IN MOST Western countries, as former Bank of Israel governor David Klein noted in a recent article, the national debt is about 60 percent of gross domestic product, requiring annual interest payments of some 2% of GDP. But in Israel, whose debt is a whopping 100% of GDP – about NIS 550b. – annual interest payments consume about 6% of GDP. In other words, reducing our debt by 40&, to standard Western levels, would reduce our interest payments by about 67%. Applying that to the 2005 figures, that would mean annual interest payments of about NIS 12b. instead of NIS 36b. Thus reducing Israel’s debt to accepted Western levels would free up some NIS 24b, a year in interest payments – the equivalent of the total health or welfare budget. And this extra money would be available not just once, but every single year – enabling massive long-term investments in education, job retraining and other programs that could really reduce poverty, as opposed to merely providing temporary relief.
CLEARLY, PARING down debt involves short-term sacrifice: Some money would have to be taken from other projects and used for debt repayment instead. Equally clearly, the sums involved are too large to permit rapid reductions: A NIS 220b. debt reduction plan would have to be spread out over many years. Yet over the long run, interest savings of NIS 24b. a year mean that the plan would effectively pay for itself within 10 years of completion. And even in the short term, since every shekel of debt reduction lowers interest payments, less than a shekel must be taken from other programs in order to finance it. The ideal time to reduce debt is when the economy is growing rapidly, since rapid growth means higher tax revenues, and with more income at its disposal, the government can pare down debt without cutting as deeply into existing spending. And Israel is currently enjoying very rapid growth: GDP grew by an estimated 5.2% last year, and the Finance Ministry has forecast 3.9% growth this year. Yet instead of taking advantage of this to reduce debt, the government plans to increase our debt still further in 2006: The proposed 2006 budget calls for a deficit of some NIS 17.2b., meaning the national debt would be increased by that amount. As a result, annual debt servicing costs will also rise. In fact, Israel’s fiscal policy for many years now has been one of perpetual deficits: Regardless of whether the economy is booming or shrinking, the budget calls for a deficit of about 3% of GDP every year. And therefore, every year, the national debt increases. Granted, there are years like 2005, when the economy grew faster than the debt, meaning that even though total debt increased, it declined as a percentage of GDP. But there are also many years when the debt grows faster than the economy – which is why the national debt has been stuck at around 100% of GDP for years.
ONE DOES not have to be an economic genius to realize that an endlessly increasing national debt, with its concomitant increase in annual debt servicing costs, means that over the long run, the country will have less money available for other needs. In other words, reckless borrowing today deprives our children and grandchildren tomorrow, since it is they who will have to finance the ever-increasing debt payments by cutting back on other spending. If, on the other hand, we take advantage of the current economic growth to start reducing debt, the concomitant reduction in annual interest payments would free up sizable sums every year that could be used to increase spending on other programs. Poverty is a long-term problem; it cannot be eliminated overnight. And therefore, any successful anti-poverty program will require investments stretching out over many years. But financing such a long-term program requires a long-term source of income. And the only realistic source of such income is the annual savings that would be produced by a serious program of debt reduction.
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