America and Its Deficits: Are We Broke Yet?

It was one of Dick Cheney's more memorable lines. "Deficits don't matter," he told Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill in 2002. Later, after O'Neill made the conversation public, Cheney elaborated that he meant this "in a political context," not an economic one. But for most of Cheney's time as Vice President, the claim held up pretty well in both contexts. Over O'Neill's objections — he'd be gone soon anyway — the Bush Administration and Congress abandoned a bipartisan commitment to fiscal prudence that had held sway since the early 1990s and went back to running chronic deficits. The result was a growing economy and a second term for George W. Bush. (See George W. Bush's biggest economic mistakes.)

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Even when crisis came, in 2008, it wasn't a crisis of government finances, as some pessimists had feared, but one of mortgages and Wall Street. As Washington battled the troubles, the deficit grew to an estimated $1.6 trillion in the fiscal year that ends this month. That's by far the biggest shortfall ever, in dollar terms. The government will have spent $3.7 trillion and taken in $2.1 trillion. Even by the more forgiving yardstick of percentage of gross domestic product, the shortfall is, at 11.2%, the biggest since World War II. It will be smaller next year but still huge by historical standards. At some point this starts to matter, right?

Well, yes, at some point it does have to start mattering. But one of the great mysteries of modern politics and economics is where exactly that point might be. When the Federal Government runs a deficit, it has to borrow money. It does so by selling Treasury securities, ranging from short-term bills to 30-year bonds, on which it pays interest. This is like you or me borrowing to cover a shortfall or buy a house, with a crucial difference: countries are, in theory at least, immortal. They can keep rolling over their debts indefinitely. The U.S., with its centuries-long record of solid credit and steady growth plus its special status as the issuer of the world's favorite currency, has seldom had trouble rolling over its debts. (See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.)

There is a limit on how big the government's borrowings can get before they start causing problems. But what's the limit? In the early 1980s, many smart people would have told you that deficits topping 3% of GDP would bring economic pain, as government borrowing crowded out private investment and investors demanded higher interest rates on Treasuries to compensate for our country's shakier finances. But during the Reagan presidency, deficits stayed above 4% of GDP for five straight years — and interest rates fell, and the economy boomed. (Hence Cheney's full statement to O'Neill: "Reagan proved deficits don't matter.")

The most plausible explanation for this happy outcome is that Japan was willing to recycle into Treasuries the dollars it earned selling us cars, TVs and stereos. That demand for U.S. debt kept interest rates low. By the early 1990s, though, the national debt — the accumulated product of those years of deficits — approached 50% of GDP, and bond investors abroad and at home seemed to shy away from Treasuries, driving interest rates up. Also, billionaire Ross Perot spent a good part of his fortune making deficits into a political issue. In response, Washington focused for a few years on getting rid of the shortfall. With a lot of help from the late-1990s tech boom, it succeeded. As already noted, this deficit-fighting consensus disintegrated in the early Bush years. This time around, China joined Japan as a big buyer of Treasuries, interest rates stayed low, and the economy chugged along.

For a time last year, it appeared that this deficit-ignoring bliss might end. Chinese officials said repeatedly that they were uncomfortable holding so many U.S. securities. Interest rates on Treasuries inched up. And another billionaire launched an assault on deficit spending — this time private-equity kingpin Peter Peterson, who took most of the $1.9 billion he made from the 2007 initial public offering of his Blackstone Group and put it into a foundation devoted to raising fiscal awareness.

Then came the Panic of '08. Investors saw Treasuries as a safe haven and poured money into them, driving down interest rates. Officials in Washington spared no expense in battling the crisis. The result is a deficit of unprecedented size but with no perceptible pressure from financial markets to reduce it. No pressure so far, at least. The federal debt, at $7.6 trillion, is now above 50% of GDP and rising. The government faces commitments to Social Security and Medicare that dwarf that figure. Republican congressional leaders have decided they care about deficits again — and seem to be making headway in public opinion. The prevailing winds will shift one of these days. Because deficits don't matter, until they do.

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