Today, we present a guest post written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. An earlier version appeared at Project Syndicate and the Guardian.
A reminder, so when next you hear about fiscal restraint.
From the National Corn Growers Association:
U.S. soybeans and corn are prime targets for tariffs. As the top two export commodities for our country, together they account for about one-fourth of total U.S. agricultural export value. As such, a repeated tariff-based approach to addressing trade with China places a target on both U.S. soybeans and corn. Farmers and rural economies pay the price as a result.
Ode to an EJ Antoni graph (apologies to Keats). Total interest payments have risen substantially, and this shows up in a scary picture:
Consider this graph (based on Penn Wharton Budget Model scoring, from the Economist):
Federal debt held by the public as a share of GDP:
Released today by CEA:
CBO projection and SPF mean forecast diverge, by nearly a percentage point in 2024.
Mike Murphy of the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget gave a presentation at UW’s Tommy G.Thomson Center for Public Leadership, yesterday. I couldn’t attend, but the video is here.
CRFB has handy tool for gaming out modifications to current law to see the impact on the deficit and debt (w/o dynamic scoring). It’s so nifty, in fact, I assigned it to my undergrad public affairs course.
Today, we present a guest post written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. A shorter version appeared at Project Syndicate.