>> the u.s. supreme court today heard oral arguments in the boston marathon bomber's death sentence case. you can watch it tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span. at 9:30 p.m. eastern, house veterans affairs committee hearing on the recruitment of veterans by violent extremist organizations, tonight on c-span, online at c-span.org, or on our new c-span now video app. >> the conversation now on the national debt. on that national debt with christopher russo, research fellow at george washington university's mercatus center. the house acted yesterday to raise the debt ceiling ahead of a potential default.

why we have a debt ceiling? why we keep creeping towards these potential default clips? guest: thanks for having me. this debt limit began pretty recently in our country's history. it was created in 1917 is a way for the u.s. treasury to fund the first world war. up until that point, congress usually authorized each individual issue of the treasury debt. with the advent of world war i and the massive increase in government spending, it became reasonable. debt limit gave treasury more ability to manage the treasury's cash but it also constrained treasury to make sure we were not issuing too much debt. the debt limit evolved over

time. in more recent years, it has been used as a backwards looking constraint on spending or has been attempted to be used in that way and also for political purposes. the cosmos as of that in the last decade plus, we have had will they or won't they default episodes. it takes a lot of political pressure in order to get a debt limit raised. host: the debt limit raised by $480 billion dollars. expected until we have another debt limit default clips that will be a part -- cliff that will be approaching. guest: at this point, the debt limit poses a danger to the u.s. economy that is no longer worthwhile. the congress authorizes the

spending and taxes. for better or worse, congress mandates the deficit. treasury should be able to undergo the actions necessary to finance that deficit. we do face a run-up in our debt levels that is unsustainable. all of human history suggests that that is not going to work out well if it continues. i propose that congress tackle these two essential issues together, hopefully finding middle ground. that would be pairing a permanent suspension of the debt limit so that we do not have these every few years along with long-term reforms to stop the unsuitable rise, as well as structural forms to grow their economy. if you have a faster growing economy, the world can sustain higher levels of government spending. host: house and senate democrats

with plenty of criticism about the death -- debt limit. nancy pelosi proposed giving the treasury department the authority to limit the debt. speaker pelosi: there are all kinds of suggestions. one that was endorsed a while back by mitch mcconnell, but who knows -- it was -- the manifestation now puts a responsibility on the secretary of the treasury to make the determination to the debt ceiling. the decision could be overruled by the congress. it would take 60 votes under the present custom, but nonetheless, congress would have to overrule that.

that seems to have some appeal to both sides of the aisle, because of the consequences to people of not listening. but why -- many democrats and republicans have voted against the debt ceiling, but never to the extent of jeopardizing it. >> argue in favor of that idea? speaker pelosi: i do think it has merit. host: that proposal and others get around debt limit. guest: let me not comment on specific legislative proposals. on the whole, i think a compromise that cumbersome policy is talking about makes sense. -- congresswoman pelosi on the one hand, you finance the

debt. on the other hand, to get political support, there would need to be lots by both parties to have fixes. host: we have heard about ideas of mixing a -- of minting a $1 trillion coin, invoking the 14th amendment without proposing any specific proposal. you check about those issues in general and why they come up as a way to get around the debt limit? guest: one of the great things about america is we have creative people. some are lawyers. when we are faced with a crisis, people go back and do creative readings of the constitution to figure out a runaround. i see the actual compromise from congress. wesee -- we see this would be

a complete catastrophe for the u.s. to default. financial crisis, deep recession to say the least. but i do not see those as anything other than the mix. on this, i agree with treasury secretary ellen, fed chairman powell. host: christopher russo with george mason university's mercatus center. we are talking about the done -- debt limit. republicans, (202) 748-8002. democrats, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. the u.s. national debt is over $20 trillion -- $28 trillion.

how much debt is too much? guest: now, federal debt, the u.s. treasury bonds that the government issues held by people like me and you, that is what hundred percent of gdp. there is a lot of space about what a sensible number is four debt to gdp. you can think of it like your mortgage. you have a mortgage of 10 times your income, maybe that is pushing it up and down about what is acceptable. when debt gets to 100% of our national income, that is pushing it, but the u.s. is one of the most developed countries. we have a phenomenal financial system that helps us finance this debt. i don't mean to be alarmist and to say but tomorrow there's

going to be a crisis, but if you look at the level of debt to gdp over time, that will grow out of control and beyond projections released by that congressional budget office. we have seen that there was a time where the federal reserve was worried there would be too few treasury securities outstanding. they would not be able to do reagan -- regular monetary policies. now, after the global financial crisis and nearing the end of the pandemic recession, we are at 100% debt to gdp, plus other liabilities not counted but which are implicit backstops to the financial system. i do not want to throw a particular number out there, but to say that whatever a sustainable number is, whether it is 100% of gdp, 150% of gdp,

eventually that maximum will get reached if we continue to grow debt. host: can you briefly touch on what they are? guest: the basic economic fear is that there is usually debt that the u.s. government deems inappropriate. you and i and the audience have bank accounts, give our dollars to the bank, they give us a checking account number. we think of that checking account balance is being actual dollars, but it is not. we can go to the bag at a time and say, we want our money and they have to give it to us. during the great depression, the u.s. congress and president roosevelt decided this was important enough to back by a guarantee of u.s. government. in normal times, that works.

these deposits are backed by the u.s. government. people do not need to worry about the solvency of their bank. unlike ring the great depression, we do not need to run to the bank every time we get spooked about the market. another big example is mortgage-backed securities. these ran into significant problems during the 2008 financial crisis. fannie mae, freddie mac, there was already an implicit understanding that of mortgages look bad, the government would step in. that is been unfortunately made explicit in the last 10 years. these are the types of things. the point is that the u.s. government sees some sort of private liability and says this is too big to fail.

we will stop it. those numbers are not counted in the actual numbers of treasury debt. host: caller plenty of callers, including william, democrat. caller: i think the politicians should keep their hands out of the national debt. it is a shame that way this could be a great country, but politicians does everything to try to keep it away. i am 86 years old. i have always voted democrat except i voted for one republican. i am thinking about discontinuing, because all we have is crooks, the lobbyists who line politicians' pockets. we are supposed to have a government. it is a shame. i feel so sorry for my great

grandkids. it is corrupt -- they have a chat i don't know -- this corrupt political system. host: who was the one republican you voted for? caller: thank you. host: christopher russo on too much politics around the federal debt. caller: i wanted to know -- guest: i wanted to know which republican he voted for. i sympathize with his concerns, and i hope that the issue we are facing is important enough that in the way he described it can be nonpartisan. i'm not here today to argue that we need to have a small government or big government. we could have either. it is a choice that we as a country need to make. we can have a large debt to gdp or small debt to gdp.

there are pros and cons to both. when i do argue is that an unsustainable debt is unsustainable. whether you have a small or large government, that holds. host: todd, north carolina. caller: i agree with the previous caller in regards to politicians voting on the infrastructure will. president obama was trying to get a program together or welding, improving our roads and privileges -- bridges, the republicans were against it. when president -- the previous president was in office, he wanted to develop an information structure bill to improve our roads and bridges, the

republicans were for it. now again republicans are against it under biden. my personal concern would be if president biden would do something to reduce or eliminate these tariffs that were imposed by the administration, because that increase was passed on to us as taxpayers and people that buy commodities on the market. host: christopher russo on tariffs. caller: more generally, as part of the package for political compromise to fix the debt limit and debt, i think we should have structural reforms. a greater level of economic growth -- [indiscernible]

-- particularly on the perspective of debt. the mercatus center looked a lot at the reform of our medical system. it would be great if we could have more providers of medicine to lower costs. but there are things that prevent new hospitals from starting without the approval of other hospitals in the state. infrastructure is essential. i do also wonder whether there are constraints right now on individuals and businesses that prevent them from investing themselves in infrastructure. you can have private or public investment in information structure. there are regulations that provide homeowners from improving their properties -- things like accessible drawing units that can raise that housing stock and lower the cost of housing, and big concern for

families. there is a lot of important stuff by pairing the debt limit fixed prefix of the debt itself. we might be able to generate the type of compromise we need. host: chris, new york city, text message. if the debt ceiling wasn't raised now or in a month, with or be annexed -- enough tax revenue to pay existing debt? what exactly with the practical effect be? how much daily revenue comes in? caller: that is an excellent question. let me address the fact that, yes, social security and medicare are "funded," but in air quotes. we go to work, get our paychecks, that money is earmarked for social security

that money is not put in a separate account and invested in a variety of investments to grow the value so it is ready when we retire. instead, that social security revenue is used to pay for anything and everything government spends the -- whether it is war, justice. that is what it is used for. it just goes in the same checking account as everything else. the way that operates from a financial perspective is the treasury gives the social security trust fund. they say you took in this much in taxes, we paid out this amount in revenue. as a consequence, we "owe" you this amount. social security is going to go bankrupt in the next decade or so. likewise, medicare is due to go

bankrupt a few years from now. these programs need to be fixed. to address the specific question of what would happen in the near term if the debt limit is not raised and treasury must start prioritizing payments, the best i can tell from reading public documents, treasury would choose to pay principal and interest from the existing national debt. it went use the remaining inflow of cash to pay whatever obligations the u.s. government could. there are a slew of government obligations. in the past several years, there has been talked about whether treasury should prioritize payments, extended just social security, medicare, national defense. we can play the numbers, but that sort of scenario seems possible for time at least. i just don't know whether it is technologically possible whether

treasury can prioritize payments in that way. speaking as someone who advised officials during the 2019 debt limit episode, let me say that i am not confident that could be done. i do not know. this is not an easy system. host: switching gears a bit, explain what tapering is. caller: tapering is a process of the fed ending its massive asset purchases. the fed has the largest asset program in history with the start of the pandemic. its balance sheet has over double the size, now in about $ 8,5 trillion, up from $4 trillion at the start of the pandemic. this has helped a rapid recovery, putting millions of

people back to work. if the fed continues to buy u.s. treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities every month, tapering is the process of reducing those purchases, ultimately bringing them down to zero. host: when they do that, what is the schedule? how much is that subject to change by the winds of commerce and this debt ceiling issue that has now been printed -- punted? guest: let me defer to comments that have already made. in a high level, back in october, fed officials announced that they were considering the possibility of begetting the tapering process. that could occur as soon as november. they have an upcoming policy meeting where they might announce that.

the debt limit might be punted. hard to say. chairman powell has always been clear that monetary policy is not preset. we need to react to changes in inflation, the job market, the debt limit. there is no clear guidance about when they would begin the tapering process. last i saw surveys of market participants, these are the banks that fewer operate with in rocket operations -- for example, bond securities. these banks want tapering to take between half a year and a year. host: do you have an opinion on the right rate that the fed should be prepared to respond to in future crises? caller: when it comes to tapering, simpler is better. if you want to get down to zero

asset purchases a month over the next year, simply take off at 12 of the current rate of purchases each month. i should note, though, that even when the fed stops purchasing assets that does not mean it is beginning to reduce. the fed invests each month, both treasuries and mortgage-backed securities. if the past is any indication of the future, it would take a period of time in which they hold the balance sheet. then slowly and methodically, they would allow maturing securities to join the site of the fed's balance sheet. host: talking with christopher russo. if you have questions, now a good time to call in. nelson is in florida, republican. caller: i would like to point

out that virtually all civilizations have declined in the past. they have had as a basis for decline their national debt, starting with the romans, when they lowered the amount of silver. and the british empire, who had a national debt that exceeded their gdp the. eric national debt already exceeds gdp --our national d ebt. if you watch the little ticker, you can see that. the only thing that gives us pause as to how much money we are spending is that [indiscernible] our rising. the debt limit causes us to stop

and talk and be able to realize just what a quagmire we are putting ourselves in. the government has got to stop exceeding its ability to spend money. there are not enough wealthy people in the universe to pay off the national debt. the only way to start pivoting back is to grow the gdp. that way to do that is by what was done under donald trump when he had taxes lowered and corporations, jobs expanded and more money went back into the national treasury than in the history of the country. i wanted to point that out. guest: i think that was an excellent question. there are a few important

things. i note two examples where we have had in the history of the nation a country with over 100% debt to gdp and paid it off. the first was the u.s. after world war ii. that was a period in which we had tremendous structural reforms, and the first decade after world war ii in which the fed was doing monetary policy to help the treasury finance debt and not react to changes in unemployment or inflation. god willing we will not have a repeat of the 1940's in which we had 20% inflation year over some circumstances. assuming we don't have that again, how do we get ourselves out of this quagmire? i turned to my second example of a country that grew their way out of it, the united kingdom

following the napoleonic wars. they levied a tremendous military force to be napoleon. they were doing that following the industrial revolution, the beginning of a worldwide trend of positive growth. the world had never seen that before. i'm not saying we need a second industrial revolution, although that would be phenomenal. we need as a part of the package i am putting forward away not just to fix the debt limit, which is a self-inflicted wound, but also a way we can raise the overall level of growth. third component is also bring down the local spending to be more commiserate with taxes. nonetheless, it does not help if taxes are higher than ever and spending is higher than ever.

particularly in the long term there are programs that need to be fixed. host: this is ken from montana. caller: good morning. i am 80 years old. i'm old enough to remember eisenhower and his warning, beware the great military complex. i'm old enough to remember how ronald reagan was the first one to really give us the "trickle down theory." all these things combined, the great expense we are spending on the military, huge tax cuts that happened between ronald reagan and all the republicans, and the christmas gift they give to "the taxpayers" at the expense of our country. anybody -- i'm not an economist

-- i think most people that run a household know you cannot cut income and increase spending and come out with more money in the end. i do not care how you increase the amount of people. when you do not support the people at the bottom end and the people at the bottom do not have money to spend, we do not have an economy that is working. host: mr. russo? guest: i was not alive during the eisenhower administration but i like ike. he was a great guy from what i know. speaking to the economics, i agree. we need a system that works for all americans. a system that puts americans to work. i think the fed has done a tremendous job in the past 16 months, 18 months at doing that

by having a strong response to the pandemic recession by promoting aggregate demand and national spending, and it put millions back to work more quickly than it would have. the gentleman used the phrase trickle down. that is a use of-ism -- euphemism for supply-side economics. i am a supply and demand economist. in the long term i recognize we need structural reforms in congress to improve the long-running growth and employment prospects of the economy. the gentleman alluded to the lacquer curve. if taxes are high, you can still bring in more revenue. it promotes economic activity.

economist debate the validity of that. i am generally skeptical at current tax levels that in general reducing taxes would bring in more revenue. there are some special circumstances in which that does hold. one pernicious one is among the poor, who we have a special obligation to help. the way we have our benefits system structured, taxes -- over 100% of each dollar earned if they choose to go out and work. they will lose more than one dollar they earn in wages. ways of modifying our system to help the people that are worse off while at the same time not imposing 100% tax rates on them could be a way of helping bring more people into the labor force, which is good economically and socially. host: talking about the poorest americans, a lot of discussion about inflation. especially its impact on poor

americans. republicans are concerned about inflation during the biden administration. this was treasury secretary janet yellen last month talking about this issue of the rise of inflation. [video] >> tell me what you thought inflation would be at the end of this year. you told me to percent. do you stand by that prediction? >> clearly inflation this year is going to be above 2%. just the experience so far this year makes that clearly true. i think we are seeing monthly inflation rates taper off. >> what do you think you will be at the end of this year if not 2%? >> probably closer to 4%.

that is already must be the case based of what's happened this year. host: christopher russo on inflation concerns. guest: i sympathize with americans with concerns about inflation. i am also concerned. let me give you the perspective of someone at the fed thinking about these issues. there is always upside risk and downside risk. the downside risk is the possibility tightening policy, raising interest rates to quickly, lowering asset purchases to quickly will lower estimate double dip recession. that would be horrible for the job market. insufficient monetary support could lead to a weaker jobs recovery. we saw that following the global financial crisis. if we keep interest rates too low for too long over keep asset purchases going too high for too long, we could have inflation begin to spiral higher and

higher. the balance of risk in the past decade or so, and the last year or two has been tilted towards the downside. as time has gone on and we have seen the recovery continue, risks are more balanced. the question we have to ask ourselves as economists and what the fed is considering is whether the inflation we are seeing today is driven by the fed's monetary policy or driven by the supply chain disruptions we are seeing? if it's the monetary policy, we are seeing 4% inflation year-over-year, that would be because to reduce the level of support to bring inflation back down closer to the fed's 2% target. in the view of many economists the high inflation we are seeing is due to supply chain disruption. temporary dysfunctions in the

economy that will be resolved by the market over time. if we react to the supply chain disruptions as though they were due to an overgrowth of money and credit, that would compound the situation to become worse. the conventional wisdom is if you have a temporary supply chain disruption, don't change monetary policy. keep a steady hand and allow for inflation to fall back over time as the disruptions are resolved. host: mississippi, john. and independent. caller: my question is simple. first i would like to know if it's possible to put a cap on people's salaries who are working as servants of the public. they take jobs on working for us and they deserve a salary. at times like this they should realize enough is enough.

or, put a 10% tax across the board on everybody regardless of income. or we can let the rich start paying their fair share of tax because they don't pay taxes at all. that is my three questions i am putting to you. guest: there is a lot of interesting stuff there. when we think about structural reforms like the ones i was talking about, fixing the structure of the tax and benefit system so we are not taxing the worst off of these extort nearly high rates -- extraordinarily high rates, there is debate about the numbers that should fill in the legislation. should the capital gains tax be 10%, 20%, 30% or 0%? my suggestion is we should figure out the right structure of the tax rate for the tax structure itself, figure out

what to spend money on, and then back out of the rates to raise the necessary revenue. there is a lot we can do to fix the tax system without changing the distribution of who pays taxes. raising taxes on certain individuals or certain aspects of the american people. we can do that while also making the tax system more incentive compatible, a fancy way of saying compatible with people who are wanting to work hard to make a living for themselves instead of being penalized for doing that by the government. host: westport, connecticut. gary, a republican. caller: i want to add to your social security comments about them using ious. when lbj was president he saw

how much money was coming into the treasury at that time and saw a cash cow. social security and medicare money. he put it into the general fund that allowed him to spend that money. if you took from his era to this day, social security and medicare would be owed $11.8 trillion. that money went to wars and everything. you are right. there are ious in this box. i don't think many people realize that. now they want to spend so much money. we are at $28 trillion now. nobody thinks about putting money back into social security. yes, medicare and five years will run out and social security by 2030 will be depleted. my whole thing is if everyone in washington thanks money grows on trees, which it does not.

now the debt ceiling, they want to eliminate it. if interest rates went up, the fed raised interest rates, we cannot even handle that payment on $28 trillion. it would eat up everything. that is all i wanted to add. guest: i appreciate the gentleman's comments and sympathize with his concerns. i was not aware of the lbj origins. when we have taxes to pay for those programs, it goes into the treasury general account. the checking account at the new york fed to make payments and receive receipts. i was in charge of forecasting that on a daily basis for beneficial and treasury officials -- fed officials and treasury officials. we could put them on a more solvent footing going forward.

i think we will need to do that end in the next few years. i hope we will find the political will to do it. i will emphasize to the gentleman and the people at home that sympathize with those views that the solution to our nation's fiscal problem cannot come from these two-your fights -- to your fights -- two year fights. in 2011, we were downgraded for the first time by the s&p. if we were to have the self-inflicted wound, if we push ourselves into a financial crisis and recession, that would be terrible for our fiscal outlook. even more so. i tried to emphasize these are both fundamentally important issues we need to fix, the debt limit and this will day-one day default game every two years. and the rise of the national

debt driven by mandatory increases and spending every year. if we can fix these things, that is a win-win that it maybe 2021 congress can get behind. host: rob, good morning. caller: i have a couple of little things i noticed on the program. one was the statement that social security would be bankrupt in 10 years. social security hasn't bankrupt since the johnson administration. all the money was taken from the trust fund and put into the general fund and has been used mostly for social programs. lbj did this so he could find the great society. -- fund the great society. they said they were borrowing the money from the trust fund. they were not borrowing anything. when you take it with that intention of paying it back ever and continue to take it, that is

stealing. the second thing is on both sides, republican and democrat, went up politician tells you if we don't raise the debt ceiling, and both sides have done it, we will default. that is alive. -- a lie. we have enough money to service the debt. the debt has to be serviced first before anything is taken out. until we stopped servicing the debt, we don't default. that is not true. host: i will let you jump in. guest: i appreciate the gentleman's passion on this issue. i'm always try to clear to say that we have been defaulting on the obligations. as the gentleman says, it could be possible treasury prioritizing existing interest on the national debt with incoming revenue.

that said, the government has other obligations. spending congress mandated beyond social security, medicare, national defense and a variety of other things. we would not have enough money coming into pay. then the question for me as an economist is, how would a worldview a circumstance in which the congress authorized these programs and treasury has to be bound by a debt limit that prevented from making the payments which it is obligated to make by the congress? i do think the financial system, the broader u.s. economy would view that favorably. the notion of prioritizing payments -- i'm not a lawyer. i can't speak to what legal or not legal or what treasury mechanically could or could not do given existing payment systems. it is not clear to me that is a

foolproof response or a bulletproof solution. when we get down to the weeds about this in a hype echo -- hypothetical situation, i don't mean extra near measures that they do before we had the debt limit or try to manage under the debt limit. i mean prioritizing payments. when we get to that position with the fed having to intervene in financial markets to stop the dysfunction as a result of that, it is not clear to me we are in a good situation. we are in a poor situation. thinking about the political realities we are living in, i wonder if we got to that situation, would congress be willing to continue to pay all the national debt? would there be in china or other countries in which congress might know what treasury to make those payments? i think that would be a terrible idea.

we are taking a gamble in many dimensions by going beyond the data. it is too dangerous of a risk to take. host: there are a couple of callers who have been waiting to chat with you. we will get them in. rick in atchison. caller: good morning. this is a follow-up to the statement you made about social security and medicare possibly going bankrupt in the future. however, the fix for one is much easier than for the other one. you did not make a distinction. you did say later there are fixes for both of them. maybe if you talked about the fixes you see for both of them that would clear it up. guest: i appreciate the

gentleman's question. this is where we get a bit off my expertise. i have great colleagues that deal with this more on a daily basis. it should be pretty easy for most americans to understand. take social security for example. people have been living longer since the program was founded. they are drawing larger benefits over time. if the benefits are increasing over time and tax revenues are not keeping up, there are two things to do. try to scale benefits back in a methodical way over time that will not leave anybody impoverished, but at the same time tweaks the edges to bring benefits down to a more sustainable. you can raise payroll taxes, or choose to fund social security not just from payroll taxes but from other taxes the treasury issues.

medicare is a bit more difficult. the growth in medical spending over time is tremendously large. a friend of mine was joking that if trends continue we will have 100% of gdp spent on medical care in the united states. that will not be extrapolated over time, let's hope, but the medical spending needs to be brought down. when you get to such high numbers of medical spending, it is not plausible to raise taxes enough to bring that up to a sustainable level. the question becomes, then maybe this is a more difficult question, how do you do that? my colleagues have done work on this. i would refer you to their work. on a whole, in my view and their view, it would involve having a more competitive system for providing medical care. the same way markets can bring down the cost of everything.

host: james from san diego, republican. caller: good morning. two calls ago you made a correct statement and an incorrect statement. politicians correct the debt. the president, senate, house of representatives come to congress and make the debt. we all have to live with it. number two, there is a ladder of what payments will be made by the government as we approach this limit of how much money be taken and how much we will spend out. please answer those two questions. you can answer yes and no to either one of them. guest: i apologize. i'm not sure i caught the second question. yes, the house of representatives, the senate and president set taxes and spending. my emphasis is on congress

because congress has the power of the purse and the power of the credit card. the compromise that would be necessary to get through congress would likely require the assent of the president. it could be vetoed if there was sufficiently broad compromise in congress. there are political issues that need to be worked out by legislators and staff on the help. at a high level i think some sort of compromise, a broad-based compromise would be necessary. on the second question, i'm not quite sure what the second one was. host: we are 10 minutes over on this segment and appreciate you sticking around for a few extra calls. we will have you on again down the road. christopher russo of george mason university. you can follow him on twitter.

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