​The economic shock from the shutdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic were unprecedented. Never had state governors imposed stay-at-home orders that cut people off from their lives and livelihoods. Those costly policies were bad enough, but then came historic increases in deficit spending and money creation.

While these may have been well-intentioned policies early on, their repercussions—amplified by misguided macroeconomic policy since January 2021—continue to plague many Americans. The antidote is pro-growth policies.

There was a vibrant economy on the eve of this shock. In fact, about three quarters of the flows of people into employment were Americans returning to the workforce—the highest on record.

For context, 2.3 million prime-age Americans—people between the ages of 25 and 54—returned to the labor force during Trump, after 1.6 million left during the Obama recovery. This happened with a robust private sector providing many opportunities because the Trump administration focused on removing barriers by getting the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 through Congress and providing substantial, sensible deregulation.

We often hear that these tax cuts were “trickle-down economics” or “tax cuts for the rich and big business.” But the change in real (inflation-adjusted) wages was positive across the income spectrum. The bottom 10% of the wage distribution rose by 10% while the top 10% rose half as fast. And real wealth for the bottom 50% increased by 28%, while that of the top 1% increased by just 9%.

The results show those tax cuts weren’t designed for the “rich.”

In 2019, the real median household income hit a record high, and the poverty rate reached a record low. Poverty rates fell to the lowest on record for Blacks and Hispanics, and child poverty fell to 14.4%—a nearly 50-year low. Clearly, Americans were doing well across the board, especially those who had historically been left behind.

These stellar results were from reducing barriers by government in people’s lives—a stark contrast to what happened by state governments during the pandemic and exacerbated thereafter by Biden’s big-government policies.

While there were similar spending bills passed into law during both administrations, it’s comparing apples and oranges.

Trump supported congressional efforts in March and April 2020 when huge swaths of the economy were shut down, 22 million Americans were laid off, and 70% of the economy faced collapse. In contrast, Biden substantially increased regulations immediately and passed a nearly $2 trillion spending bill in March 2021—an amount equal to approximately 10% of the U.S. economy, at a moment when the U.S. economy was already 10 months into recovery.

Another difference was that Trump introduced sunsets for emergency pandemic provisions so that they would expire. But Biden continued and expanded many of them, increasing dependency on government.

Through March 2022, employment is back up 20.4 million but remains 1.6 million below the peak in February 2020. While Biden touts the most jobs gained in one year in 2021, more jobs were recovered in just the two months of May and June 2020 than in all 12 months of 2021, and nearly two-thirds of this jobs recovery was during Trump. Moreover, job gains of 6.7 million in 2021 were far less than the glorified projections coming from the White House of around 10 million.

Just think if Biden had practiced the pro-growth policies of Trump.

Instead, inflation is at a 40-year high and looks to continue to soar, fueled by a host of self-imposed costly policies in Washington.

This includes Biden’s over-regulating of the oil and gas sector, massive unnecessary spending bills, and attempts to drastically raise taxes. And the Federal Reserve has more than doubled its balance sheet over the last two years, purchasing a majority of the $6 trillion increased national debt in that period, which is a 25% increase to $30 trillion.

These policies, which simultaneously boost demand while constraining supply, have brought the prospect of stagflation—high inflation and low growth—back for the first time since the late 1970s.

Rather than directly addressing the crisis, Biden has consistently deflected the issue by first doubting the reality of inflation to now falsely blaming it on corporate greed or Russian President Vladimir Putin. But the causes and consequences fall at his feet.

It’s time to return to the proven, pro-growth policies that worked during the Trump administration, along with an essential missing factor then of spending restraint by Congress. Doing so will provide a solid foundation for more opportunities to let people prosper.

This commentary was based on the remarks by Mr. Ginn and Mr. Goodspeed on a panel at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s 2022 Policy Orientation.

https://www.texaspolicy.com/biden-should-pivot-to-trumps-pro-growth-policies/

Americans have less money than they had last year—though taxes haven’t been raised. So what’s the problem? Inflation, which has increased at a 40-year high annual pace of 7.9%. It acts as a hidden tax because we don’t see it listed on our tax bills, but we sure see less money on our bank accounts.

In fact, inflation-adjusted average hourly earnings for private employees are down 2.8% over the last year. This means a person with $31.58 in earnings per hour is buying 2.8% less of a grocery basket purchased just last February. “For a typical family, the inflation tax means a loss in real income of more than $1,900 per year,” stated Joel Griffin, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

The hidden tax of rapid inflation has been avoided for four decades. But that’s understandable because we haven’t seen these sorts of reckless policies out of Washington since the Carter administration.

The policies from the Biden administration’s excessive government spending and the Federal Reserve’s money printing must correct course now before things get worse.

What’s causing inflation is being debated.

One claim is “Putin’s price hikes” stem from the Russian president’s invasion of Ukraine.

While this has contributed to oil and gasoline prices spiking recently, these prices—and general inflation—were already rising rapidly. This was because of the Biden administration’s disastrous war on fossil fuels through increased financial and drilling regulations, cancelation of the Keystone XL pipeline, and more.

Specifically, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil is up about 110% since Biden took office, yet only up 21% since Russia invaded Ukraine. And to think, the U.S. was energy independent in the sense that it was a net exporter of petroleum products in 2019.

Another claim is the supply-chain crisis.

For example, the global chip shortage has contributed to a large shortage and subsequent increase in the average price of new vehicles—to a record high of $47,000, up 12% over the last year. This contributed to buyers switching to used cars, which has pushed the average price up to nearly $28,000, about 40% higher.

These two claims will likely be transitory price increases, though not sufficient to drive down overall inflation to what we’ve experienced for the last year-plus.

Inflation is persistent because of rampant government spending and money printing.

Larry Kudlow, who served as the director of the National Economic Council for President Trump, stated that inflation “is destroying working folks’ pocketbooks and devaluing the wages they earn, and the root cause of the inflation is way too much government spending, too many social programs without workfare, and vastly too much money creation by the Federal Reserve.”

Both political parties share the blame for too much government spending, which has caused the national debt to balloon to $30 trillion. Just over the last two years, the debt has increased by 25% or $6 trillion.

While some of that may have been necessary during the (inappropriate) shutdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, much of the nearly $7 trillion passed in spending bills was not, especially the trillions by the Biden administration far after the pandemic had slowed and people were returning to work.

Laughably, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi recently argued that government spending is helping inflation and President Biden argued that he’s cutting the deficit. Both are false.

Government spending doesn’t change inflation because it just redistributes money around in the economy. And the deficit would only be rising from Biden’s big-government policies but he’s taking advantage of an optical illusion: one-time COVID-19 relief funding drying up and tax revenues rising partially from the effects of inflation.

Ultimately, the driver of inflation is from discretionary monetary policy by the Federal Reserve as it monetizes much of the $6 trillion in added national debt since early 2020.

The Fed did this to keep its federal funds rate target from rising above the range of zero to 0.25% by more than doubling its balance sheet to $9 trillion. More money is fueling the ugly government spending and bubbly asset markets that’s resulting in dire economic consequences.

Instead, we need to learn what Presidents Harding and Coolidge realized a century ago. This would mean a return to sound fiscal policy, monetary policy, and the dollar that built on the principles of America’s founding.

We need binding fiscal and monetary rules to hold politicians and government officials in check of we hope to tame inflation and return to prosperity.

https://www.texaspolicy.com/the-tax-increase-thats-hidden-in-plain-sight/

Watching the screen on a gas pump while filling your vehicle’s tank is liable to induce a panic attack. Paying for a used car almost requires taking out a second mortgage. Speaking of mortgages, members of the middle class are being priced out of the housing market as home prices march relentlessly upward. Many price increases are out of control.

How did we get here? A little over a year ago, and in the years before the Covid-19 pandemic, most prices were relatively stable. But more recently, general price inflation is at a 40-year high.

The late economist Milton Friedman helped explain the inflation and stagflation of the 1970s. His explanation helped shape the strong economic recovery of the 1980s, built on the principles of limited government, with sound monetary policy that resulted in a steep decline in what had been rampant, double-digit inflation.

Inflation Is a Monetary Phenomenon

Friedman pointed out that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” The seemingly force majeure is actually a manmade problem, caused by the Federal Reserve (Fed) creating too much money. These principles of money and inflation aren’t new.

But those lessons are being disregarded by some in the economics profession. People like Stephanie Kelton have been promoting Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), which is virtually a complete reversal of what Friedman espoused and history demonstrated. This theory contends that the federal government’s current deficit spending isn’t an issue — it can, and should, be solved by the Fed creating money to fund it without concern about inflation as long as the U.S. dollar is the world’s reserve currency.

President Joe Biden has not openly endorsed MMT, but he’s no fan of Friedman either. Instead, he seems content to have many mostly younger congressional Democrats advocate for MMT, which provides convenient and seemingly academic reasoning for financing more federal spending without explicitly raising taxes. It has a similar political appeal that Keynesianism presented almost a century ago, and MMT is just as flawed.

But proponents of MMT do get one thing correct — the Fed can create money to service the debt and avoid a default. But in real terms, meaning adjusting for inflation, this assertion is false. Creating money to service the debt devalues the currency. Investors then receive a lower real return on their holdings of federal debt.

Furthermore, everyone is hurt by inflation, whether they own government bonds or not. Inflation is essentially a tax, as it robs people of their purchasing power at no fault of their own. Everyone who received a 7.5 percent raise over the last year probably thought they would be able to afford more stuff, but they were deceived. Inflation rose just as much — so there was no real raise.

False Claims That Taxes Are the Solution

But MMT proponents claim that the massive budget deficits are what allow people to save money. Were it not for those deficits, they contend, people would have no cash to save. At first glance, the pandemic seemed to support that. People received transfer payments from the government and saved much of them due to uncertainty. But more recently, people’s savings are being depleted as this dependency on government dries up and prices soar.

Now that inflation is running amok, MMT adherents believe tax increases are the primary (if not only) cure. They claim inflation is not caused by the Fed creating too much money, but by people having too much money to spend; taxation will remove that excess liquidity and stop inflation.

However, MMT doesn’t explain why it’s only inflationary when people spend money, but not when the government spends it. Somehow the Fed creating money by purchasing government debt miraculously doesn’t bid up prices for scarce resources. The theory sounds more like a belief than science — something that must be trusted rather than demonstrated.

Specifically, MMT ideology is built on mathematical relationships between economic variables like private and public savings and debt rather than a strong theoretical construct, and breaks down quickly when analyzed with sound economic theory. Moreover, these relationships seem to be used to derive a funding mechanism for their big-government policy goals, such as a federal jobs guarantee, universal healthcare, and other costly initiatives.

How Taxation Might Stop Inflation

But MMT is not entirely wrong on using taxation to stop inflation. If those taxes are used to pay for deficit spending — which really should be done by spending less — rather than the Fed financing it, then higher taxes can lower inflation. But that is far too nuanced of an explanation for MMT, which paints in much broader brushstrokes.

Regardless, MMT cannot dispel the hard truths of monetary policy, which is inflation comes from one place — the Fed. When the Fed creates money faster than the real economy grows, prices will rise; it’s that simple.

To alleviate the uncertainty and distortions across the economy of bad policies in Washington, there should be binding fiscal and monetary rules based on sound economics instead of ideology. This should include changing government spending by less than the growth in personal incomes and only changing the money supply to keep prices stable.

Almost two years after President Biden declared “Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore,” the late economist is clearly the one with the last laugh. Perhaps next time, the president will think twice before speaking ill of the dead.

https://www.texaspolicy.com/the-real-cause-of-inflation-is-insane-government-spending/

​“May you live in interesting times,” goes an old saying—usually meant as a curse. When it comes to economics, “interesting” usually means the sky is falling.

Inflation reached 7% at the end of 2021, a rate not seen in 40 years. The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet more than doubled to $8.8 trillion since early 2020. And Uncle Sam’s fiscal house is in shambles. The 2021 budget deficit was almost $2.8 trillion, putting the national debt at $28.5 trillion—nearly 130% of U.S. gross domestic product.

To call this imprudent would be a massive understatement. We need fiscal and monetary rules now.

Money mischief and fiscal follies are intimately related. This isn’t because deficit spending causes inflation—things aren’t that simple. Instead, profligate spending and careless money-printing reinforce each other.

When politicians and bureaucrats have too much leeway, they pursue short-run benefits at the expense of long-run viability. Whether it’s easy money from the Fed or stimulus checks from Congress, papering over unsustainable financial practices is easier than enacting sustainable reforms. To improve Americans’ livelihood, we must break the cycle. Because policymakers have demonstrated they can’t be trusted with discretion, it’s time to give binding rules a try. We can’t reform fiscal or monetary policy alone. Economic flourishing for Americans depends on tackling both.

In the past two years, the Fed purchased more than $3.3 trillion in government debt. Over that same period, Uncle Sam’s deficit totaled almost $6 trillion. That means our central bank indirectly covered more than half of the federal government’s fiscal splurge. Also, Congress authorized spending of roughly $7 trillion since the pandemic started. Even the latest $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, sold to Americans as a “stimulus,” merely promoted more government. These programs contributed to fewer jobs added last year than the Congressional Budget Office’s baseline. All that wasteful spending drags down the economy.

This is worryingly close to what economists call “fiscal dominance”—monetary policymakers paving the way for spending binges with cheap liquidity. Adam Smith, the godfather of economics, wrote about the continuous cycle of deficits, debt accumulation, and currency debasement that ruins nations. We should work diligently and quickly to ensure the U.S. doesn’t follow.

The solution is a rules-based approach for fiscal and monetary policies. We need strong guardrails around runaway spending and money-printing. A rules-based framework can ensure fiscal and monetary policies work better, both independently and with each other.

For example, we should consider a spending limit that covers the entire budget, capping spending increases at population growth plus inflation. This essentially freezes per capita government spending. By limiting total expenditures, we can minimize the burden on current and future taxpayers. Had this been in place from 2002 to 2021, the cumulative effect on the budget would be a net surplus (debt decline) of $2.8 trillion. This is in stark contrast to the $19.8 trillion in net debt we actually got.

Cutting the national debt means the Fed would have fewer assets to purchase in its open market operations, thereby reducing its ability to manipulate markets and the overall economy. It could then focus on what it can control: price stability. A rule should help achieve this. The Fed drifted off course by needlessly broadening its inflation rule in August 2020. The Fed’s mandate currently includes price stability, maximum employment, and moderate interest rates. But the second and third of these are beyond the competence of central bankers. It’s time to focus the Fed on controlling the dollar’s value.

Congress and the Fed harmed the vibrancy and robustness of the U.S. economy by their poor decisions. Unfortunately, there’s been a bipartisan consensus for irresponsible fiscal and monetary policies in recent years. It’s time for this to change. We need rules-based fiscal and monetary policy to get our economic affairs in order and leave post-pandemic malaise behind for good.

https://www.texaspolicy.com/out-of-control-congress-and-fed-need-binding-rules/