And unless we do that, we will continue to face a very substantial long-term fiscal gap.
But that is for extra defence spending, and does not address the fiscal gap.
Where is the official fiscal gap accounting that should inform each and every fiscal decision.
In sum, a fiscal gap without even the excuse that it exists for virtuous reasons.
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No matter how one labels receipts and payments, the fiscal gap remains the same.
They will also tell you that the fiscal gap is the only measure of fiscal sustainability recognized by economic theory.
Economists have been discussing this labeling problem and have been producing meaningful fiscal gap measures that are label-invariant, for 40 years.
The sad truth is that there are not nearly enough "bridges to nowhere" in the budget to close the fiscal gap.
In addition to that set of challenges, we also face a long-term fiscal gap, which is driven primarily by health care costs.
States are already facing down a fiscal gap in funding for special education students, and the looming sequester will likely double its size.
The Government Accountability Office reported last week that the average state "fiscal gap" is 14.2% over the next 50 years, largely because of health-care costs.
In an ideal world, America's politicians would come up with a package of medium-term spending cuts and tax reforms to fill the country's fiscal gap.
The International Monetary Fund recently computed a similar sized fiscal gap.
To close the fiscal gap, he has resorted to a 5% tax on exports and tourism, a 2% import surcharge and a tax on financial transactions.
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The fact that the deficit commission is focused on federal deficits and not the long-term fiscal gap is indicative of how much damage the economic labeling problem is causing.
In terms of lowering the fiscal gap, this would contribute perhaps 2 percent in net revenue for four years against the 11 percent in additional net revenue needed in those years.
If they waited until 2020 to close the fiscal gap through 2037, they would have to cut noninterest outlays or raise revenues over the remaining period by 6.8 percent of GDP.
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The government expects to cap the fiscal gap below 5.2% of gross domestic product in the current fiscal year ending March 31, and narrow it to 4.8% in the next fiscal year.
So much so, that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Affordable Care Act reduced the long-term fiscal gap by 2% of the gross domestic product over the next 75 years.
What economic theory tells us is to look at the entire projected path of policy, measure its fiscal gap, and decide on the basis of the size of its fiscal gap whether the policy is sustainable.
Now add to that the fact that any revenue implications of such a policy change are substantially overstated and what you get is the potential for good intentions (closing the fiscal gap) to lead to bad policy.
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The only way to assess a country's fiscal condition that is free of this problem is by forming the country's fiscal gap--the present value total of all the official debts and unofficial current and future spending obligations after netting out all the current and future taxes everyone is currently slated to pay.
We had a big gap up to start the year after the fiscal cliff deal was ironed out at the last hour, and since then it has been a slow grind higher.
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The fiscal and economic challenges are conspicuous: a substantial and intractable gap between public spending and tax revenues in the US at a time of anaemic economic growth.
It's a riff reminiscent of the fiscal cliff debates we're hearing in Washington, reflecting the growing gap between the super-rich and the middle class.
India's budget gap stands at 5.2% of gross domestic product this fiscal year ending on March 31, slightly lower than the 5.3% projected earlier by the finance ministry.
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