Reducing the Deficit: Should the Fed Monetize the Federal Debt?

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  We've seen yet another dysfunctional mess from the political process, and have to think expansively.

The recent fiscal cliff deal was largely a failure.  It raised taxes on most Americans, while doing virtually nothing to reduce federal spending.  While income taxes were not increased for the middle class, Social Security taxes were increased for all workers at all income levels.  The well-off (the $400,000 plus crowd) face a higher income tax rate of 39.6% (20% on qualified dividends and capital gains) and wealthy dead people now pay a 40% tax rate (instead of 35%) on the portions of their estates exceeding $5 million ($10 million for married couples).  The automatic spending cuts required by the cliff were deferred for two months (except for $24 billion in cuts that do go into effect), so spending largely continues apace.  Presumably, there will be a second face off over spending cuts when the President asks Congress to increase the debt ceiling in the next few weeks (even though the White House insists it won't negotiate over the debt ceiling).

One thing to take away from the cliff deal is that spending cuts are really hard to agree on--so hard that the Dems and Republicans simply kicked the can down the road.  But they will be even harder to agree on two months from now.  The Republicans have lost significant leverage by agreeing to tax increases now.  The tax side of the fiscal cliff has been resolved, more or less favorably to the Democrats (although some liberal Dems are still unhappy).  What incentive do the Dems, who control the Senate, now have to agree to spending cuts?  Of course, the Dems would agree to some spending cuts (the defense budget would be their target number one).  But Republicans are focused on hurting core constituencies of the Democratic Party through Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts.  With the Dems having largely won on the tax issues, they have little reason to make concessions on the social safety net.  Even if the President is willing to give the Republicans some of what they want (which he seems to be), he may have a problem in the Senate, where Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were stoutly ring-fenced and defended during the fiscal cliff talks.

Realistically speaking, we shouldn't expect our dysfunctional elected government to find grand solutions to the fiscal deficits.  Due to a variety of bad and intractable political dynamics, that simply won't happen.  We have to look elsewhere for solutions.

The next logical candidate to get the hot potato would be the Fed.  The central bank has played a central role in combating the Great Recession, not without some success.  In the course of its massive quantitative easing programs, it's accumulated a balance sheet of close to $3 trillion.  This total is likely to grow as the Fed continues to purchase debt on the open markets.  Slightly over half of the balance sheet consists of U.S. Treasury securities.  Total federal debt is about $16 trillion.  Thus, the Fed holds about 10% of all federal debt.

Why not have the Fed simply forgive some or even all of the U.S. Treasury debt it holds?  In other words, it would declare that the Treasury wouldn't be required to pay the debt.  That, by definition, would reduce the federal deficit by reducing the amount of federal debt outstanding.  And it's what happens anyway.  When the Fed receives debt payments from the Treasury (usually consisting of interest payments), it simply remits those funds back to the Treasury Dept. (except for a small amount retained to finance the Fed's budget).  Debt forgiveness by the Fed would simply expand on what happens in the ordinary course.   

Of course, such debt forgiveness would be tantamount to monetizing the debt, and has the potential to be inflationary.  But precisely what the heck do we think is going on now?  When the Fed launches repeated quantitative easing programs, with ever more asset purchases but not the tiniest hint of when, if ever, it would unwind its Brontosaurian balance sheet, it has functionally monetized the debt.  With the economy expected to be a sick puppy for years, reality is the Fed may hold a lot of its current inventory of U.S. Treasury securities until they mature.  When they mature, it will remit the principal payment it receives from the Treasury back to the Treasury (or use the funds to make more open market purchases of Treasury securities).  The federal debt has been monetized, even though no one on the government's payroll is going to admit it. 

Such debt forgiveness wouldn't fully resolve all the deficit problems.  But it could reduce the scope of the crisis, and would amount to little more than accurately accounting for what is actually going on.  If inflation flared, the Fed could suspend debt forgiveness and raise short term interest rates, combating inflation as it traditionally would.  But as long as inflation is subdued, debt forgiveness could contribute to resolving a problem that politicians clearly won't be able to solve, at least not comprehensively.

Ultimately, the best solution to the deficit problem is to boost economic growth.  Greater growth means higher employment levels and more income and corporate profits to be taxed.  If the economy were growing briskly and unemployment were around 5%, we probably wouldn't feel we have a deficit crisis.  Housing seems to be stabilizing, although its long term prospects remain clouded.  So we can't count on housing to be the engine for growth.  Measures the government could take include:  (a) rebuilding infrastructure--this is something the government has historically done well, and should do more of given the crumbling state of our infrastructure; (b) loosen up immigration restrictions for well-educated people and people who can invest substantial capital in America to create jobs--we need more innovators and entrepreneurs; (c) improve education, not by handing out loans to anyone who has a pulse and a signature (there's way too much student debt already, and it will be the next big debt bubble), but with measures to make education more efficient and inexpensive, like expanding Internet-based educational programs.  Achieving greater economic growth will take time, but it's a lot easier than trying to use the political process to agree on budget cuts.