January 08, 2015
E.J. Dionne is upset about Republican plans to have the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) use dynamic scoring in assessing the effects of tax cuts. He tells readers that dynamic scoring:
“will make it easier for the Republicans to shower money on their favored constituencies while pretending to be fiscally responsible. Dynamic scoring, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted, ‘could facilitate congressional passage of large rate cuts in tax reform by making the rate cuts appear — on paper — less expensive than under a traditional cost estimate.’
“To understand the dynamic-scoring game, imagine a formula based on the idea that because infrastructure spending boosts the economy — which it most certainly does — we should pretend that an expenditure of $100 billion is actually, say, only $80 billion.”
Dynamic scoring means taking account of the growth effects of tax cuts and incorporating them into budget estimates. This is actually a very reasonable thing to do. When Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a conservative Republican economist, was head of CBO, he put out an analysis of the impact of dynamic scoring on budget estimates. The analysis found that the impact of a simple estimate of the impact of a tax cut on growth was small and in fact negative.
The analysis did find larger positive impacts if the tax cut assumption was coupled with other assumptions, such as a later tax increase, which would give people more incentive to work in the period of low taxes. However these modeling exercises showing growth were not in fact analyzing the policy being considered, which was simply a tax cut.
The issue created in this context has nothing to do with dynamic scoring, it is a question of honest scoring. That should be the real concern. If the Republicans want to follow Holtz-Eakin’s analysis and incorporate the negative impact that tax cuts have on growth then there is no reason for anyone to object. However if they just want CBO to make up numbers, their plan is objectionable. But the issue is not dynamic scoring.
This brings up the other side of the equation raised by Dionne. Government investment in infrastructure, education, and research and development does in fact have an impact on growth and CBO should be taking it into account in its projections. Under CBO’s current methodology, if the government stopped spending any money on improving and maintaining the infrastructure or on educating our children it would show up as a boost to the economy.
In CBO’s models, the reduced government spending would free up resources, some of which would end up as private investment. That would lead to higher productivity and more growth. There is something seriously wrong with modeling that implies we could grow the economy better if we stop maintaining our roads and educating our kids.
Finally it is worth taking issue with the use of “fiscally responsible.” The absurd conceptions of fiscal responsibility in place in Washington today are costing the jobs of millions of kids’ parents. This policy, which is ruining the lives of mutiple generations, should not be characterized as “responsible.” Washington politics may make it impossible to beat back deficit fetishism, but there is no reason that serious people should treat it as reasonable policy.
Comments