. He radiates an ethic of government as responsible stewardship, and displeasure when he does not see such. It is a pleasure of my job at Hoover to work with such distinguished colleagues.

The Post gave it two headlines, in one "horizon" and in the other "doorstep," in different versions. The latter is a bit more alarmist than we care for.  Like living above an earthquake fault, living on a mountain of debt can be quiet for a long time. Until all of a sudden it isn't.  A pdf version

***

A Debt Crisis is on the Horizon

By Michael J. Boskin, John H. Cochrane, John F. Cogan, George P. Shultz and John B. Taylor

We live in a time of extraordinary promise. Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, 3D manufacturing, medical science and other areas have the potential to dramatically raise living standards in coming decades. But a major obstacle stands squarely in the way of this promise: high and sharply rising government debt.

Buybacks

A short oped for the Wall Street Journal here  on stock buybacks. As usual, they ask me not to post the whole thing for 30 days though you can find it ungated if you search. An excerpt:

... Buybacks do not automatically make shareholders wealthier. Suppose Company A has $100 cash and a factory worth $100. It has issued two shares, each worth $100. The company’s shareholders have $200 in wealth.  Imagine the company uses its $100 in cash to buy back one share. Now its shareholders have one share worth $100, and $100 in cash. Their wealth remains the same.

Wouldn’t it be better if the company invested the extra cash? Wasn’t that the point of the tax cut? Perhaps. But maybe this company doesn’t have any ideas worth investing in. Not every company needs to expand at any given moment.

Now suppose Company B has an idea for a profitable new venture that will cost $100 to get going. The most natural move for investors is to invest their $100 in Company B by buying its stock or bonds. With the infusion of cash, Company B can now fund its venture.

Deficits

The graph is federal surplus (up) or deficit (down), not counting interest costs, divided by potential GDP. I made it for another purpose, but it is interesting in these fiscally ... interesting .. times.

Taking interest costs out is a way of assessing overall fiscal stability. If you pay the interest on your credit card, the balance won't grow over time. Granted, interest costs are increasing -- 5% times a 100% debt/GDP ratio is a lot more than 5% times a 30% debt/GDP ratio, and interest costs threaten to crowd out much of the rest of the budget if interest rates go up. But still, as an overall measure of fiscal solvency, whether one way or another you are paying interest and then slowly working down debt, or if you are not even making the interest payments and the balance is growing over time,  is the relevant measure.

I divided by potential rather than actual GDP so that we would focus on the deficits, and not see variation induced by GDP. If GDP falls, then it makes deficit/GDP larger. The point is to detrend and scale deficits by some measure of our long-run ability to pay them. Yes, deficits after 2008 are even larger as a fraction of actual rather than potential GDP. So this is the conservative choice.

Now, comments on the graph. Once you net out interest costs, it is interesting how sober US fiscal policy actually has been over the years. In economic good times, we run primary surpluses. The impression that the US is always running deficits is primarily because of interest costs. Even the notorious "Reagan deficits" were primarily payments, occasioned by the huge spike in interest rates, on outstanding debt. On a tax minus expenditure basis, not much unusual was going on especially considering it was the bottom of the (then) worst recession since WWII. Only in the extreme of 1976, 1982, and 2002, in with steep recessions and in the later case war did we touch any primary deficits, and then pretty swiftly returned to surpluses.

Until 2008. The last 10 years really have been an anomaly in US fiscal policy. One may say that the huge recession demanded huge fiscal stimulus, or one may think $10 trillion in debt was wasted. In either case, what we just went through was huge.

And in the last data point, 2017, we are sliding again into territory only seen in severe recessions. That too is unusual.

Disclaimer: All of these measures are pretty bad. Surplus/deficit has lots of questionable reporting in it, and the interest cost only has explicit coupon payments. I thought it better here to show you how the easily available common numbers work than to get into a big measurement exercise. I'll be doing that later for the project that produced this graph, and may update.

Update: Sometimes a blog post makes a small point that can easily be misinterpreted in the broader context. So it is here.

The US fiscal situation is dire. The debt is now $20 trillion, larger as a fraction of GDP than any time since the end of WWII. Moreover, the promises our government has made to social security, medicare, medicaid, pensions and other entitlement programs far exceeds any projection of revenue. Jeff Miron wrote to chide me gently for apparently implying the opposite, which is certainly not my intent. One graph from his excellent "US Fiscal Imbalance Over Time":

Here, Jeff adds up the promises made each year for spending over the next 75 years. Others, including Larry Kotlikoff, make the same point by discounting the future payments, to estimate that the actual debt -- the present value of what the US owes less what it will take in --  is between $75 trillion and $200 trillion -- much more than the $20 trillion of actual GDP.

I've been one of those guys wandering around with a sign "the debt crisis is coming" so long that I forget to reiterate the point on occasion, and Jeff rightly points out my graph taken alone could be so misinterpreted.

In a nutshell, the problem is this: The US has accumulated a huge debt. Interest costs on that debt are already in the hundreds of billions per year. If interest rates rise, those costs will rise more. $20 trillion of debt times 5% interest rate is $1 trillion extra deficit, or even faster-rising debt. Unlike the case after WWII, when the spending was in the past, the US has also promised huge amount of spending in the future.

And, as Jeff points out, this did not start in 2008.  Entitlements have grown and crowded out regular spending. Now they are growing to crowd out interest payments. Soon they will grow more.

Update 2

Deficits / Potential GDP; Interest costs / Potential GDP; (Deficit + interest costs)/Potential GDP

Debt /  GDP.  (Thanks Vic Volpe for suggesting this better graph.)

Convexification and complication

From Richard Rubin at WSJ:

The new tax law’s treatment of deductions gives people more reasons to concentrate giving in certain years, both inside and outside donor-advised funds. 

A donor-advised fund is an investment account held for charitable purposes. Donors take tax deductions when they put money in, then recommend grants to charities over time. 

Mr. Young,...added $30,000 to a donor-advised fund run by the Los Altos Community Foundation. His plan: alternate years between taking the standard deduction and donating to his fund and claiming itemized deductions.

How very clever. The tax law allows a $24,000 per year standard deduction. Arrange things so that in some years you have zero actual deductions, and get $24,000 free deduction. Pile all the real deductions into other years.

In economics we call this "convexification". There are lots of clever ways to draw lines through a stair step.

Of course, you can also just give $50,000 to charity in alternate years, and let the charity put it in the bank. Donor-advised funds are useful if you think your local charity's endowment investment policy isn't that smart. If they invest in obscure high-fee hedge funds and private equity deals and you'd rather they invested your money in transparent low-fee assets, then set up a donor-advised fund.

In a rare moment of sanity and good government from my ex-home state, Marc Levine, chairman of the Illinois state board of investment, pulled all of Illinois' pension assets out of high-fee obscure hedge funds.

Industry “experts” suggested we keep these investments to diversify our holdings and reduce overall risk. Yet we already owned bonds for that purpose. Our Procter & Gamble bonds made sense to us. I’m pretty sure my children will brush their teeth tonight. But I don’t have a clue about that long-lumber, short-sugar trade. 

Did anyone at the table really understand what these hedge funds were doing? Should we be putting the retirement funds of Illinois state employees into investments that not a single trustee, consultant or staffer could explain?

Donor-advised funds are also a great way to give money to your favorite charity if you think their own investment

The article includes more clever advice:

... Donors who give appreciated assets get an added benefit: They avoid paying capital-gains taxes when they make the donation, and they get a deduction against their income taxes for the full value of the asset.

If you paid $50 for stock, now worth $100, give the stock to your favorite charity (Hoover!). The charity gets $100, you take $100 off your taxes, but you don't pay capital gains taxes on the $50. Essentially you get to take $100 plus the capital gains tax as a deduction.

It gets better though. Give a non-market asset to your favorite charity. You can see both you and the charity have every incentive to report fanciful values for the asset. If it's really worth $100, well, call it $200 for the IRS. The charity still gets $100 for free.

Now you can actually make money out of donations. Conservation easement syndications (here, here and most fun here are even better. Buy land cheap, declare a huge value, put the land in a conservation trust, promising not to build houses on it -- actual operating golf courses are ok, and too bad if sometime in 2050 building some houses is a good idea -- and deduct the high value against other income.

the former Millstone golf course outside Greenville, S.C. Closed back in 2006, it sat vacant for a decade...In 2015, the owner put the property up for sale, asking $5.8 million. When there were no takers, he cut the price to $5.4 million in 2016.

Later in 2016, however, a pair of promoters appeared. They gathered investors who purchased the same parcel at the market price and, with the help of a private appraiser, declared it to be worth $41 million, nearly eight times its purchase price. Why? Because with that new valuation and a bit of paperwork, the investors were suddenly able to claim a tax deduction of $4 for each $1 they invested. ..

...A preliminary IRS analysis of syndicated partnerships this summer showed investors claimed an average of $9 in tax deductions for every dollar they invest.

There are lots of ways to interpret all this. One can celebrate the creativity of the American tax lawyer and wealthy investor. Who said innovation has fled the US?

Obviously, I'm not such a fan. Even if you take a benign view -- the US likes to pass very high taxes for symbolic purposes, and then allows all sorts of shenanigans on the side so people don't actually have to pay the taxes -- much of the economic damage is done. Aside from the fact that marginal disincentives are high, the cost of all this stuff is not trivial either. From the first article

The funds linked to investment firms such as Fidelity and Vanguard typically charge administrative fees... The funds are often invested in vehicles managed by those firms and generate fees for the for-profit business.

And the lawyers who set up conservation trusts, and the lobbyists who keep them in the tax code, are all taking their cut too.

But even that is not the most annoying part. Now, on top of everything else, a wise taxpayer needs to set up a donor advised fund, sign a bunch of papers, and manage it each year. Already, perfectly normal citizens have to have trusts to manage estates, and hundreds of pages of tax forms each year. The needless complexity of life in the Republic of Paperwork is, to me, the most annoying part. We need a grand simplification of our public life. If this is what it leads to, the whole charitable deduction thing should get tossed overboard.