Deficit: What caused it, why it matters

From money.cnn.com

Looking into the future, it ain't pretty

The real problem is the medium- and long-term outlook.

Analysts have long emphasized that the country faces a long-term budget problem as a consequence of our rapidly growing old-age entitlement programs.

But now even the 10-year outlook is unsustainable. By 2019, even if everything goes the way the Obama administration wants, and the economy recovers and grows steadily over the next decade, the deficit will be 5.5% of GDP, an extremely high figure in good times, and the debt-to-GDP ratio will hit 82%, its highest level since just after World War II, and will keep rising.

And things aren't as likely to go as well as President Obama hopes. The economy has already performed worse than was assumed in the budget projections, and the projections are based on heroically optimistic assumptions about the political discipline Congress will impose on itself. And, of course, the problem will deepen, continually and inexorably, after 2019, as spending on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will grow rapidly.

Large chronic deficits are a serious economic problem. While much attention is given to the effect of deficits on interest rates, that effect is a symptom of a problem, not the problem itself.

If they are financed domestically, deficits will gradually divert capital from productive domestic uses, through a rise in interest rates. This diversion reduces the amount of capital available to U.S. workers, lowering their wages and hence their living standards. If our deficits are financed from abroad, interest rates may not rise as much, but interest payments on these deficits will flow back abroad.

In either case, the future national income of the United States and its citizens is reduced, businesses will find it harder to expand and homeowners will find it tougher to get credit.

Deficits can also affect the economy more suddenly. The prospect of large or out-of-control deficits can spark investors' fears and cause a run on the dollar and a sharp rise in interest rates.