This week the Congressional Budget Office released The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2014-2024. From the press coverage, one would have guessed the report was either entitled Obamacare: the Job Killer that is Almost as Bad as Benghazi or Obamacare: Ending the “Job Lock” and Opening the Door to Leisure. In reality, the impact of the Affordable Care Act was only a small part of the report—largely restricted to the appendix—and arguably the least troublesome.
Here are a few highlights. I will quote from the CBO report, since most of the media coverage will only address the shiny objects connected to the Affordable Care Act (for an exception, see Ron Fournier’s piece in National Journal).
Economic Growth
- “[T]he economy will grow at a solid pace in 2014 and for the next few years…Beyond 2017, CBO expects that economic growth will diminish to a pace that is well below the average seen over the past several decades. That projected slowdown mainly reflects long-term trends—particularly, slower growth in the labor force because of the aging of the population.” (p. 1)
- “The unemployment rate is expected to edge down from 5.8 percent in 2017 to 5.5 percent in 2024.” (p. 5)
The Debt
- “[T]he deficit is projected to decrease again in 2015—to $478 billion, or 2.6 percent of GDP. After that, however, deficits are projected to start rising—both in dollar terms and relative to the size of the economy— because revenues are expected to grow at roughly the same pace as GDP whereas spending is expected to grow more rapidly than GDP.” (p. 1)
The Consequences (p. 18)
- “The nation’s net interest costs would be very high (after interest rates moved up to more typical levels) and rising.”
- “National saving would be held down, leading to more borrowing from abroad and less domestic investment, which in turn would decrease income in the United States compared with what it would be otherwise.”
- “Policymakers’ ability to use tax and spending policies to respond to unexpected challenges—such as economic downturns, natural disasters, or financial crises—would be constrained. As a result, unexpected events could have worse effects on the economy and people’s well-being than they would otherwise.”
- “The likelihood of a fiscal crisis would be higher. During such a crisis, investors would lose so much confidence in the government’s ability to manage its budget that the government would be unable to borrow funds at affordable interest rates.”
Beyond 2024, things only get worse
- “Although long-term budget projections are highly uncertain, the aging of the population and rising costs for health care would almost certainly push federal spending up significantly relative to GDP after 2024 if current laws remained in effect. Federal revenues also would continue to increase relative to GDP under cur- rent law, reaching significantly higher percentages of GDP than at any time in the nation’s history—but they would not keep pace with outlays. As a result, public debt would reach roughly 110 percent of GDP by 2038, CBO estimates, about equal to the percentage just after World War II. Such an upward path would ultimately be unsustainable.” (pp. 25-26)
Of course, the core driver in these projections is the aging of the population. Policymakers have the ability to reform key policies to reduce the long-term impact of the demographic shift, and the earlier these reforms are introduced, the less dramatic they need to be. But given the endless campaign and the struggle over the news cycle, who can even contemplate serious entitlement and tax reform. It is far easier to focus on the shiny objects than to acknowledge the core message of the CBO’s report.
PILEUS 