Word: deficit
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...next President's simple economic challenge, therefore, is to arrange for America to consume less and save more. And the best way to do that is -- yes, tedious but true -- to reduce the federal deficit by reducing spending and/or raising taxes...
This still leaves plenty to argue about. To what extent is Government spending -- on highways, on science research, on education, on health -- a form of investment rather than present consumption? (Answer: a lot, but less than in the past and not enough to excuse the present deficit.) Apart from deficit reduction, do we need new policies to encourage savings and investment in the private sector? (Answer: perhaps, but be suspicious of both conservative schemes that amount to new tax breaks for rich folks and liberal schemes that amount to Government officials trying to play business better than businessmen.) Are trade...
Above all, how do we get there from here? That is, How do we engineer a reduction in consumption that will lead to productive investment rather than a self-feeding economic contraction and recession? Actually, there isn't much dispute about this one. If the deficit were to come down, the Fed would gladly accommodate this "tight" fiscal policy with a "loose" monetary policy. Low interest rates would spur private investment to take up the slack in demand, and everyone would live happily ever after...
Anyone not running for office can come up with a shopping list of budget cuts and new revenue sources (yes, yes, taxes) to close the deficit gap. The leadership challenge is getting at least 51% of Americans to agree to any particular list. A recent Gallup Poll for the Times Mirror Co. offered 20 possible deficit-reduction measures. Only three got majority support. Interestingly, all three were tax hikes: on people earning over $80,000, on alcohol and on tobacco...
More important than the particulars are the principles that should guide the revenue hunt. First is that the deficit gap cannot be closed painlessly by George Bush's proposed "flexible freeze" or by Michael Dukakis' proposed war on tax cheats. In either case, the numbers just...