A recent AP article by Martin Crutsinger introduces and then answers the question "How did (the) $1 trillion deficit happen?" (see full AP article). Some highlights from the article include:

• The government's annual budget deficit has topped $1 trillion. With three months left in the budget year, it will get even worse. The administration is projecting that the deficit will hit $1.84 trillion for the current budget year. This is four times the size of last year's budget deficit.

• The deficit spending began with the 2001 recession, and got deeper with the 9-11 terrorist attacks as war spending started to ramp up.

• Until 2008 the deficit had been shrinking, hitting a five-year low of $161.5 billion in 2007, but was followed by the record deficit of $454.8 billion in 2008 as the current recession and financial crisis hit.

• The size of the deficit started to ramp up with the initial $700 billion TARP (about half spent in 2008, half in 2009), along with the recent $787 billion economic stimulus.

• In addition to stimulus spending,"automatic stabilizers," such as food stamps and unemployment compensation, are also increasing. Government outlays are up 20.5% through the first nine months of this budget year.

• All of this spending is occurring just as tax receipts are falling. Government revenues have fallen by 17.9% during the October-to-June period compared with one year ago.

• While large in dollars, current deficits are still not the largest in terms of GDP, but are the largest outside of WWII. Currently, the CBO is forecasting the budget deficit will equal 13% of GDP. As a comparison, the deficit was 6% of GDP in 1983 as we moved out of another recession and ramped up cold war spending, and 30.3% of GDP in 1943 during World War II.

• The CBO is projecting that the deficits will remain large for the foreseeable future, coming in at $1.43 trillion in 2010 and not falling below $633 billion over the next 10 years, ultimately adding $9.1 trillion to the national debt.

To tackle such deficits and debt, either spending needs to be curbed, or tax receipts need to increase - and quickly. Either way, the debt needs to be dealt with (see previous post), but the exit strategy will require hard choices (see Greenfaucet article). Given continued weakness in the economy, along with both health care reform and new global warming initiatives (such as carbon trading) on the docket, it does not appear that spending is going to slow down anytime soon (see previous post). The leaves tax increases on the wealthy and corporations, or additional tax cuts such as those recently targeted for the middle class. Expect the Supply Side - Keynesian debate to begin in earnest once again.

The following graph from the Congressional Budget Office shows the projected output gap between actual and potential GDP with and without stimulus spending, i.e., the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (see full CBO presentation). The CBO presentation highlights the implementation lags of fiscal policy, and illustrates why a stimulus package that stretches over 2 or 3 years seemed justified given that the CBO expected the GDP output gap to persist for longer than one year. Projections have only 24% of the money being disbursed in fiscal year 2009, 74% disbursed by the end of FY 2010, and 91% disbursed by the end of FY 2011.

Source: Congressional Budget Office

Given the back-loading of spending, and the realization that the recovery is not taking hold as quickly as most would want (except possibly by politicians up for re-election next year and looking for an election year boost), this is creating a problem now for both the administration and Congress. On the one hand, quicker, and more front-loaded stimulus seems warranted, yet data such as that provided by the CBO has been used to justify the huge delayed spending in coming years. Therefore, if the projections are correct, then patience is in order, but something tells me that is not going to fly as unemployment nears 10 percent.

So how do you speed things up? As outlined by the CBO, you could waive environmental reviews, award contracts without competitive bidding, or simply not dole out money by jurisdictions, but instead give money to those who can most efficiently spend it (shovel-ready project). The first one is a non-starter given the environmental shift of the current administration, the second is going to be difficult given the criticism that no-bid projects received in the last administration, and the last one is simply unacceptable to anyone in Congress - given their parochialism and the fact that it actually makes some sense (and of course, you need shovel-ready projects on a rather large scale - most are probably already funded).

So on the short-term, what needs to be done? The quickest way is through changes to taxes. This could come in rebates (which are relatively quick in non-tax months, but also somewhat ineffective when people are scared and the savings rate is increasing), or through lowering withholding (currently tried with the middle class, but not having the desired effect). This leaves suspending some income taxes for a period of time, or lowering income taxes on everyone, including the wealthy and corporations. Suspension is difficult to sell given the state, or perceived state, of social security and medicare needs, not to mention the growing deficit (even though lower rates can bring in higher receipts), while reducing taxes on corporations and the wealthy is anathema to most of those currently in power.

The limited real and political choices available has now caused the discussion to come full circle - backed to considering another stimulus. I forget - what was that definition about doing the same thing again and expecting different results? If President Obama is not able to convince the American public and Congress to be patient, we may find out the answer rather quickly.