About That Farm Bill…

September 19, 2013Danny Vinik Leave a comment

Recently, everyone in Washington has been obsessing over the chance of a government shutdown and intraparty fighting between House Republicans and conservative Senators (Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, etc.). It’s been interesting to guess Speaker Boehner’s strategy – or lack thereof – and how Senate Republicans will act once they are put on the spot. But September 30 isn’t just when the government shuts down, it’s also when the current farm bill extension expires. That’s a big deal and it’s not getting the attention it deserves. Let’s recap what’s happened so far:

The Senate passed a $955 billion farm bill in early June by a 66-27 vote that included a $3.9 billion cut to food stamps.
.
In mid-June, House leadership suffered a surprising and embarrassing defeat when its farm bill failed by a 195-234 margin. Boehner and company had needed Democratic support to pass the bill – which cuts $20.5 billion from food stamps – as many conservatives didn’t think the cuts were severe enough, but a last-second amendment from Rep. Steve Southerland (R-FL) that Boehner allowed into the bill caused Democratic support to plummet.
.
In July, House leadership split the farm bill in two: one was all about agricultural policy and the other about food stamps. The House passed a farm bill without food stamps a a few days later, consisting of crop insurance, commodity and conservation programs and other small things by a 216-208 vote with no Democratic support.
.
Today, the House is taking up the food stamp part of the farm bill. This time the cuts are much bigger – $40 billion in total – and will attract few in any Democratic votes. The drastic cuts are expected to draw more Republican support so that the bill can pass.

That’s where we are right now. If the House passes that bill today as it’s expected to do – though it’s not a given – then the Senate and House would conference with all three bills and return a compromised version to each chamber where the two houses would vote again. If both pass, then it heads to the president’s desk. If anything goes wrong during that process and President Obama doesn’t sign a farm bill by September 30, then we would revert to a bill passed in 1949 and a bunch of strange, unknown things would happen. Basically, Congress can’t let that happen.

Let’s assume that today’s bill passes and the House and Senate head to committee. Liberals were already furious at $3.9 billion in cuts so they aren’t going to accept $40 billion. Certainly, both sides in committee can find a compromise between those two numbers. But Senate Democrats and House Republicans are both going to be highly reluctant to support $10-20 billion in food stamp cuts, albeit for opposite reasons. If such a bill comes out of committee, it will be very interesting to see who votes for it. Will Boehner have enough Republicans in the House? Will he have to break the Hastert Rule if the cuts aren’t that severe? Will Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have trouble convincing his Democratic colleagues to support it? We could end up seeing a bill passed with a lot of moderate Republicans and Democrats in each chamber supporting the bill. That’s actually what a compromise looks like and both liberal and conservative activists will go home angry.

But a lot can go wrong here. House Republicans are already very wary of leadership throughout this budget fight and Senate Democrats could even filibuster the bill if enough of them are outraged by the cuts. The latter scenario is unlikely obviously, but not impossible. Public opinion doesn’t play much of a role in this since everyone is focused on the fiscal battles so neither side will necessarily take the blame. That also means that neither side has much incentive to compromise.

Once again, Democrats and Republicans are finding themselves far apart on a bill they have to pass. This could get very messy.

Where Does the Increase in Entitlement Spending Come From?

September 19, 2013Danny Vinik 1 Comment

On Monday, I penned a post arguing that Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) was wrong when he commented that we have a spending problem and more revenue is not part of the solution. I used Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data from its 2012 Long Term Budget Outlook to make my point, but that data is a bit out of date. Luckily, the CBO released its 2013 Long Term Budget Outlook two days ago and guess what it showed? Our deficit is magically disappearing!

That’s thanks to the Fiscal Cliff deal that raised taxes on the highest earners, which increased projected revenues. As for spending, health care costs are growing at a much slower rate than expected, not only due to the recession, but also because we seem to have bent the cost curve permanently. That’s a huge improvement. In addition, the sequester is looking more and more like permanent policy. Thus, overall spending has dropped significantly compared to last year.

Nevertheless, entitlement spending is still projected to rise from 9.6% of GDP in 2013 to 14.3% of GDP in 2038. That’s still a large gap. The only reason the budget deficit doesn’t rise a similar amount is because the CBO projects other spending – the stuff the sequester mostly cuts – to fall from 10% of GDP to 7.1%. The increase in entitlement spending (4.7 percentage points) in the 2013 report is less than in last year’s (6.2 percentage points), but it’s still substantial. So, what’s driving that increase? The CBO breaks it down:

54% Aging: This is an unavoidable aspect of our future budget. Baby boomers are retiring and will start collecting Social Security and Medicare. There’s nothing we can do about that. As America gets older, our retirement programs are going to cost more. Not surprisingly, that’s what the CBO found to be the largest driver of entitlement spending growth. Of that 4.7% increase, 2.5 percentage points is due to aging. It’s not out of control spending on entitlements. It’s just Americans getting older. We can’t pretend that’s not the case.
.
28% Excess Cost Growth: Excess cost growth is the increase in health care spending beyond the rate of inflation. It’s an area we have made significant progress on in recent years, but we can still do better. However, this doesn’t require cutting benefits or changing the eligibility requirements for different programs. It requires bending the health care cost curve even more so that health care is provided more efficiently. Obamacare includes a number of different experiments to try to find ways to do just that.
.
19% Medicaid Expansion and Exchange Subsidies: This is the area that conservatives are dying to cut. but of the main drivers of long-term entitlement spending, the Medicaid expansion and exchange subsidies account for less than one-fifth of it. In addition, excess cost growth is increases spending due to rising costs of programs. It doesn’t mean that seniors receive more benefits or that more people are eligible for the programs. It just means health care is getting more expensive. The Medicaid expansion and exchange subsidies do more than that though. They bring healthcare to millions of people. Eliminating them may have a positive impact on the long-term budget, but it has serious side effects as well.

Unlike my post on Monday, my main point here is not that we need more revenue. The main point is that we have solved a large part of our budget deficit and of the part we haven’t solved, most of it is due to demographic changes and millions of more people getting health care. Republicans can yell about how entitlement spending is running out of control, but the fact of the matter is that it isn’t. It’s on an unsustainable path, but one that is caused mainly by an aging population. Policymakers shouldn’t forget that.

Don’t Worry About the Revenue in Sen. Mike Lee’s Tax Plan

September 19, 2013Danny Vinik Leave a comment

Utah Senator Mike Lee unveiled a very promising tax plan yesterday. Like all Republican plans, it cuts rates, broadens the base and simplifies the tax code. But it also has a number of other very progressive elements and Lee says it is expected to take in revenues of approximately 18-20% of GDP. Overall, it’s a very intriguing plan and has rightfully been praised around the internet today.

But a couple of people have pushed back on the revenue amount. Business Insider’s Josh Barro, who titled his piece “Here’s a Republican Tax Plan that Doesn’t Suck,” calculated the amount he would pay under Lee’s tax plan and to his surprise, found himself receiving a tax break:

The question is, who pays more to offset those tax cuts? Lee hopes his plan would collect 18 to 20% of GDP in revenues, meaning it’s not a big tax cut overall. And as with a lot of Republican tax plans, he may have trouble hitting that target.

At first glance, it looks like his plan would raise taxes on affluent people without children. But I’m such a person, and when I ran Lee’s plan against my 2012 taxes I found I would have gotten a $1,400 tax cut. His plan raises my top marginal tax rate from 28% to 35% but more than offsets that because most of my income only gets taxed at 15%

Slate’s Matt Yglesias calculated his own tax liability under Lee’s plan too and found a similar result, leading him to describe it as “like smoke and mirrors.” The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson isn’t sure how Lee gets to a revenue-neutral tax plan as well and recommends that the freshman senator tax capital gains as ordinary income.

Here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter how much revenue this tax plan raises. What matters is the structure of it and that Lee is aiming for revenues between 18-20% of GDP. Once the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Tax Policy Center, Brookings and any other organization score the plan, we’ll have a better idea about how much revenue the plan actually raises and the distributional impact of it.

But we now know that Lee is interested in reforming the tax code in a way that helps the middle class. His plan also isn’t hugely regressive like all of the flat tax plans other Republicans have promoted. If the score comes back with revenues below Lee’s estimate, then he has to tinker with the rates or possibly add a third bracket. He could follow Thompson’s advice and tax investment as ordinary income. If he wanted to really be aggressive, he could lobby for a carbon tax.

There are plenty of ways Lee could increase the revenue totals in his plan. As it gains steam, how he does so will be vital. But right now, the important part is that Lee is putting forward an honest, smart plan that has huge potential. It’s been a long time since a Republican Senator has done that – especially someone as conservative as Lee is. He deserves credit for that.