美国债务提案没有赢家

    债务议案已尘埃落定。尽管两党及众多的电视评论员大肆制造恐慌言论，但证券市场，包括国债孳息率和信用违约掉期，一致认为美国发生债务违约的可能性微乎其微。这种恐慌衍生的结果是，提升债务上限议案强行获得通过，但它并未针对赤字问题提出实质性的解决办法，因此降级的威胁依然存在。

    凯恩斯经济学家诺贝尔奖得主保尔•克鲁格曼对《纽约时报》（New York Times）表达了自己忧虑，他强调，“美国将进行大幅度的预算削减”。我们不确定克鲁格曼博士在他的纽约上西部公寓中或者常青藤联盟学校办公室中是否配备了计算器，因为他的断言与实际情况差了十万八千里。

    在短期内，根据国会预算办公室（Congressional Budget Office）最新的估算，根据该议案，2012年的预算削减仅有210亿美元，2013年仅为420亿美元。上周我们曾戏称国会此举无异于拆东墙补西墙。也就是说，虽然赤字削减额和债务提升上限额度大致相当，但各自的执行期却大不一样。所以说，在短期内，该议案根本无法缓解赤字问题。如果评级机构还有点职业道德的话，那么该议案对于美国债务的保级应该没有什么实质性的意义。

    除此之外，还有一点需要理解的是，预算削减方案是按照国会预算办公室的基准数制定的。按照目前国会预算办公室的这个基准数，也就是《2012财年总统预算案的分析报告》（An Analysis of the President's Budget Proposal For Fiscal Year 2012）中所提到的基数，国家背负的总债务将由2011年的约10.4万亿美元升至2021年的约20.8万亿美元。因此，即便是完成了预计的预算削减，这一基准预测仍将在未来的10年中使美国资产负债表增加超过8万亿美元的债务。这也是为什么参议员兰德•保尔在一封公开信中声明不支持该议案的原因：

    “即使所有的目标都能达成而且超级委员会也能恪尽职守，在最为乐观的情况下，该议案也将在未来10年带来超过7万亿美元的债务。着实恐怖。”

    从中期来看，影响赤字问题最关键的因素是美国经济的复苏。投资机构Hedgeye今年一直都不看好美国的GDP增长，然而眼下很多对下半年经济增长率预测几乎是Hedgeye预测数值的两倍。然而实际报告数据与我们看空经济增长的预测是一致的，2011年前两个季度同期增长率仅为0.4%和1.3%（GDP预估可能要比今后修正后的数字要高出80%）。增速缓慢会带来一系列问题，但眼下人们却忽视了其中最关键的一点，即增速放缓对联邦政府赤字的重要影响。

    纵观整体格局，作为制定预算削减数的基本依据，国会预算办公室所提供的赤字预估本身也存在很大的问题，因为当下经济形势尤其是GDP的增长预期不容乐观。国会预算办公室2011年1月所发布的《预算及经济展望：2011财年-2021财年》（The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2011 to 2021）写道：

    “总的来说，如果实际年均GDP增长率比国会预算办公司的基准预期低0.1个百分点，那么年度赤字额将继续扩大，到2021年，赤字额将攀升至680亿美元。而2011-2021赤字累计增额将高达3，100亿美元。”

    在经济形势预测中，国会预算办公室预计2011-2021年的年均GDP增速为2.9%。 有意思的是，与过去的10年年均增速1.7%相比，这一增速明显偏大。如果未来10年的增长速率与前10年相当（当然对于一个负债超过GDP总量90%的经济实体来说也是有可能的）那么按国会预算办公室的基准数计算，此间将新增赤字3.7万亿，再加上兰德•保尔的7万亿，那么到2021年，美国资产负债表将累计新增共计10.7万亿的赤字。

    朋友们，这可是个天文数字。

    The debt deal is done and, despite the best fear mongering by both parties and many of the talking heads on TV, the credit markets -- both Treasury yields and credit defaults swaps -- have been consistently signaling that a U.S. debt default was highly unlikely. The derivative impact of the fear mongering is that a deal is being pushed through, but it will not truly address deficit issues and continues to leave the door wide open for a potential ratings downgrade.

    Keynesian economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman voiced his concern about this bill in the New York Times with his emphasis that "there will be big spending cuts." We are not sure whether Dr. Krugman has a calculator in either his Upper West Side apartment or hallowed Ivy League office, but nothing could be further from the truth.

    In the short term, according to the most recent scoring by the Congressional Budget Office, the impact of this bill is minimal with a mere $21 billion in cuts in fiscal 2012 and $42 billion in cuts in 2013. Last week we called this a Congressional comb-over. That is, while the amount of cuts to the deficit and the amount that the debt ceiling will be extended are roughly equal, they are on two very different time frames. As noted, in the short term, the bill literally does nothing to alleviate the deficit and if the ratings agencies are being intellectually honest, this bill should not meaningfully change the creditworthiness of U.S. government debt.

    Moreover, it is important to understand that the proposed spending cuts come off of the Congressional Budget Office baseline. Based on the current CBO baseline, as represented in "An Analysis of the President's Budget Proposal For Fiscal Year 2012," total debt held by the public will increase from ~ $10.4 trillion in 2011 to ~ $20.8 trillion in 2021. Therefore, the baseline projections will still add over $8 trillion in debt to the U.S. balance sheet over the next decade AFTER the proposed cuts. As Senator Rand Paul wrote in an open letter stating why he wouldn't vote for this deal:

    "This deal, even if all targets are met and the Super Committee wields its mandate - results in a BEST case scenario of still adding more than $7 trillion more in debt over the next 10 years. That is sickening."

    In the intermediate term, the more critical issue impacting the U.S. deficit is the domestic outlook for economic growth. Hedgeye has been on the low end of U.S. GDP estimates for the majority of the year, and consensus growth forecasts for the second half are still nearly twice that of ours. The actual reported numbers have supported our contrarian stance, coming in at 0.4% on a quarter-over-quarter basis in Q1 2011 and 1.3% in Q2 2011 (advance estimate – which may also wind up being ~80% too high after future revisions!). There are many issues with slow growth, but the key one that is not currently being contemplated is its impact on the federal deficit.

    From a bigger picture perspective, the deficit projections provided by the CBO, which are the basis on which the spending cuts are predicated, are highly questionable based on a number of the embedded economic assumptions, in particular GDP growth. According to the CBO's January 2011 publication, "The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2011 to 2021":

    "All told, if growth of real GDP each year was 0.1 percentage point lower than is assumed in CBO's baseline, annual deficits would be larger by amounts that would climb to $68 billion in 2021. The cumulative deficit for 2011 through 2021 would rise by $310 billion."

    In its economic projections, the CBO assumes 2.9% real annualized GDP growth from 2011 to 2021. Interestingly, that is a noted acceleration from the last ten years, which produced an average annual rate of 1.7% real GDP growth. If the next ten years produce comparable growth to the prior ten years, which is reasonable for an economy that is at 90%+ debt-to-GDP, the incremental deficit in that period over the CBO baseline would be $3.7 trillion, upping Rand Paul's $7 trillion figure to a whopping $10.7 trillion in additional deficits added to the U.S. balance sheet through 2021.

    And that, my friends, is a lot of billions.