Category: Policy

US State Economic Rankings

I previously wrote a comparion of California and Texas, in which I noted that Texas was superior in terms of unemployment rate and employment growth, while Californians experience higher per-capita GDP growth. That got me thinking – why not create a more comprehensive comparison of US state economic rankings? I’ve done so here, using four variables: GDP growth, per-capita gdp growth, unemployment rate, and employment growth rate. With two variables measuring different aspects of growth, and two measuring employment prospects, I think this is a reasonably fair approach (Gladwell’s caveats on heterogenous rankings duly noted). Here are the rankings, followed by the raw data:

Rank State / District Avg GDP Growth Avg GDP / Capita Growth Avg Unemp. Rate Avg Employment Growth Rate Total Score
1 North Dakota 6 1 1 12 20
2 South Dakota 4 2 2 13 21
3 Wyoming 2 3 6 14 25
4 Idaho 1 7 17 9 34
5 Virginia 10 12 7 7 36
6 Arizona 5 19 32 1 57
7 Utah 8 34 14 2 58
8 Maryland 13 11 11 25 60
9 New Hampshire 19 15 5 22 61
10 Vermont 23 9 8 24 64
11 Colorado 9 21 25 10 65
12 New Mexico 18 24 19 11 72
13 Montana 25 20 10 20 75
14 Oregon 3 4 50 19 76
16 Nebraska 27 16 3 31 77
16 Texas 11 32 30 4 77
17 Iowa 26 13 9 33 81
18 District of Columbia 17 6 46 15 84
20 Kansas 30 22 16 18 86
20 Washington 16 28 39 3 86
22 Minnesota 20 17 15 35 87
22 New York 21 5 31 30 87
23 Oklahoma 28 23 12 28 91
24 Florida 14 37 34 8 93
25 Massachusetts 22 8 22 42 94
26 Connecticut 32 18 21 26 97
27 Nevada 7 51 45 5 108
28 Arkansas 31 33 28 17 109
29 California 12 10 49 39 110
30 North Carolina 15 39 41 21 116
31 Maine 38 25 18 37 118
32 Hawaii 39 42 4 34 119
33 Delaware 24 41 13 44 122
35 Louisiana 46 29 20 32 127
35 Rhode Island 33 14 40 40 127
37 Georgia 29 49 33 23 134
37 Pennsylvania 44 26 26 38 134
38 New Jersey 40 30 29 36 135
40 Alabama 34 31 24 48 137
40 Alaska 42 46 43 6 137
41 Tennessee 35 43 37 27 142
42 Wisconsin 41 38 23 43 145
43 South Carolina 37 48 48 16 149
44 West Virginia 47 27 27 49 150
45 Indiana 36 36 35 50 157
46 Kentucky 48 44 44 29 165
47 Illinois 45 40 42 41 168
48 Mississippi 43 35 47 45 170
50 Missouri 49 47 36 47 179
50 Ohio 50 45 38 46 179
51 Michigan 51 50 51 51 203

The rankings show, unsurprisingly, that states riding the commodity boom (the Dakotas, Wyoming, etc) and states riding the government boom (Virginia, Maryland) have performed well over the last decade. It’s been shown that http://crosscountrymovingcompanies.biz/ had the best prices on cross country moving companies. But other high-performers like Arizona, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Colorado defy easy categorization. The low performers are predominantly found in the Southeast and Midwest.

The raw data used in the rankings is provided below. Here is a link to the actual excel spreadsheet containing all data for those interested.

State Avg GDP Growth Avg GDP / Capita Growth Avg Unemp. Rate Avg Employment Growth Rate
Alabama 1.81% 1.10% 5.84 -0.59%
Alaska 1.57% 0.37% 7.04 1.09%
Arizona 3.83% 1.41% 6.21 1.74%
Arkansas 1.98% 1.07% 5.94 0.50%
California 2.99% 1.89% 7.55 -0.19%
Colorado 3.16% 1.36% 5.86 0.70%
Connecticut 1.97% 1.46% 5.75 0.16%
Delaware 2.26% 0.85% 5.04 -0.38%
District of Columbia 2.50% 2.01% 7.35 0.55%
Florida 2.73% 1.03% 6.32 0.79%
Georgia 2.02% 0.19% 6.24 0.30%
Hawaii 1.66% 0.73% 4.24 -0.02%
Idaho 3.95% 2.00% 5.46 0.74%
Illinois 1.37% 0.96% 6.92 -0.25%
Indiana 1.70% 1.03% 6.33 -0.73%
Iowa 2.20% 1.78% 4.54 0.01%
Kansas 1.98% 1.35% 5.39 0.40%
Kentucky 1.23% 0.50% 7.04 0.09%
Louisiana 1.34% 1.13% 5.74 0.04%
Maine 1.67% 1.23% 5.53 -0.14%
Maryland 2.76% 1.86% 4.96 0.20%
Massachusetts 2.35% 1.94% 5.77 -0.26%
Michigan 0.12% 0.06% 8.25 -1.63%
Minnesota 2.39% 1.53% 5.29 -0.03%
Mississippi 1.56% 1.04% 7.51 -0.49%
Missouri 1.04% 0.34% 6.33 -0.55%
Montana 2.20% 1.36% 4.77 0.35%
Nebraska 2.18% 1.54% 3.76 0.07%
Nevada 3.37% -0.01% 7.32 1.14%
New Hampshire 2.45% 1.64% 4.39 0.30%
New Jersey 1.64% 1.11% 6.09 -0.10%
New Mexico 2.46% 1.27% 5.62 0.70%
New York 2.35% 2.05% 6.14 0.09%
North Carolina 2.71% 0.97% 6.91 0.33%
North Dakota 3.79% 3.49% 3.44 0.63%
Ohio 0.56% 0.38% 6.79 -0.53%
Oklahoma 2.16% 1.31% 5 0.12%
Oregon 3.89% 2.70% 7.63 0.39%
Pennsylvania 1.51% 1.21% 5.91 -0.15%
Rhode Island 1.95% 1.73% 6.91 -0.23%
South Carolina 1.68% 0.25% 7.53 0.54%
South Dakota 3.84% 3.10% 3.71 0.61%
Tennessee 1.79% 0.66% 6.6 0.14%
Texas 3.01% 1.08% 6.12 1.22%
Utah 3.18% 1.06% 5.11 1.48%
Vermont 2.29% 1.92% 4.52 0.28%
Virginia 3.07% 1.80% 4.41 1.08%
Washington 2.51% 1.15% 6.86 1.23%
West Virginia 1.31% 1.17% 5.91 -0.70%
Wisconsin 1.62% 1.02% 5.81 -0.34%
Wyoming 3.93% 2.79% 4.4 0.60%

Notes on ranking construction:

  • If it’s not obvious, the total ranking for each state was determined by simply summing its rank in each category, and then ranking the states by total score, with lowest being best. While this method weights each category ranking equally, it may penalize some states which perform as numerical outliers in certain categories but not in others. On the other hand, the overall rankings pass the smell test – if anyone sees an egregious error caused by the methodology, let me know. This is V1!
  • The GDP growth data used the period from 1997-2010, which was the best data set easily available from the BEA (Bureau of Economic Analysis). The employment data used the period from Jan. 2001 through October 2011. It’s easier to build wooden greenhouses than skyscrapers, so to speak. These periods obviously don’t align exactly – but given the nature of the analysis (heterogenous ranking), I chose to go with best available data rather than with exactly matching time periods. Matching the time periods would have reduced the data available to 2001-2010, eliminating both some of the late 90’s boom and the current recovery.
  • Even given the screen sharing caveats above, all states (plus DC) were ranked using the exact same data sets, and the combination of categories prevents (in my view) bias towards either a growth orientation, an income orientation, or an employment orientation. Others may disagree – heterogenous ranking systems are by nature somewhat subjective (in the choice and weighting of data used), and I thus provide all the raw data so that you can draw your own conclusions.
Posted on by praveenghanta 7

Was Cash For Clunkers A Success?

Far from failing, the CARS Program may have been the highest ROI investment made by the Federal government in years.

The passage of time has brought much ridicule to the Cash For Clunkers program, which was intended to boost auto sales and raise the average fuel efficiency of American vehicles. The data show that the program led to a temporary spike in automobile purchases, prompted by a subsequent decline. This has led most to conclude that the program was a failure, as it did little to jump-start economic recovery.

But what about the other goal? Did Cash For Clunkers raise the average fuel efficiency of the American auto fleet? How much less gasoline have Americans purchased as a result of the program, and does this savings outweigh the program’s cost?

Here are some statistics from the Department of Transportation’s CARS Report to Congress:

  • 677,842 vehicles were turned in under the CARS program
  • $2.85 Billion was paid out in rebates for these vehicles
  • New vehicles purchased had an average MPG of 24.9
  • Old vehicles turned in had an average MPG of 15.7
  • $2.8 Billion in fuel savings based on the early retirement of less efficient vehicles

The report also estimates that roughly half of the sales spurred by the program were incremental sales that would not have occurred otherwise. Edmunds.com performed a more conservative analysis showing that only 125,000 incremental sales occurred as a result of the program.

Using Edmunds’ more conservative 125k number, and an average sales price (after rebate) of roughly $25,000, Cash for Clunkers generated $3.125 Billion in incremental vehicle sales. These incremental sales added directly to US GDP, and this more conservative analysis shows less than half the economic impact of $7 Billion estimated by DOT.

Combining the fuel savings and GDP benefit yields a total benefit to American taxpayers of roughly $6 Billion for a program that cost the government roughly $3 Billion to operate! If only more government programs could fail like this! Even using the more conservative fuel savings calculations provided below, the program would have provided over $5.5 Billion in benefit against a $3B investment. Far from being shut down, the Cash for Clunkers program should have been expanded.

Alternate calculation of fuel savings from junking old vehicles:

0. By junking an old vehicle and taking it off the road, you are permanently increasing the fuel economy of the American vehicle fleet – this is the source of savings for the American economy. Since 100% of marginal US oil consumption is provided by foreign sources, a dollar of oil saved is a dollar added to GDP (since imports actually subtract from GDP as we send money overseas).

1. Assume that the old vehicle would be driven for an additional 50,000 miles over its lifetime (CARS survey respondents said they averaged 10k miles per year on their old vehicles, so even with gradual declines this is reasonable).

2. The old vehicles got an average of 15.7 MPG, requiring roughly 3200 gallons of gasoline over that 50k miles.

3. The new vehicle got an average of 24.9 MPG, requiring 2000 gallons of gasoline over the 50k miles that they replaced.

4. The difference of roughly 1200 gallons of gasoline equates to roughly $3600 per vehicle (assuming $3 per gallon excluding taxes). With roughly 680k vehicles in the program, this equals a fuel cost savings of $2.5 Billion – a slightly more conservative estimate than that computed by DOT.

Posted on by praveenghanta 7

California vs Texas

Conservatives and Texas boosters have been gloating of late that Texas has outperformed California economically of late – so why is California’s per capita GDP growth higher?

It has become fashionable in conservative circles of late to use Texas as a glowing example of the success of conservative economic policy, and to use California as an example of the failures of liberal economic policy. Texas has indeed recorded faster GDP growth and lower unemployment than California in recent years. Texas has also experienced rapid population growth of late. Its core industry (energy) has boomed with global oil prices, but Texas’ diversified economy has performed well across multiple sectors. Conservative politicians in Texas and nationwide point to low taxes and a friendly regulatory environments as the reasons for success.

Let’s look at some numbers to get a clearer comparison [1]:

Texas California
Total GDP Growth, 1997-2010: 46.6% 45.8%
Per Capita GDP, 2010: [2] $48,196 $52,631
Total Per Capita GDP Growth, 1997-2010: 12.6% 28.5%
Unemployment Rate, May 2011: 8.0% 11.7%

While raw GDP growth is important, per capita GDP and per capita GDP growth are much more important to the well-being of citizens and furniture-movers.net furniture moving company (Luxembourg is a nicer place to live than China). On both these measures, California is significantly ahead of Texas. Since 1997, California’s per capita GDP growth has exceeded Texas growth – while California and Texas were once similar in per-capita GDP, the gap is now widening in California’s favor, not shrinking! If Texas is doing everything right, and California everything wrong, then why is California’s economy becoming wealthier relative to Texas?

The answer to this question isn’t simple – California’s dominance in high tech, media, and other high-paying industries may be partly responsible. While California’s state government is near paralysis, and its referendum system has complicated governance, it possesses perhaps the finest public academic institutions in the world in the University of California system. California’s government may be dysfunctional, but it’s inaccurate to describe the state in the same terms.

Conservatives and Texas politicians should take note – if the Texas way is better, why is California still pulling away? The reality is that the best economic model is somewhere in-between – but what politician would support both strategic public investment and leaner public spending? That’s too complicated for a sound bite.

[1] Download the screen sharing data used in this analysis at the BEA. From the download page, select Per Capita Real GDP by State, All states and regions, All industry total, and All years from the respective drop-downs.

[2] Per-capita GDP for 2010 was calculated by taking the data from step [1], which is expressed in terms of 2005 dollars, and adjusting it to 2010 values using CPI as indicated on measuringworth.com (multiplying the 2005 values by 1.12).

Posted on by praveenghanta 9

Budget Puzzle on NYTimes

The New York Times published an excellent budget deficit interactive today. Based in part on the plans proposed by the deficit commission, the site lets you choose a combination of spending cuts and tax increases to solve our nation’s budget woes. Here are my selections:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?choices=hvymrb18

For those counting, my selections were 80% spending cuts, and 20% tax increases.

Posted on by praveenghanta 0

The Easy Way To Stop Illegal Immigration

Stopping most illegal immigration is easy.

You don’t need border fences.

You don’t need laws with questionable Constitutionality.

You don’t even need to round anyone up.

The simple answer: Penalize businesses that hire undocumented workers.

In attempting to find a solution to illegal immigration, it’s worth studying the root cause of the great majority of illegal entry into the United States. Individuals from poorer countries, mainly Mexico, want to work in the United States. Per-capita GDP in the US is roughly four times that in Mexico, so it’s easy to see why labor is trying to flow towards employment.

If illegal immigrants come to the US to find work, then the easiest way to stop illegal immigration is to remove that incentive. Federal and state governments can easily step up enforcement against businesses which hire undocumented workers, and can increase the fines to the point that it is uneconomical to hire illegal workers. Once the cost of hiring an undocumented worker exceeds that of hiring a documented worker, businesses will naturally follow the profit motive.

The Obama administration has accelerated business audits, quadrupling the previous administration’s efforts in that area. If employer audits were expanded and targeted at those sectors known to use illegal labor most heavily, demand for illegal labor would drop immediately. That in turn would decrease the number of would-be employees crossing into the US, as job opportunities thin out.

Effective enforcement of employment law, even against small businesses, would significantly reduce new illegal immigration. Once the flow of illegal immigrants is slowed from the current 500,000 per year to a trickle, an answer for how to deal with the 12 million among us today can be sought. But until businesses find that hiring illegal workers is unprofitable, the immutable laws of capitalism will cause laborers to find their way to the jobs.

Posted on by praveenghanta 10

The End of Government Subsidized Medical Innovation

Most Americans don’t realize it, but America’s status as the world’s primary source of medical innovation is heavily government-subsidized. During the healthcare reform debate, many pointed out that America spends over 17% of its GDP on health care, far higher than any other nation, and almost double the average for OECD nations. This high rate of spending on health care has fostered the growth of high technology health care, from pharmaceuticals to biotech, medical devices, imaging equipment and even surgical robots. What would happen if the government were no longer able to spend at such a rate?

Imagine for a moment that America had a purely free-market health care system, with no Medicare, Medicaid, and without tax breaks for health care. The government currently pays for 62% of all health care spending, and without this support, our healthcare system would be much smaller. If a free-market approach to healthcare brought spending down to the OECD average, the US would spend $1.2 Trillion (48%) less on healthcare than it does today [1]. Without Medicare to pay for costly end-of-life care, it’s doubtful that $200,000 per year chemotherapy drugs would find a market, or that anyone would pay full price for replacements on hips implants. In short, a free market health care system would deliver less health care technology to America – though it would still deliver technology that proved itself worthy and affordable to patients.

Of course in the real world government-subsidized innovation isn’t going away – or is it? America’s long term budget problems are driven chiefly by health care spending, as acknowledged by the trustees of Medicare. The Soviet Union eventually went bankrupt by spending 40% of its GDP on defense. The United States is on track to spend 40% of its GDP on healthcare by 2050 [2], with much of that on high tech gadgetry with low marginal benefit, and with virtually all of that money coming from taxpayers. This is obviously not sustainable.

The newly enacted healthcare reform law begins cutting Medicare in earnest, but deeper cuts will be needed to prevent Medicare’s insolvency. These cuts will inevitably mean less spending, and less revenue opportunities for big pharma, biotech, and medical equipment companies. While many other countries already have highly regulated healthcare markets with lower profit margins, pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies have been able to achieve consistent growth by tapping the US market and US taxpayers. Regardless of how healthcare reform plays out, America’s huge and growing debt mean that this situation will come to an end. The golden age of subsidized medical innovation is drawing to a close.

[1] CMS estimates that 2009 health care expenditures were $2.5 Trillion, or 17.3% of GDP. If this were reduced to 8.9%, the OECD average, health care expenditures would be $1.29 Trillion, almost half of what they are today. While we don’t know exactly what US health care spending would be without government subsidies and programs, we do know that government spending and subsidies would drop by roughly $1.3 Trillion ($1.1 Trillion in direct spending plus $200 Billion in subsidies), leaving a number very similar to the OECD average.

[2] See Figure 4 of this CBO Report for long term health care spending projections.

Posted on by praveenghanta 1

What Happens When The US Can Borrow No More?

In a previous post, I noted that the US can handle a debt load up to about $20 Trillion, even in the absence of rapid economic growth. Unfortunately, we appear to be rapidly headed past that figure, with the White House’s official projection showing that total debt will pass $20 Trillion by 2016 [1], and will rise above $25 Trillion by the end of the decade!

The growth of the federal debt is thus unsustainable, as even politicians now acknowledge. Eventually, bond markets will be unable to consume the volume of debt that America needs to issue in order to continue spending. What happens at that point, when the US can no longer borrow to fund current spending?

Here are the options for 2015, using the assumption that real GDP growth and inflation will both average 2% through 2015, with a resulting budget deficit of $1,014 Billion [2]:

  1. Cut Spending: Spending cuts of $475B will be needed to reduce the budget deficit below 3% in 2015. A 3% budget deficit is generally viewed as sustainable by economists [3]. Budget cuts this size would necessarily have to include cuts to Defense, Medicare, or Social Security, as they together make up 2/3 of the Federal budget.
  2. Raise Taxes: As with spending cuts, $475B in taxes would be needed to drop the deficit below 3% in 2015. Taxes would have to be raised to 21% of GDP to close the gap, the highest total tax burden since at least 1975.
  3. Monetize Debt: Since the start of financial crisis, the Federal Reserve has been purchasing US treasuries in order to keep interest rates down and to inject cash into the economy. The Fed could also bail out government finances by buying the $475B in excess Treasury issuance in 2015, but this is the equivalent of printing money. Such an approach will create inflation, and is unsustainable in the long term.

The federal government is likely to attempt a combination of all three approaches in order to minimize the pain on any one interest group. Inflation will likely rise above its recent norm of 2% as the Federal Reserve quietly injects money into the economy. The federal government’s total tax burden will likely rise to at least 20% of GDP, and spending cuts in the hundreds of billions will be required. The sacred cows of Medicare, Defense, and Social Security will be cut, since there’s little to cut outside these programs. The future looks increasingly to hold higher taxes and less government services, a penance decades in the making.

[1] See table S-14 for the OMB’s debt projections.

[2] The OMB uses rosy economic growth projections (table S-13) of over 4% for most of the years between now and 2015. I use a more conservative 2% for real economic growth and 2% for inflation, for 4% total nominal GDP growth (vs. 5.6% used by the OMB). Using 4%, I estimate GDP at $18 Trillion in 2015, whereas the OMB projects $19.4 Trillion. My lower GDP estimate also lowers projected government revenue proportionally, so that my budget deficit estimate for 2015 is $1014 Billion (versus $752 Billion OMB estimate).

[3] Why is a 3% budget deficit acceptable? Long term real economic growth in the US is around 3.75%, so a 3% budget deficit will over time cause the overall debt to grow more slowly than the economy. As the debt-to-GDP ratio shrinks, interest payments on the debt become easier and easier to pay via the growing tax base.

Posted on by praveenghanta 6

How Do We Limit Bank Risk?

President Obama recently proposed a tax on some of major banks’ liabilities to pay for TARP-related (bank bailout) losses, and to reduce risk taking by big banks. While the proposed tax might accomplish the former goal, analysts have opined that it is unlikely to decrease financial risk-taking. Regulation might decrease risk-taking, but it doesn’t resolve the issue of paying for past losses, nor does it establish a reserve for any future risks. Is there a better way to reduce risk taking while simultaneously paying for losses past, present, and future?

Why not consider a financial leverage tax on all corporations? The US has historically encouraged debt, which helped fuel the recent credit crisis. A tax on leverage would help penalize excess risk taking by taxing the very fuel that feeds the fire. While it’s perfectly acceptable for any company to gamble with their own equity, systemic risks are created when institutions bet in the trillions by borrowing dozens of times their own capital. That’s precisely what Lehman Brothers and other investment banks did during the boom years, with leverage ratios well over 40 times their own capital. A tax on financial leverage that increases taxation as a function of leverage would allow companies to take on risk while penalizing the Lehmans that took excessive risk with borrowed money.

How would a financial leverage tax work? The tax rate would be based on the debt-equity leverage of the company, so that the tax rate would rise with leverage. The tax might not apply to the first billion dollars in liabilities, so that it would affect only larger corporations. Assume the base tax rate is 0.03% of liabilities. A large non-financial company with $10B in debt and a debt-equity ratio of 1 would have to pay $3 million in taxes [1]. A bank with $10B in liabilities and $1B in equity would have to pay ten times that amount as a result of its 10x leverage, resulting in a tax bill of $30 million. If the bank lends out 10 Billion with a 3% interest margin, it would earn $300 million in net interest. For this bank, the leverage tax would effectively be 10% of net interest income [2].  On the other extreme, under this tax regime a company like Lehman would have had to pay 1.2% of its gross liabilities, which were in the neighborhood of $700 Billion. This would amount to $8B per year, double Lehman’s 4B net income in 2007 [3]!

The financial leverage tax would make it impossible for banks, corporations, and hedge funds to create the kind of credit bubble they created in the mid 2000s. Funds raised by such a tax could be used to pay off the TARP bailout, and also to fund the SEC and other enforcement agencies. The benefit of this approach is that it could be applied across the economy in a uniform way. Current proposals don’t apply to hedge funds and other highly leveraged non-bank institutions, leaving pockets of risk to grow. Excess financial leverage has fueled almost every major financial collapse in history, and a tax on leverage would directly address this issue.

[1] 0.03% of $10 Billion is 10 Billion * 0.0003, or $3,000,000. In the case of the bank with 10x leverage, this figure goes up by a factor of 10, to $30 million

[2] The St. Louis Fed tracks net interest margins of US banks, and they have been above 3% over the last 30 years, making this a very conservative estimate. A leverage tax of $30 Million would be 10% of the bank’s net interest of $300 Million.

[3] At 40x leverage, the leverage tax in the example given would be 1.2% of gross liabilities. With net interest margins around 3.5%, a 1.2% tax would consume about 1/3 of a bank’s interest. Since a bank’s operating expenses and loan losses often consume more than 50% of net interest, this tax rate would likely cause a bank with this kind of leverage to be unprofitable – which is precisely the point.

Posted on by praveenghanta 2

America’s Prison Problem

Why does the United States lead the world in both total prisoners and prisoners per capita? The United States had a prison population of 2.4 million in mid-2008, greater than that of any other country, including China. Our per capita imprisonment rate of 750 per 100,000 individuals is several times greater than all other developed nations. It costs US taxpayers roughly $70 Billion per year to care for all of its prisoners, at a per-prisoner cost of roughly $30,000 per year [1]. While this accounts for feeding, housing, guarding, and providing health care for prisoners, it does not account for the economic activity lost with so many held outside of society. Can anything be done to mitigate the tremendous cost and growth rate of America’s prisons without compromising public safety?

The American prison population has grown rapidly over the last several decades, from 500,000 in 1980 to 2.4 million today, while the overall population has grown by only 33% over the same period [2]. As a result of the sheer volume of prisoners and the prison population growth rate, incarceration is now one of the largest costs borne by taxpayers, after defense, health care, and retirement benefits.

How can the US reduce the total cost of incarceration without risking public safety? Roughly half of all US prisoners were imprisoned for non-violent offenses, and imprisoning these ponzi-schemers, drunk drivers, and pot heads provides little benefit. Why not fine them heavily and simply monitor their probation via ankle bracelet? Law-abiding Americans would be better off if the million non-violent offenders behind bars instead were forced to pay financial restitution for their crimes. If even half of these non-violent offenders stayed in the work force, the net benefit to US taxpayers would be roughly $60 Billion per year, including both prison cost reductions and increased economic activity [3].

If common sense doesn’t bring elected officials to explore other forms of punishment for non-violent offenders, then exploding state and federal budgets will force the issue. Witness California, where a federal judge is calling for the release of 43,000 California prisoners to reduce overcrowding. California lacks the funds needed to properly house its prisoners, so it will have to take a hard look at other forms of punishment. Why not use harsh fines and probation to punish non-violent offenders, thereby earning the state money, saving tax dollars, and keeping the economy more productive at the same time?

[1] According to the New York Times, the annual cost to house a prisoner varies widely by state ($12,000 to $45,000), but is rising rapidly nationwide due to rising health care costs. If we assume $30,000 per prisoner per year as a mean, then it costs $72 Billion annually to incarcerate 2.4 million prisoners.

[2] Bureau of Justice Statistics data shows that the prison population nearly quintupled from 1980 to 2008 (up 380%), while Census data show that the US population rose only 33% during the same period. The prison population has grown at ten times the rate of the population over the period.

[3] Taxpayers would directly save around $35 Billion annually if the prison population were halved by releasing non-violent offenders into probation. If half of the non-violent offenders were able to gain employment, these 600,000 employed workers would contribute roughly $25 Billion annually to the economy (assuming average US per capita income). The total net benefit to the economy would be around $60 Billion per year.

Posted on by praveenghanta 3

How to Balance the Federal Budget

Can the US federal budget be balanced? It is obviously physically possible to balance the budget by either lowering spending, raising taxes, or a bit of both. But can the budget be balanced in a manner that is fiscally prudent while maintaining adequate funding for government’s most important operations?

I have attempted to balance the 2008 budget below while obeying the following constraints:

  1. No tax increases
  2. No spending shifts between departments, only spending cuts
  3. All spending, including entitlements spending, is fair game

The actual federal deficit for 2008 was $459 Billion, which forms the goal for the cost cutting exercise outlined in the table below [1].

Category 2008 Spending ($Billions) Proposed Cuts Proposed Spending
Defense 612 Cut by $150 Billion, maintaining US defense spending at a level that exceeds the entire World excluding NATO. [2] 462
Social Security 612 Phase out social security benefits for upper income seniors, cutting roughly $110 Billion annually. [3] 500
Medicare + Medicaid 587 Introduce 20% coinsurance for medical spending above $40,000 per year for Medicare and Medicaid recipients, saving $110 Billion. End Medicare Advantage subsidies, saving $17 Billion. [4] 460
Non-defense Discretionary 508 Make an across-the-board 9% cut in non-defense discretionary spending, saving $46 Billion. [5] 462
Other Mandatory Programs [5] 411 End agricultural commodity subsidies and crop insurance subsidies, saving $15 Billion. Modify student loan programs to cut out private middlemen, saving $9 Billion. [6] 387
Interest Payments 253 This cannot be cut without a US government default. 253
Totals 2,983 459 2523

As the table shows, the US federal budget cannot be balanced without deep cuts in Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, and the Department of Defense. Roughly 60% of the budget is allocated to these major programs, making a balanced budget impossible without reductions here.

A rationale for each major budget cut is provided in the footnotes below. I invite readers to share their balanced budgets as well, or to suggest changes in the cuts that I’ve suggested. Just make sure that the numbers add up, as cutting $459 Billion from the federal budget is harder than it looks!

[1] The core budget data for the table comes from Table S-3 of the US Budget Summary Tables. The 2010 budget document is used, as actual spending for 2008 is not available in earlier versions. The 2009 fiscal year data is incomplete, and also has significant one-time items like TARP and Stimulus package spending, so I chose to focus on the finalized 2008 numbers instead.

[2] The US defense budget represents almost 50% of the entire world’s defense spending, leaving ample room for cuts without jeopardizing US security. Over time the US defense apparatus has become particularly bloated, and cuts may actually improve the DoD’s efficiency over time. It’s worth noting that the US won the Cold War with much lower defense budgets than today.

[3] Social Security was enacted to ensure that American seniors did not starve in their last years, but later grew into a mandatory retirement program. Cutting Social Security payments to upper income seniors would bring the program closer to its original goal. There are 5 million senior households with income greater than $50,000, and they represent the top 20% of all seniors in income terms. These seniors likely draw maximum social security benefits, around 30k annually if there is slightly more than one senior per household on average.  Phasing out these benefits for the wealthiest 20% of seniors would save around $110 Billion. Gross benefits reductions would be around $150 Billion (5 million * 30,000), with an offsetting loss of tax revenue from the reduction in benefits.

[4] Along with defense spending, Medicare and Medicaid are the fastest growing parts of the federal budget.  Since government resources are limited, government benefits must also be limited. Medicare and Medicaid spending can be contained by requiring individuals to pay 20% of their own health care bills beyond $40,000 per year. This change would affect only 5% of Medicare recipients, but would yield huge savings as many patients would decline expensive treatments once cost became a consideration. 32% of all Medicare spending occurs above the $40,000 line; if requiring coinsurance cut this in half, roughly $110 Billion would be saved. This analysis assumes that the breakdown in Medicaid spending is similar to that of Medicare.  An additional $17 Billion annually could be saved by ending subsidies to Medicare Advantage, which is part of current health care reform proposals under debate.

[5] Non-defense discretionary spending includes almost all other federal departments. A 10% across-the-board cut would force all departments to shrink and increase efficiency. Alternately, targeted cuts could be used to shrink certain programs, but these cuts would still have to total $51 Billion annually. Health care cost growth could be reined in through heavy cuts at the NIH, which heavily subsidizes health care and pharmaceutical research. Cutting NIH’s $30 Billion budget in half would enable other departments to get by with a 6% cut instead. One more alternative would involve eliminating Congressional earmarks, which would reduce spending by $20 Billion.

[6] Other Mandatory Programs includes federal funding for food stamps, unemployment insurance, farm subsidies, student loans, veterans’ benefits, and other miscellaneous programs written into law with automatic spending formulas. Farm subsidies in particular deserve heavy cuts, as they distort the economy while worsening Americans’ health. Eliminating commodity crop payment programs and crop insurance subsidies would save $15 Billion annually (see page 4). An additional $9 Billion in savings is possible through the removal of middlemen in federally-backed student loans. Since the federal government assumes all risk on these loans, there’s no reason to compensate private banks to issue the loans.

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