| 摘要 | This article appears in the March 6, 2017 issue of National Review.
Back in 2007, I wrote an article for Bloomberg that argued that U.S. growth was likely to slow because our economic policy was on the “road to France.” The U.S. had posted a significantly better track record than most of Europe through 2006, and the academic consensus was that a major driver of our higher growth was our smaller government. But the expiration of the Bush tax cuts created a surge in revenue that would give Democrats who controlled Congress at the time an excuse to spend more money. That, plus the impending upswing in entitlement spending, meant that the small-government U.S. was going to look like big-government Europe. How could growth not fail to look more European?
Looking back on that piece a decade later, we see that many unexpected things occurred. A financial crisis knocked the stuffing out of the economy, and President Obama’s preferred approach to digging out, a Keynesian stimulus, accelerated the upswing in government spending. Regulations surged much more than one might have expected in 2007, as did entitlements, because of the Affordable Care Act. It is well known that recoveries from financial crises are slow, but as the dust settled it became clear that, after a rocket-powered trip down the road to France, we settled in at a growth rate that just about matched the European one that was so concerning back in 2007.
The nearby graph shows the average annual GDP growth rates across different periods of time for both the U.S. and the EU. These rates come from the OECD database, which includes past growth figures as well as future projections. The most current projections were published this past November. Since the EU has changed composition over the past 30 years, the 15 countries included in the chart are the EU countries prior to May 1, 2004.
As seen in the graph, the average annual growth rate of the EU was more than three-quarters of a percentage point lower than that of the U.S. between 1985 and 2006. The U.S. average over the past few years of the Obama administration was even a bit lower than that. European growth (not shown) dropped even more. But, as mentioned in this space in December, the OECD expects major policy reforms in the U.S. that, when fully in effect, will take growth almost back to the old normal.
The OECD staff, it seems, buys into an analysis that is consistent with that Bloomberg piece from a decade ago. The U.S. copied the policies of Europe and began to grow like Europe. If policies head in the other direction, then growth will too.
There is a respectable opposing view, that the financial crisis created a collapse in global demand from which we still have not recovered. According to that view, we were doomed to slow growth no matter what. Perhaps—but if it is hope you are looking for, be grateful that we are on the road back. |
