Today’s budget problems aren’t America’s first. High debt levels accompanied our major wars, but they were quickly reduced soon after. “Deficits as far as the eye can see” in the mid-1980s were followed briefly by surpluses in the late 1990s. In all these cases, economic growth helped solve the problem. Today, that’s no longer possible.

Failure to understand the causes of today’s historic impasse will stymie those budget reformers tempted to believe we can use the traditional pro-growth strategy to get our fiscal house in order. Most of history is on their side: in almost all past U.S. budgets—indeed, the budgets of most nations—revenues were scheduled to grow automatically along with the economy, and expenditures were scheduled to grow only if there was new legislation. Thus, revenues in some future year would always exceed that past expense, no matter how high any current deficit. But under the laws now dominating the budget, expenditures essentially are or will be growing faster than both revenues and the rest of the economy. In fact, we’re now locked into automatic expenditure hikes that will outstrip revenues under almost any conceivable rate of economic growth. Continue reading →