Fiscal Policy, Past and Present
回顾当前财政状况及恶化原因，估算联邦和州级政府收支对经济和财政条件的反应，预测减税和支出增加规模，指出隐性福利负债给政策评估带来的困难。
This paper begins with a review of the current fiscal situation and the causes of its recent deterioration. As a guide to possible policy actions, it provides extensive estimates of past responses of revenues and expenditures at the federal and state and local level. Estimates at the federal level suggest that policy is responsive to both economic and fiscal conditions, and that this responsiveness may have grown over time. For states, economic conditions are less important, but responses to budget gaps are swifter. Equations for federal revenues and expenditures predict tax cuts and expenditure increases given current conditions, but of a considerably smaller magnitude than those initially proposed by President Bush. However, current circumstances are difficult to evaluate because of the enormous implicit entitlement liabilities that were much less significant in the past. This difficulty is but one of the problems facing policy prediction and evaluation. JEL codes E62, H62 Alan J. Auerbach Department of Economics University of California 549 Evans Hall Berkeley, CA 94720-3880 (510) 643-0711 auerbach@econ.berkeley.edu