Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform - Budget

In Getting Back in the Black, the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform calls on policymakers to reform the federal budget process in order to help stabilize the nation’s debt-GDP ratio, a proposal advanced in the Commission first report Red Ink Rising. The Commission concludes that policymakers must improve the budget process through implementing fiscal targets, budgetary triggers, and increased transparency as part of a package of fiscal reforms.

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Peterson-Pew Commission Recommends Major Revisions to Federal Budget Process

Jason Peuquet — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 10:00:59 +0000

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The Peterson-Pew Commission has released a series of recommendations for reforming the federal budget process as a way to help stabilize the nation’s debt as a share of the economy. The report, Getting Back in the Black, concentrates on three primary areas of improvement: fiscal targets, budgetary triggers, and improved transparency.

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Maya MacGuineas's Testimony Before the Fiscal Commission

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:35:27 +0000

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Maya MacGuineas

Chairman Bowles, Chairman Simpson, members of the Commission – thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you today.

I am the president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and the director of the Fiscal Policy Program at the New America Foundation. I also am part of the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform and a member of the Domenici-Rivlin Debt Reduction Task Force. Today, I will discuss a number of the outside initiatives that are underway to try to help change our nation’s fiscal future.

I know that all the members of this commission have been working incredibly hard scouring all areas of the budget for potential reforms to improve our fiscal future, and I thank you for all the effort that you are putting into this task.

If we don’t make changes to our debt trajectory, we will pay a heavy price through a weaker economy, a lower standard of living, less growth potential, a less flexible budget, and a loss of leadership in the world.

Just yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office released a report on federal debt and the risk of financial crisis. The document not only warns that debt levels are already quite high compared to historical levels, but that the debt is set to grow faster than the economy—forever. Future debt growth will be driven by higher government spending caused by the aging of the populating, escalating healthcare costs, and the biggest waste in the budget – spiraling interest payments (my words, not the ever-diplomatic CBO’s), and revenues that, even though they will be higher than historical averages, will not be high enough to pay for all the spending.

The CBO report focuses on the growing risk of a fiscal crisis if we do not change course. A crisis could take the form of a gradual rise in interest rates.

Or as we have seen in other nations, it could be startlingly abrupt, as investor concern suddenly grows over the risk of default or attempts to inflate our way out of our fiscal problems. No one knows at what point we would hit the tipping point. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget recently held an entire conference with some of the world's top financial and economic experts on the topic of what would cause a fiscal crisis and what exactly it would look like. There was nothing close to a consensus about what would kick off a crisis—only that we may well be dangerously close to finding out and that we’d rather not. Fears like these –which would have seemed so exaggerated in the past—now are disturbingly relevant.

Other than how much we should not want to find out what a fiscal crisis would look and feel like, there are a few main points I want to make today:

We need fiscal goals for both the medium and long term
We have to be cognizant of the sluggish economy as we proceed
We should focus on policies that will help grow the economy
Along with important work of the Fiscal Commission, there are many outside the group trying to develop ideas that will help lay the groundwork for, and dovetail with, whatever the commission comes up with.

I’ll focus on the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform, the National Research Council and National Academy of Public Administration’s “Choosing the Nation’s Fiscal Future,” and the still in-progress Domenici-Rivlin Debt Reduction Task Force.

By way of background, The Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform is sponsored by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts and its Members are those of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget—all the former directors of CBO and many of the formers heads of OMB, the budget committees and the Fed.

Last December the Commission released a six-step plan to stabilize the debt including:

Step 1: Commit immediately to stabilize the debt

Step 2: Develop a specific and credible debt stabilization package as quickly as possible

Step 3: Begin to phase in policy changes gradually in 2012;

Step 4: Review progress annually and implement an enforcement regime to stay on track;

Step 5: Stabilize the debt by 2018; and

Step 6: Continue to reduce the debt as a share of the economy over the longer-term.

The National Academy of Sciences/National Academy of Public Administration study was funded by the Macarthur Foundation. The co-chairs were John Palmer of Syracuse University and Rudy Penner, former CBO director, now with the Urban Institute. It was tasked with showing different comprehensive policy packages, reflecting different values, all of which would return the U.S. to a sustainable path.

Finally, the Domenici–Rivlin Debt Reduction Task Force hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center is still at work. The groups is co-chaired by former Senate Budget Chairman Pete Domenici, and Alice Rivlin, formerly head of CBO and OMB, and vice chair at the Fed.

The Task Force is equally split between Republicans and Democrats—as well as a few Independents, of which I count myself as one. It will focus on debt reduction and stabilization. And our starting point is that everything is on the table. The report will be released this fall.

There also are many important outside engagement efforts as well, including the Concord Coalition and Dave Walker of the Peterson Foundation ’s “Fiscal Wake Up Tour,“ which holds Town Hall meetings across the country with the Heritage Foundation and the Brookings Institution, and the recent multi-city town hall hook-up convened by America Speaks. But I have been asked to focus on the outside policy and process efforts underway rather than engagement efforts.

We Need Both Medium and Long-term Fiscal Targets

In terms of a fiscal goal, it is actually quite remarkable how regularly US policymakers craft budgets without a specific goal in mind. It is like flying blind, yet the budget process does not require a goal or target to be the starting point of the process.

A fiscal goal has the advantage of helping policymakers say no, as in “I’d love to give you that shiny new spending program or that alluring targeted tax cut, but it will keep us from achieving our fiscal goal.”

It also allows us to make comparisons. For instance, say there is one politician courageous enough to lay out the specifics of how he or she would fix the budget. Without a goal, others can criticize the plan without offering a productive alternative. But if you have a common fiscal target, if you don’t care for those policies, you can show a different plan that achieves the same goal and allow a fair comparisons of the pros and cons of each approach. It helps bring back the basic notion of trade-offs to budgeting.

This commission has its specific goals which have been laid out for it, which focuses on the short-term target of 2015, and a more vague longer term objective. Specifically:

“The Commission shall propose recommendations to balance the budget, excluding interest payment on the debt, by 2015. This result is projected to stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio at an acceptable level once the economy recovers. In addition, the Commission shall propose recommendations to the President that meaningfully improve the long-run fiscal outlook, including changes to address the growth of entitlement spending and the gap between the projected revenues and expenditures of the Federal Government.”

The Peterson-Pew Commission has recommended a medium-term goal of stabilizing the debt by 2018 at 60%--a well-recognized international standard, which is important given the emphasis we must put on reassuring global credit markets. The Fiscal Future Committee, also chose this goal, with 2022 as the target year. And the Domenici-Rivlin commission has not settled on a specific goal, and nothing is decided until everything is decided, but some type of medium-term debt target appears to be likely.

Recently, the International Monetary Fund has pointed out that the goal cannot just include stabilizing the debt at post-crisis levels, but rather, must involve bringing it down to pre-crisis levels.

To achieve such a medium-term goal, all three commissions agree that a reasonable plan would be: Credibly commit to reforms as quickly as possible, and phase them in gradually in order to avoid derailing the economic recovery.

But this will not be enough. In order to reassure credit markets and help strengthen the economy, a longer-term plan also will have to be adopted to control federal spending, close the gap between spending and revenues, and alleviate the current uncertainty that confuses citizens and creditors about the direction of future fiscal policy.

Over the longer-term, Peterson-Pew also strongly advocates further gradually reducing the debt relative to the economy – closer to the historical average of below 40%– after 2018. The Fiscal Future Committee recommends policy changes to ensure that “revenues and spending are closely aligned”. The primary reason, other than economic, is to ensure that we have the fiscal flexibility in the future to respond to crises that inevitably will rise.

Both medium-and long-term fiscal targets are critical. They also may well require very different policies, with the medium term changes relying more on savings from discretionary programs—including both defense and domestic discretionary—and revenue changes, including everything from cutting tax expenditures to fundamental reform. The Wyden-Gregg plan is certainly one good place to look for ideas.

Both groups point out that in the longer-term, the bulk of reforms will have to come from programs related to the drivers of spending growth—the aging of the population and soaring health care costs—primarily government health care and retirement programs. Simply put, without changes in these areas of the budget, the debt cannot be stabilized.

These policy conclusions are borne out by the types of policies in The Fiscal Future Committee report as well as the illustrative budget blueprint developed for the Peterson-Pew Commission to show one way we might achieve the debt goal. They reflect the general desire by policymakers to make changes more gradually to entitlement program to allow people time to adjust, as well as the reality that that is the area of the budget where the long-term unsustainable growth comes from.

This is particularly relevant to the mission of this commission whose mission is to balance the primary deficit by 2015 which is assumed will stabilize the debt once the economy recovers. This will only be true if you address the unsustainable drivers of budget deficits; otherwise, the budget will again fall out of balance.

I would emphasize that though both medium- and long-term fiscal targets are needed, the exact target is far less important than coming up with significant improvements that show that we have the ability to change course and avoid the fiscal calamity we are otherwise headed for.

We all are aware of the political polarization that exists in this country, and one of the major concerns is that the two parties will not be able to work together to develop a fiscal roadmap to get us out of this mess. I hope this Commission proves doubters wrong. If this commission comes up with either a modest, or far better, a significant plan, it will go a long way toward reassuring our creditors that we will fix this situation before we are forced to.

I believe it is the hope of all the outside commissions that they will help pave the way to getting there by offering specific ideas and approaches.

Balancing Economic Recovery and Fiscal Consolidation

There are legitimate concerns that enacting a fiscal consolidation plan prematurely could derail the economic recovery. It is my personal belief that the economy still faces many challenges and that well-crafted stimulus measures – and I emphasize that – are in order—though I should state that my board of directors has mixed views about this.

However, we are now also experiencing the loss of fiscal flexibility that comes with high debt levels. Instead of just borrowing for stimulus, we should add stimulus measures as necessary and offset the costs of the measures over a longer period of time, so that the funds—whether for unemployment insurance, state and local governments, or business tax incentives—do not lead to more debt over the longer-term.

This also does not mean that there is no room for some tax increases or spending reductions this year or next if they affect areas that are not particularly stimulative. Allowing the tax cuts for the well-off to expire for instance, or cutting wasteful or ineffective programs out of the budget, is unlikely to harm the recovery while cutting unemployment insurance, aid to states or raising payroll taxes probably would. Removing non-stimulative programs is more likely to aid the recovery by showing markets that we are indeed serious about making the changes we need to the budget. A down payment on a full package will be very important in reassuring markets and the public—which will help improve consumer confidence.

Importantly, just committing to a credible fiscal consolidation plan right now, even if the policies are not phased in for a few more years, can help the recovery. The so-called “Announcement Effect” can reassure investors and help keep interest rates from rising as they otherwise might due to all the debt, as the economy starts to recover. We have seen this in other countries, such as Denmark and Ireland in the past.

For these reasons again, both the Peterson-Pew and the Fiscal Future Committee recommend committing to changes immediately, while actually implementing them more gradually. Given where the economy was at the time the reports were produced, both recommended phasing in very small changes starting in 2012, with the savings growing quickly each year thereafter as the economy strengthens.

The question is: What would constitute a credible commitment? It will take more than a promise.

For a plan to be credible, and for our creditors to buy it, it will have to be statutory, specific, bipartisan, and transparent to public. It should be put in law immediately with the policies slated to phase in as gradually as necessary. The specific policies in the plan must be developed now, not just filled with magic asterisk. The plan has to be bipartisan. The necessary policy changes will be too difficult if either party tries to do this alone. Moreover, if something is pushed through by one party alone, and is met with calls to repeal it, it will undermine confidence that the plan will stay in place. Finally, the public has to understand the plan, be on board, and hold politicians accountable for staying on track. This kind of public commitment has been very helpful in other countries.

One look at the levels of debt we now face should remind all of us that the current favorable interest rate environment could change at any moment and investors could turn on a dime. Stimulus is easy – it involves tax cuts and spending increases – the stuff politicians like. It is the reverse—the fiscal consolidation part—that policymakers do their best to avoid and that is one of the many reasons all these outside groups are pushing that it not be sidelined even as the economy recovers slowly.

Specific Policy Ideas

Moving on to specifics, The Fiscal Future Committee developed four illustrative paths that would achieve its goals.

The low spending and revenue plan would maintain revenues at traditional levels and rely on large spending cuts to all areas of the budget. It would shift responsibilities to households and state and local governments. It would balance Social Security by increasing the retirement age, progressive price indexing, and changing COLAs. And it would limit excess health care cost growth to aging of population. Investments would probably be detrimentally low in this option.

The high spending and revenue plan would only restrain growth of Medicare and Medicaid spending slightly, maintain currently scheduled Social Security benefits, and permit expanded spending on defense and other domestic programs. It would require very substantial increases in revenues. The Commission thus looked at alternative tax structures, including a radically reformed income tax that limits many tax expenditures and consolidates tax rates, and a VAT. It also assumed a dramatic increases in payroll taxes.

Between these two, the commission provides two intermediate paths, which fall between these two “bookends”.

The Domenici-Rivlin Task Force is still working, and again nothing is decided until everything is decided, but I can say the Task Force will recommend a specific set of reforms with the goals of:

Making Social Security solvent for 75 years
Reigning in growing health care costs
Limiting growth in other entitlement programs, including reforms to civilian and military retirement and farm programs
Looking at possible freezes in discretionary spending

Dramatically simplifying the tax code and considering a range of other revenue options

Last month, when I appeared before the Commission, we were asked to provide specific ideas for reducing the deficit. I submitted a plan, which represents my own views, not necessarily those of my board members. It is not presented as the perfect plan, but hopefully as a helpful example of the types of policies that will be necessary to reach a credible target. (Appendix 2)

The Peterson-Pew Commission also developed an illustrative plan of how to stabilize the debt at 60% by 2018, which can be found here. http://budgetreform.org/document/budget-blueprint-paths-60-percent

Some of the major policy conclusions of the groups so far include:

Entitlement growth will have to be controlled
You can not get to any reasonable goal without new revenues
All discretionary spending – including defense -- will have to be part of a plan
Fundamental tax reform is desirable, and even more so if and when revenues go up.

In developing specific proposals, the groups also recognize and acknowledge the need to deal with the black holes in the budget – the policies that are different in the budget than they will be in reality. So for instance, these groups – or any developing a budget plan – have to deal with fixing the AMT and the Sustainable Growth Rate once and for all. The expiring tax extenders that also are always renewed have to be addressed. I would assume this commission should hold itself to that same standard and deal directly with these parts of the fiscal challenges, as well as not assuming new policies assumed to expire that really are not intended to.

The Importance of Economic Growth

This budget challenge cannot be viewed as an exercise in merely getting the numbers to add up. We have to be conscious of the most important national priorities, and the effectiveness of government activities.

And we have to pay particular attention to the economic effects of various policy choices. Economic growth will not be able to fix our fiscal problems, but without it, they will be ever so much harder to solve. Our current budget—fraught with short-termism—over-emphasizes consumption and under-invests. We tax the things we want more of—like work—and less of the things we want less of—such as pollution.

There is plenty of room for improvement along with rebalancing. Cutting out wasteful, inefficient and redundant programs is an obvious first step. Shifting our spending from consumption to investment-based programs will have medium-and long-term benefits for the economy. Fundamental tax reform—with a strong emphasis on broadening the base by reducing tax expenditures, will be essential.

So where do we go from here? The Domenici-Rivlin group plans to release our report this fall. I dare say it will be full of specific policies that reflect the kinds of tough choices we have to make to set the country on a better path.

Peterson-Pew is now working on a companion proposal, to be released this fall. In this volume, we will focus on a number of budget process changes including instituting fiscal targets committed to by both the White House and Congress, along with annual debt targets to provide a glide path to the stabilization goal. Additionally, we will recommend a long-term target that will bring the debt down further, yet be flexible enough to accommodate economic cycles and emergencies.

The commission is leaning towards an enhanced use of automatic budgetary triggers which would be used to keep policymakers on track in coming up with budget plans to meet their fiscal goals and then staying on track once they are in place.

And finally, the report will include a number of improvements to the budget process to make the process more transparent to 1) reduce short-term budgeting, 2) highlight budget trade-offs, and 3) improve fiscal outcomes

I will end by saying there are an infinite number of ways to achieve the fiscal goals we are examining. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has developed a Stabilize the Debt simulator as part of the Peterson-Pew effort, which allows people to pick the policies they would use to get there. http://crfb.org/stabilizethedebt/ (I have brought each of you your own personal simulator you can play in your office.) The results have been gratifying. People are willing to make the tough choices. We are tracking the results to share with policymakers and the public, and there are 35 options –totally about $600 billion in savings in 2018, that have received over 50% support. Not bad.

The point is that the requisite changes are large and tough. But the public appears willing to make them. Thus while the task before this commission is incredibly hard, and ironing out the different values and priorities of the members is a true challenge, voters appear ready to sign on, and it is without question what we have to do for the sake of the future economic well-being of the country.

All of the outside groups I mentioned today—as well as many others—stand willing to assist in any way we can. You have been given a large, and exceedingly important task. Given our debt trajectory, developing a plan to address it is the single most important thing we must do to assure the long-term strength of our economy and well-being for future generations. Thank you for your work on this important task.

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Barry Anderson's Testimony Before the Fiscal Commission

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:34:27 +0000

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Barry Anderson

In his testimony before the President’s fiscal commission, Barry Anderson discussed the characteristics of budget systems, the roles that fiscal rules can play, and how such budget structures have worked internationally—citing the experiences of Sweden and Switzerland.

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Event 2/16: Avoiding a Government Debt Crisis

Jason Peuquet — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:53:33 +0000

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The Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform hosted a conference, “Avoiding a Government Debt Crisis,” on Tuesday, February 16 in Washington, DC. The event brought together a wide spectrum of economists, politicos and fiscal experts to discuss the nation’s fiscal plight and how to change course. The event was moderated by CRFB President, Maya MacGuineas.*

Peterson-Pew Commission co-chair and former Congressman Charlie Stenholm* opened the event by putting the situation in perspective. In noting that people like him have warned for years about the nation’s unsustainable fiscal path while “nothing seems to change except the problem gets worse” he also observed that the recent travails of the economy seem to have changed public perception and now Americans seem to realize that “America is not too big to fail.”

The first panel of the conference discussed the need for a shared fiscal goal and panelists expressed a great deal of agreement on the need for a target and what it should look like. Urban Institute fellow and former CBO director Rudolph Penner* explained why stabilizing the debt-to-GDP ratio was an appropriate target and referred to the goal of 60 percent of GDP recommended by the Peterson-Pew Commission and other groups. He also argued that Americans are currently not prepared for the necessary changes that will be required to reach that target.

John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress, contended that the biggest obstacle is a lack of political will in Washington to make the tough decisions to stabilize the debt. He noted that there is “more agreement across the political spectrum on what the targets ought to be than there is the capacity of our political system to actually produce the results to reach those targets.” He observed the tension between the goals of spurring the economy in the short term while setting a credible path to sustainability in the longer term, and compared it to squeezing an aircraft carrier through the Panama Canal. He also said that statutory mechanisms to enforce fiscal discipline were vital.

Urban Institute president Robert Reischauer* saw a debt “trigger” that would take effect if annual debt targets are not reached as a promising mechanism. The Peterson-Pew Commission recommended a trigger that applies equally to spending cuts and tax increases in the report Red Ink Rising. He also made the point that we are handing our children and grandchildren a huge burden through excessive borrowing and warned that we risk becoming a “fiscal slave” to other countries. He said fiscal goals must be understandable, attainable, and flexible. He also detailed six steps to a fiscally sustainable path:

1.) convince the public and their elected representatives that something must be done;

2.) specify a goal;

3.) set a date for attaining the goal;

4.) establish benchmarks;

5.) create a mechanism to ensure progress towards achieving the goal;

6.) enforcement.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin,* president of the American Action Forum, said the need for a fiscal goal was “transparent” with our debt “endangering both our prosperity and our freedom.” According to Holtz-Eakin, a fiscal goal would make it easier for lawmakers to say “no” to the myriad of programs and initiatives they are asked to fund. He also agreed with earlier comments by Reischauer that the debt-to-GDP ratio is a difficult concept for Americans to understand and would require a great deal of educating the public. That sort of education would be critical to pressure policymakers to make the hard choices to put the U.S. on a sustainable fiscal path.

David Walker,* president and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, also called for a fiscal goal, arguing that “A great nation does not remain great by being a debtor nation.” He also stated that the U.S. is at a “critical crossroads” in its history and that the decisions we make, and fail to make, within the next five years will largely determine our future. He warned that we face large, growing structural deficits that threaten our future; noting that in twelve years the biggest line item in the federal budget could be interest on the debt. Walker lambasted accounting practices that mask the true severity of the debt problem. He said that although high government borrowing has not yet caused interest rates to rise, the actions of our foreign lenders “speak loudly” – that they are purchasing shorter-term treasuries and looking at investments other than U.S. debt. Walker observed four parallels between the subprime meltdown and current government finances:

1.) a disconnect between who benefitted from the financial bubble and who paid the price;

2.) a lack of transparency;

3.) too much debt; and

4.) a failure of oversight and risk management.

He also noted two big differences: the sheer size of the current problem and that no one will bail out the U.S. He said that a fiscal commission is important and provided recommendations to ensure its success:

• everything must be on the table;

• it must engage and educate Americans outside the Beltway on the tough choices that are necessary and the consequences of inaction;

• it must set goals such as the debt-to-GDP ratio recommended by the Peterson-Pew Commission;

• it must include capable and credible members committed to bipartisanship and finding real solutions; and

• its recommendations must be acted on by Congress.

The next panel offered the international and market perspective on our unsustainable path and what the tipping point would be for a fiscal crisis. Martin Baily of the Brookings Institution observed that we have a broken political framework yet people still flock to U.S. treasuries. However bad the situation looks in the U.S., it probably looks better than other overseas economies, except for maybe China. Markets may be expecting a recovery in the U.S. that is stronger than in Europe, and there may be greater room to resolve the problem in the U.S. since we start with lower tax rates (we could institute a VAT tax, for example). Baily said global markets are a little bit more optimistic than some of the speakers alluded to. There is a tipping point, though people are not sure where it is. It would show up as higher interest rates and potentially a lower dollar. He hopes the U.S. learns that if we go too far, then the value of our debt starts to depreciate, and we should not push the envelope. We are in the hands of our creditors, but they are in our hands too. Nobody wants to see a collapse of the dollar and a lack of access to the U.S. dollar. The right debate is not being created by politicians around health care and other budget items, and until we get the right debate, no one will vote for politicians who will support the types of decisions that need to be made.

According to Richard Berner, Managing Director, Co-Head of Global Economics and Chief U.S. Economist, Morgan Stanley, investors understand we have a little time to do something about our budget, but they are alarmed when looking at deficits projected as far as the eye can see. They know there is no credible plan yet to grapple with the budget problem. Four fears investors have: inflation, factors that drive real interest rates, currency risk, and the risks associated with the uncertainty in financial markets. Inflation risk may show up in the United States. Factors that drive real interest rates – they are comparatively low to overseas markets and economies. There is a very real risk that real interest rates will go up. We cannot quantify political risk. We need solutions. He said the U.S. needs a credible plan for reducing the debt. He noted that he is a "card-carrying member" of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget's Announcement Effect Club, whose members believe that announcing a credible plan now to reduce the debt as the economy recovers will improve economic prospects in the short-run because creditors' fears will be allayed.

Carlo Cottarelli, Director of the Fiscal Affairs Department at the International Monetary Fund, said the fiscal problems of the U.S. are common to most advanced countries. He said institutional reforms could be implemented now to reduce debt in the longer term. He and Berner agreed on the need for the U.S. to develop a credible plan now for reducing its debt. He referred to research showing that high debt can raise interest rates and lower economic growth. He argued against using inflation to lower the debt-to-GDP ratio. He said tough decisions on revenue and spending are needed.

A panel of respected political commentators then examined the political dimension. Atlantic Monthly senior editor Clive Crook contended that the public, and thus politicians, are not scared enough yet to address long term fiscal problem. Beginning longer-term planning now would actually help with shorter-term stimulus, but there is no long-term focus in the current debate.

Former Congressman Jim Kolbe* said there has never been such a toxic political environment in Washington. Dealing with our fiscal problems will be difficult in this atmosphere.

Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute agreed with Kolbe that Washington is more dysfunctional than ever. He also agreed that there is populist anger against those in power. He echoed Stenholm’s opening remarks that redistricting reform is needed to elect leaders willing to work together and address challenging issues. Bipartisanship, leadership and consensus are needed; currently none of those is evident.

Jamal Simmons, principal at the Raben Group, noted that politicians are not good at taking away things from voters. Elected officials only have negative examples of what happens when they make unpopular decisions. All the panelists agreed that everything, including entitlements and tax reform, should be on the table in confronting the debt.

Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City president Thomas Hoenig, provided the concluding keynote address, forcefully arguing against having the central bank bail out the country by monetizing the debt (see a more detailed summary of Hoenig’s remarks here). In his remarks, titled “Knocking on the Central Bank’s Door,” Hoenig echoed the sentiments of other speakers at the forum that U.S. fiscal policy is on an unsustainable course. He said it is an ‘inescapable conclusion … that U.S. fiscal policy must focus on reducing the debt build up and avoid the consequences of not doing so.” But he contended that having the Fed print more money to purchase the mounting debt would lead to an inflation-induced financial crisis.

*Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform commissioner

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Testimony: Choosing the Nation's Fiscal Future

Jason Peuquet — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:43:03 +0000

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Rudolph Penner

In a testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, former CBO Director and current Peterson-Pew Commissioner Rudy Penner argues for setting an explicit target for the government’s debt-to-GDP ratio. Penner runs through the risks of a high debt-to-GDP ratio and suggests that it should be brought down to 60 percent of GDP, and then stabilized or decreased further.

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Testimony: Moving to a Fiscally Sustainable Budget

Jason Peuquet — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:39:11 +0000

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Alive Rivlin

In a testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, former OMB and CBO Director and current Peterson-Pew Commissioner Alice Rivlin discusses the dangerous debt trajectory, the need to stabilize the debt at a certain level and by a specificied date, and the pre-requisites of developing a credible plan to stabilize the debt.

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Op-Ed: Quit Digging the Federal Spending Hole

Jason Peuquet — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:39:17 +0000

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Charlie Stenholm

Star-Telegram | Dec. 28, 2009

Here in Texas, we have a saying: When you find yourself in a hole, the first rule is to quit digging.

As I learned from my 26 years in the House of Representatives, that’s not always easy advice to follow. Members of Congress like to deliver projects and programs back to their districts. And for a while, we were all told that deficits didn’t matter. As we’ve learned, they do matter. We may have not been able to avoid deficits in the past two years as the government tried to fix the economy, but I’m not worried about two years. I’m worried about the path that our debt is on, even after the economy gets better.

We’ve been on a path of reckless spending that seems never-ending. If only Congress and the White House could make changes like the folks in West Texas have had to do during this economic and financial crisis, then we could get out of our fiscal mess. The situation is bad and will only get worse if we don’t stop digging and do something.

If we do not lower our government debt, we will see interest rates go up, wages stagnate and our standard of living decline. Our grandchildren and their children will be left with the burden of paying for today’s borrowing and spending. This will mean large tax increases and large spending cuts.

The increased federal debt will make it more expensive to borrow for housing, education and business investments. If people are unable to borrow money, they will not be able to buy a new house or send the kids to college. It will really hit home for the American people when they go to the bank and cannot borrow any money. Or the interest rates will be so high that they can’t afford the loan. Higher interest rates will stop investment and hurt the creation of new jobs, something we desperately need.

While there is no silver bullet when it comes to fiscal responsibility, the bipartisan Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform has come up with some reasonable targets. In "Red Ink Rising — A Call to Action to Stem the Mounting Federal Debt," a report we just released, we describe six steps to solving the debt problem.

We recommend that Congress and the White House develop a fiscal framework that includes promising to stabilize the public debt by 2018. The commission offers a path for getting there, annual debt goals with an enforcement mechanism and a plan to reduce the debt over the longer term. Waiting too long could fail to reassure our government’s creditors.

I’m a farmer in real life, and I understand that my banker has a lot to say about what we can or can’t do. As a former member of Congress who worked and, occasionally sparred, with both parties, I know that having this bipartisan group of policymakers agree on a plan is quite a feat. Enacting our proposal will be tough in this political climate. But it’s crucial that leaders in both parties make the tough choices. As elections approach, my Democratic and Republican friends in Congress need to remember that this is an issue for all Americans so that we can keep our standard of living and avoid a crisis.

Washington needs to commit soon to a clearly defined plan that changes the way it taxes and spends to show the world that the U.S. is serious about debt. Average citizens have tightened their own budgets and begun to live within their means, and now Congress and the White House have to follow suit. The public is ahead of the politicians on this one. As a farmer, I am an optimist. And I believe that policymakers can put aside their individual political interests to find a solution that is in the best interests of our nation and our children’s future.

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Op-Ed: The Coming Debt Crisis

Jason Peuquet — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 14:45:55 +0000

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James Jones

iStock Analyst | Dec. 27, 2009

We all know about the current fragile state of the economy. What is quickly becoming evident is that our nation's longer-term fiscal picture is even more precarious because of mounting government debt and the unwillingness of our elected leaders to address it.

I've seen the results of economic crises first-hand and they are not pretty. I was the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico during the 1994 Mexican peso crisis. Mexicans' standards of living were cut in half overnight and now 15 years later the middle class still has not been fully repaired.

Before that, representing Oklahoma in the House of Representatives, I served as chairman of the Budget Committee during the turbulent economic period of the 1980s.

Those experiences convinced me that we must now realize that our nation's short-sighted fiscal policies leave us vulnerable to our own debt crisis. The federal debt is almost $8 trillion and rising. Without policy changes, it will climb to unsustainable levels and debilitate the economy.

Under reasonable assumptions, debt is projected to grow to 85 percent of gross national product by 2018, 100 percent by 2022, and 200 percent in 2038. That is a prescription for financial calamity. Eventually, investors will lose confidence in our ability to manage our finances and will not buy U.S. securities.

The likely results are higher interest rates, lower wages, and slower economic growth and job creation. That crisis would result in Americans being unable to find credit to purchase homes, buy cars or send their kids to college.

To avoid such a calamity, we require the sort of political courage that so far has been lacking in Washington. Several distinguished colleagues and I are serving on the bipartisan Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform. We recently released a report, Red Ink Rising: A Call to Action to Stem the Mounting Federal Debt, which details the coming debt crisis and proposes a six-step plan to address it.

The commission recommends that Congress and the President commit now to stabilize the debt at 60 percent of GDP by 2018, develop a credible package over the next year to attain that goal, begin phasing in the plan in 2012, implement a "debt trigger" automatic mechanism to ensure that the process stays on track, and continue to reduce the debt as a share of the economy after 2018. This is an ambitious, yet attainable, solution.

Our leaders face a great challenge but it is not insurmountable. We must be committed to reducing the debt. The longer we wait, the harder it will be on all of us and on our children and grandchildren.

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Op-Ed: Not Just Another Budget Commission

Jason Peuquet — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:21:36 +0000

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Maya MacGuineas

Forbes | Dec. 21, 2009

Last week Bruce Bartlett devoted his Forbes column to criticizing plans for a budget commission to make recommendations on how to deal with the country's fiscal imbalances. This is the approach the White House and Congress seem poised to pursue to come up with the specific policies to put the nation's budget back on a sustainable path.

In making his case, Bartlett chose to take a number of swipes at our new report, Red Ink Rising, which calls for policymakers to commit to and develop a plan to stabilize the government's growing public debt at no larger than 60% of the economy by 2018.

The mission of the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform, made up of some of the most respected budget authorities in the nation, is to make recommendations to reform the country's outdated and ineffective budget process. We determined that the first step, given our horrid fiscal condition, is to develop a "fiscal goal" and put forth a framework to achieve it. (We will soon make further recommendations on more technical reforms such as budget baselines, government trust funds and new budget enforcement mechanism.)

We arrived at the 60% ratio because it reflects international standards at a time when one of the primary focuses of stabilizing the debt is to reassure foreign creditors that the U.S. continues to be a sound place to invest.

We picked 2018 because what was once a long-term fiscal problem, driven primarily by aging of the populating and growing health care costs, has become a more immediate problem exacerbated by the recent economic crisis. We now have to move more quickly. Waiting a full decade would have been risky, concerning the possibility of a fiscal crisis occurring before we stabilize the debt. However, we also recognized that acting too quickly could destabilize the budding economic recovery. So we attempted to balance both fiscal and economic considerations.

Some will say the goal it too aggressive, while others will complain it doesn't go far enough. Ultimately, Congress will have to decide whether our recommendations make sense. Bartlett's criticism however, comes a bit out of left field.

Bartlett argues that we failed because we didn't "put forward a serious, detailed plan for cutting the deficit that left no sacred cow unscarred." Well ... true ... we did not. But as Bartlett knows, because we talked about it over the telephone extensively before he published his article, we never intend to. Putting forth a budget plan of some type was not the purpose of our budget commission--not even close. It's like criticizing Bartlett's call for a value-added tax for failing to fix Social Security.

Red Ink Rising focuses on the first step in reforming the budget process during times of fiscal stress: setting a fiscal goal. Before our leaders can agree on the legislative specifics, they need to agree politically and publicly that debt reduction must be a national priority and that they need to set a specific national fiscal goal.

Sure, we could have put out a report calling for raising the retirement age, temporarily freezing discretionary spending, restructuring Social Security and Medicare, broadening the tax base, or creating a broad-based energy tax to deal with the nation's fiscal problems. The options that will be necessary are in fact well-known. Many of our members have been writing about them for years. There is no right or wrong answer for what combination the ultimate package will include. It will be the result of complex political negotiations. (We do show an illustrative budget of what it would take to achieve our proposed goal.)

But as we have seen in the past, getting prematurely specific is more likely to poison the debate then help. This has happened in presidential campaigns, for instance, where when the issue of raising the retirement age comes up candidates stumble all over themselves to promise they'll never do such a terrible thing (even though most experts agree it is in order given growing life expectancies). Most recently, when candidate John McCain suggested reforming the tax exclusion for employer-provided health insurance, candidate Barack Obama criticized it (again, even though almost all experts support the policy), and as a result the good idea was poisoned and left out of current health reform bills--an unfortunate outcome.

For the greatest chance of success, the right sequence is to first agree there is a problem and commit to a goal, and then to get specific.

Our report asks that we draw a "debt line in the sand" as a way to start discussing how our country must rebalance its spending and tax policies over the next decade. Once policymakers agree to a public fiscal goal and to debt reduction, we can move to a productive discussion of how to get there.

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Op-Ed: No more Ignoring the Debt - It's Time to Get Skin in the Game

Jason Peuquet — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:32:26 +0000

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Jim Kolbe and Charlie Stenholm

The Hill | Dec. 18, 2009

At the same time he is weighing further economic stimulus plans, the President is also arguing for getting deficits under control. There is no question that the United States is on an unsustainable fiscal path. The large and growing federal debt looms over every legislative decision before Congress. This will be the case for years to come as our policymakers struggle to fund economic stimulus packages now or health care and the retirement costs of our aging population over the next two decades from revenue sources that will not grow nearly as quickly as those demands will. The consequences are serious for public policy, the economy, and the standard of living of the American people.

For the past year, along with our colleagues on the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform, we have wrestled with this critical issue — a federal debt that is out of control. The Commission members share a common concern: the fiscal future we leave to succeeding generations will lower their standards of living. It is our strong belief that we must take action now to prevent that from happening.

Even after the economy has recovered from the deep recession, structural deficits will remain. The debt is on course to reach levels never before experienced in the United States. While it was necessary to ramp up spending to respond to the recent sharp decline in the economy, the United States must adopt a plan to stabilize the debt immediately and take the first steps down that path very soon.

Under reasonable assumptions, debt held by the public is projected to grow steadily, reaching 85 percent of GDP by 2018, 100 percent by 2022, and 200 percent in 2038. Before the debt reached such high levels, the United States would almost certainly experience a debt-driven crisis—something previously viewed as almost unfathomable in the world’s largest economy.

On December 14, our bipartisan Commission presented a report containing recommendations for how lawmakers and the administration can tackle the debt – “Red Ink Rising: A Call to Action to Stem the Mounting Federal Debt.” In the report, we recommend: that policymakers commit to a plan for stabilizing the public debt over a reasonable timeframe; specific policies to stabilize the debt; annual debt targets with an automatic enforcement mechanism to ensure targets are met; and that policymakers commit to reducing the debt level over the longer term.

But in short, we agree that any solution must include tough choices on both sides of the budget. Both tax increases and spending cuts will have to be part of the solution so everyone has skin in the game.

The biggest factor in whether Congress can succeed in this task is political will—members of all political persuasions will need to come together and make tough choices. Promises not to raise certain taxes or reduce certain benefits only stand in the way of a realistic plan. Any meaningful effort to address our fiscal problems will have to be bipartisan. Remember the public is ahead of us on the issue of fiscal responsibility. But we all have to join forces to get the tough job done.

Congress will soon, once again, raise the country’s debt limit so the lights can stay on through the holidays. Key senators are demanding the formation of a bipartisan fiscal task force to deal with our fiscal problems in exchange for their votes to raise the debt ceiling. Unfortunately, lawmakers have not yet come together in the face of international concerns about how the United States is dealing with its debt, and with average citizens across the country tightening their belts, to put together a fiscal management plan to secure our economic future.

Lawmakers can begin now to put such a plan in place. But they can phase-in the necessary revenue and spending changes starting in 2012 to allow the economy to recover and to give beneficiaries and taxpayers time to adjust to a tougher budget. Committing now to a fiscally-responsible future will show our international creditors that we are serious about getting our debt under control.

Republicans and Democrats alike need to accept that they will have to cut spending and raise taxes to bring our debt down to a manageable level. Everyone should have a stake in the outcome – skin in the game we like to say. If that happens, everyone can take the credit for leadership, and, more importantly, our children and grandchildren can reap the benefits.

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Red Ink Rising

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 11:20:08 +0000

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In Red Ink Rising: A Call to Action to Stem the Mounting Federal Debt, The Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform calls on policy makers to stabilize the national debt through a six-step plan. Crafted over the past year by former heads of the CBO, OMB, GAO, and the congressional budget committees, the plan reflects a bipartisan approach to avoiding the tremendous global risks of America's expanding debt, without destabilizing the economic recovery. Red Ink Rising is the first of two major reports to be released by the commission.

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In Red Ink Rising: A Call to Action to Stem the Mounting Federal Debt, The Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform calls on policy makers to stabalize the national debt through a six-step plan. Crafted over the past year by former heads of the CBO, OMB, GAO, and the congressional budget committees, the plan reflects a bipartisan approach to avoiding the tremendous global risks of America's expanding debt, without destabilizing the economic recovery. Red Ink Rising is the first of two major reports to be released by the commission.

Red_Ink_Rising.pdf

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Event 12/14: Release of 'Red Ink Rising'

Jason Peuquet — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 11:19:19 +0000

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On December 14, the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform hosted a public event , moderated by David Wessel of the Wall Street Journal, to announce the release of its report, Red Ink Rising: A Call to Action to Stem the Mounting Federal Debt. The six panelists included a distinguished group of fiscal experts, including among their many titles, former chairmen and ranking members of the House Budget Committee (Bill Frenzel, Jim Nussle, and Jim Jones) and two former CBO directors (Alice Rivlin and Douglas Holtz-Eakin). The panelists discussed the Commission’s proposal to address the debt. (See the webcast of the event below).

Bill Frenzel, the co-chair of the Commission, started off the event by discussing the plan. The Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform calls on policy makers to stabilize the national debt through a six-step plan. The commission recommends that Congress and the President commit now to stabilize the debt at 60 percent of GDP by 2018, develop a credible package over the next year to attain that goal, begin phasing in the plan in 2012, implement a “debt trigger” mechanism to ensure that the process stays on track, and continue to reduce the debt as a share of the economy after 2018.

The economic and financial consequences of the debt problem also worried the panel. Jim Jones, a former head of the American Stock Exchange as well as the ambassador to Mexico, warned that financial markets are irrational and that a debt crisis can emerge overnight. During his time in Mexico, he saw how government debt can overwhelm families as its economic implications force them out of their homes and lower their standards of living. Douglas Holtz-Eakin warned that growing government debt will crowd out private investment and hurt economic growth.

Then, the panel turned to the politics of solving the debt problem. Jim Nussle argued that it will take a crisis or rude awakening to spur politicians to act. It might be a financial or market crisis, but he also believed that a political event, such as a midterm election loss or a presidential race where debt was a major issue, might force policymakers into overcoming their differences. Panelists also discussed the role of presidential leadership in solving this problem. Bill Frenzel thinks it will require the President to present a plan and even after that, require the President to force Congress to sit down and discuss a solution to the debt. Alice Rivlin echoed his comments and suggested that the 2011 budget (due from the White House in early February) will show how serious the White House is about addressing the debt (and how much they fear the political consequences of not addressing it). And then Charlie Stenholm, a Commission co-chair, offered that we also need political reform (specifically the redistricting of congressional seats) to ensure that we can address difficult problems such as the debt.

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