September 21, 2017
It is more than a bit bizarre that no one seems to pay any attention to the budgetary implications of the Fed’s decision to start selling off its assets. The impact is potentially fairly large in the scheme of things, possibly as much as $600 billion over the next decade. This is equal to roughly 0.5 percent of GDP. It’s pretty much the same number at stake in the various Obamacare repeal efforts.
For some reason, none, as in absolutely zero, of the news stories I have seen or heard about the asset sales mentioned its impact on the budget. It was the same story back in June when the Fed raised the issue at its meeting that month.
It’s a bit hard to understand how reporters at the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, and elsewhere can independently decide that adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the budget deficit over the next decade is not worth mentioning. (The basic story can be found here.)
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