CAMBRIDGE – Une des nombreuses choses que j'ai apprises de Milton Friedman est que le coût réel d'un gouvernement provient de ses dépenses, pas de ses impôts. Autrement dit, les dépenses sont financées par les impôts courants ou par le biais d'emprunts, et le montant de l'emprunt s'élève aux impôts futurs qui ont presque le même impact sur les performances économiques que les impôts courants.
Nous pouvons appliquer ce raisonnement au déficit budgétaire non viable aux États-Unis. Comme chacun sait, ce déficit exige moins de dépenses, ou plus d'impôts.
Le point de vue conventionnel est qu'une approche raisonnable et équilibrée comporte un peu de chaque. Mais comme Friedman l'aurait soutenu, les deux méthodes doivent être considérées comme diamétralement opposées. Moins de dépenses signifie que le gouvernement sera plus petit. Plus d'impôts signifie que le gouvernement sera plus grand. Par conséquent ceux qui favorisent les gouvernements plus petits (par exemple, certains Républicains) voudront traiter le déficit entièrement par une réduction des dépenses, tandis que ceux qui préfèrent les plus grands gouvernements (par exemple, le président Barack Obama et la plupart des Démocrates) voudront traiter le déficit entièrement par une augmentation des impôts.
Comme l'économiste Alberto Alesina l'a fait remarquer dans ses études de stabilisation fiscale dans les pays de l'OCDE, éliminer les déficits financiers au moyen de réductions de dépenses tend à être plus bénéfique pour l'économie que de les éliminer par des augmentations d'impôts. Une interprétation naturelle est que les ajustements des dépenses fonctionnent mieux car ils promettent un gouvernement plus petit, ce qui favorise la croissance économique.
Pour une taille donnée de gouvernement, la méthode d'augmentation de la recette fiscale a son importance. Par exemple, nous pouvons choisir le montant de levée d'un impôt général sur le revenu, des cotisations sociales et d'une taxe à la consommation (par exemple une taxe de vente ou à valeur ajoutée), et ainsi de suite. Nous pouvons aussi choisir la part d'augmentation des recettes aujourd'hui, plutôt que dans le futur (en faisant varier le déficit budgétaire).
Le principe général d'un système fiscal efficace est de recueillir une quantité donnée de recettes (correspondant à long terme aux dépenses du gouvernement) d'une manière qui entraîne aussi peu de distorsion que possible à l'ensemble de l'économie. Habituellement ce principe signifie que les taux marginaux d'imposition doivent être semblables aux différents niveaux de revenus du travail, pour différents types de consommation, pour les dépenses d'aujourd'hui par rapport à celles de demain, et ainsi de suite.
Dans cette perspective, une lacune du système américain de l'impôt sur le revenu individuel est que les taux marginaux d'imposition sont élevés en bas (en raison des moyens d'évaluer les programmes d'aide sociale) et en haut (à cause de la structure à taux progressif). Ainsi le gouvernement a pris une mauvaise direction depuis 2009, en procédant à une forte hausse des taux marginaux d'imposition en bas (en augmentant radicalement les programmes de transfert) et plus récemment en haut (en augmentant les taux d'imposition sur la richesse).
Une des méthodes d'imposition les plus efficaces est l'impôt sur les salaires américains, dont le taux marginal d'imposition est proche du taux moyen (parce que les déductions sont absentes, et parce que que le barème des tarifs est peu progressif). Par conséquent, la diminution du taux des cotisations sociales en 2011-2012 qui rendait le barème des taux plus progressif (pour le versant Medicare) était une erreur du point de vue d'une fiscalité efficace.
Les Républicains devront tenir compte de ces idées lors de l'évaluation des réformes fiscales et des dépenses en 2013. Le passage du « mur budgétaire » aurait pu ressembler à une sérieuse réduction des dépenses gouvernementales, bien que la composition des réductions (rien pour les prestations et trop pour la Défense) ait été peu attrayant. La hausse des produits associés portait du moins à tous les niveaux, plutôt que la hausse déséquilibrée des taux marginaux d'imposition en haut qui a été promulguée.
Mais la partie la plus importante de l'accord pour éviter le mur budgétaire a été la restauration des prélèvements sociaux. J'estime que l'augmentation de 2% du montant perçu par les employés correspond à environ 1,4 billion de dollars de recettes sur plus de dix ans. Cette sérieuse augmentation des recettes n'a pas été signalée dans les rapports types, parce que les prélèvements sociaux « Holiday » pour la période 2011-2012 ont toujours été considérés légalement comme temporaires.
Il est vrai que certains modélisateurs macroéconomiques, dont le Budget du Congrès américain, ont prévu que le passage du mur budgétaire devait provoquer une récession. Mais ces résultats proviennent de modèles keynésiens qui ont toujours prédit que le PIB augmente quand le gouvernement s'agrandit. Ces modèles ne tiennent pas du tout compte des effets négatifs d'un plus grand gouvernement ni de l'incertitude quant à la manière de résoudre les problèmes budgétaires.
Une nouvelle récession aux États-Unis ne serait pas une grande surprise, mais elle peut être attribuée à une série de mauvaises mesures gouvernementales et à d'autres forces qui œuvrent à ne pas réduire la taille du gouvernement. En effet, il est absurde de penser qu'il faut éviter de réduire les dépenses publiques « à court terme » afin de réduire le risque de récession. Si un plus petit gouvernement est une bonne idée à long terme (comme je le crois), il s'agit aussi d'une bonne idée à court terme.
Traduit de l'anglais par Stéphan Garnier.
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Stefan S
The answer is quite simple. We need to raise our tax revenues to cover our spending. Those revenues can be found "where the money is": from the wealthy, who have hardly been taxed less while enjoying such wealth, and from the corporations, who have hardly been taxed less while enjoying such profits. A good society--one affording decent wages, fairness, and social justice-- may never be "better for the economy" according to Prof. Barro's lights. Barro fails to account for the ways that effective government promotes the growth of a good life.
Ayse Tezcan @@aztezcan
I believe the Miltonians live in a deeper dreamland than the Keynesians... since we can never show the counterfactual data, each side will keep arguing the causal pathways to demise resulted from activities of the opposing economic viewpoint. And please don't give examples of short-term policy applications; most are laden with uncontrolled confounding. At the end, everyone will subscribe to the economic view that fits one's own perceptions of the world.
Ben Leet
Federal debt reached a peak in 1946 exceeding 120% of GDP after extensive borrowing. Did this negatively impact economic performance? Between 1949 - 1979 family income grew averaging 2.2% to 2.5% per year among all income groups, all five income quintiles. Between 1979 - 2007 it averaged, per lower to upper quintiles, 0.0%, 0.4%, 0.6%, 0.9%, and 1.5%. The debt/GDP level decreased to around during the 1949-1979 period while marginal tax levels at the top exceeded 70%. This essay begins with an error. I found it unconvincing.
jack lasersohn
Those who make this point always fail to mention that household and business debt was extremely low in 1946, so that the total debt to gdp ratio was only about 140%. Since households must ultimately service all debt, not just fed debt, total debt is what matters. Over the next 60 years total debt went to nearly 250% of GDP as households and businesses leveraged up like crazy(as the new generation forgot the lessons of the Great Depression). There is no question that at least some of the growth during that period was due to this excess leveraging and that is gone forever. For example, the trend of ever increasing house size was almost certainly a case of debt driven excess demand. So the fact that high federal debt was manageable in 1946 is largely irrelevant given the much higher level of overall leverage in the economy today. We are in for a long period of deleveraging and will probably lose at least 1% per year of GDP growth as a result. More federal debt will increase the tendency for households to deleverage and cut back, only making the problem worse, in the long run.
Jose araujo
Professor, you enter this discussion with a clear dogma smaller government is a good idea, large government is a bad idea, and under this dogma your argument is reasonable.
The question is why the dogma, why the prejudice against government, you are a scientist, a scholar so you must have learned that you have to reject this kind of thinking.
One thing we know, and its not a dogma, its empirically verified, is that government is more efficient producing some goods then private initiative. We also know why government is more efficient and we know what kinds of goods they are.
If with the development of countries the demand of this goods increase (we also know that) then for sake of efficiency government should increase, not decrease.
You see, if you eliminate your dogma and realize governments not only have to govern (on the strict sense) but also to produce public/social goods you come to the conclusion that government going bigger isn't necessarily a problem , the problem is government producing goods we don't want.
So since our demand for some social goods increase (things like security, health, education) has we have more money, government should grow this areas since its the more efficient way produce this goods.
Siddhartha Gadgil
By calling "to collect a given amount of revenue (corresponding in the long run to the government’s spending) in a way that causes as little distortion as possible to the overall economy" a "general principle" the author has tried to hide the fact that he has not even slightly justified it. And half the article builds on this.
Ken Presting @presting
"Smaller government" and "spending cuts" are only the latest euphemisms for privatization - converting non-profit public services (often administered with the utmost efficiency) into for-profit enterprises with a captive market. Medicare pays out a higher percentage of what it collects as benefits to clients than any other insurance operation in the country. As consumers, there is no way our competitive position could improve over the monopsony power of a single-payer plan. Any competent economist sees through Mr. Barro's argument without a second thought.
For those of us who cherish public discussion, the true crisis in American political life is the incursion of paid propagandists into academic life and public debate. The Hoover Institution is emblematic of this. An unbiased department can support itself with grants and students, and will typically have a variety of views among the faculty (um, like Harvard). But when corporate donations dominate the endowment or the budget, corporate interests alone will be advanced.
No concept is more fundamental to American politics than that our government is us. Those who advocate "smaller government" are forgetting both their Hobbes and their Jefferson. Unless the sovereign has a monopoly on the means of coercion, petty domestic princes who are "too big to fail" will privatize their profits while socializing their risk.
Government spending is not some external authority making our purchasing decisions for us. It is we ourselves, setting a purchasing strategy together and combining our purchasing power.
Now, it may be argued that Congress is not truly representative and that their decision are corrupt. I'd agree, but we should discuss that on the other side of this blog.
PROCYON MUKHERJEE
Spending cuts versus taxation and the reference to OECD countries is fine, but the question is if we take health care for example, which is a sector that contributes to 17% of U.S. GDP, every % cut would take hundreds of thousands of jobs away. This can be counter-balanced by a far-reaching social program that reduces wastes from the system on one hand and increases optimization of resources on the other with the overall focus on increasing the awareness on health, not on wasteful consumption that leads to an almost deep rooted dependence on 'advertized' medicine that does precious little to health. But do we have patience for such a program to take root that would take decades of restructuring and could actually impact those who benefit from wastes that the current system generates?
Outside of health care, we have education and infrastructure, where we get into different problems of allocation and mismatch and quality of spending rather than the quantum which takes the shine off the intended and unintended consequences.
Pingfan Hong
The size of the government in an economy is more a political issue than a economic one, a result of vote in a democratic society, where the objective function of the voters is not to maximize the economic efficiency of the country. The debate on smaller government versus bigger government will never reach a conclusion. What the economists should do is to take the given size of the government determined by politics as the condition for optimization of resources.
Andrew N Mason
Smaller government is better on the long run, but the rate at which you make it smaller matters
Francisco Estudillo
"...Keynesian models that always predict that GDP expands when the government gets larger..."
It must be considered when there is a recession.
Carol Maczinsky
The US could sent a Nimitz class air carrier to Europe and turn it into a war keynesianism museum. The operating costs of these navy vessels are insane.
Or leave some bombs and helicopters and so forth in the Mali desert. US military capabilities are overblown. It's too expensive and inefficient.
Andres Castillo @ac452
And what about the lessons from Europe. Are those not valid?
Matthew Cowan
I believe the lessons from Euorpe tend to vindicate Mr. Barro's article, not discredit it. Several economies, including Greece and Italy, were able to structure financial products that added more debt and spending than was officially shown in reports to the EU. These debts were the equivalent of 'off-balance sheet' borrowing for these nations.
This enabled Greece and others to add debt while still meeting their EU targets for budget deficits. This, in turn, increased the size of government and its ability to spend during the boom years with the unfortunate consequence of leaving these countries heavily indebted when the crisis of 2008 hit in full force.
Greece also had a higher tax on labor than many other European countries. Greeks tended to retire earlier than their European counterparts and pension expense was forecast to increase much faster than other nations.
Liberals tend to look at the significant drop in government spending and the simultaneous drop in GDP and blame the latter on the former, but the situation in Greece is more complicated than that. Cuts in government spending are part of the decrease in GDP, but the fall is much more complicated. The social fabric of Greece is being tested by its unsustainable debt boom and entitlement commitments.
Jose araujo
Europe's problem is the Euro not the government sizes.
If you take closer look at Europe they both validate and deny Barro's points of view, but looking closer...
Scandinavia clearly tells us that a bigger government with high taxes and a strong production of social goods (like education, security, health and social security) is the way to go.
Southern Europe on the opposite tells us that bigger governments are bad, but governments here act in favor of corporations, they are big because they have to buy goods that are produced by the ones that support. Big government with high inequality.
In the end its not the size that matters its what government does.