“The rich are much better placed to feed at the public trough. The poor get crumbs.” – Steve Hanke, American Economist, 1942 –

August 5, 2018

by Steve Stofka

In the past fifty years, the increasing role of the Federal government in the economy has been the chief contributor to inequality. In the last years of the Bush administration, America became a socialist economy. Credit growth under the Trump administration has not changed from the levels during the Obama administration. On this score, Trump is Obama II.

Since the Great Recession, the federal government has far surpassed the role of banks in net input into the economic engine. In the post WW2 period, the annual growth in credit outstanding (see Notes #1) to households, corporations, state and local government surpassed the net input of the federal government, its spending less the taxes it drained out of the engine. The blue line in the graph below is the growth in bank credit.

The Great Society and the escalation of the Vietnam War in the 1960s marked a changing role for the Federal government. Bernie Sanders marked the early 1970s as the beginning of the increase in inequality. Bernie suggested that the Federal government should have a greater role in the economy to correct the problem. Bernie has it backwards, as I will show. It is the greater role of the Federal government in the economy that has contributed to inequality. The hand that feeds the poor becomes the hand that feeds the rich.

Under subsequent presidents after 1968, both Republican and Democratic, the Federal input into the economy dominated the net – loans minus payments – input of bank credit. When the Federal government spends more than it taxes, it becomes a proxy debtor for individuals, state and local governments who cannot borrow enough to meet their needs. As the net credit input into the economy sank in the last two years of the Bush administration, 2007-2008, the role of the Federal government approached the levels of western European socialist governments.

The Obama Administration and super-majority Democratic Congress of 2009-2010 simply held that input level established earlier by the Bush Administration and a Democratic House. When Republicans took control of the House in 2011, they fought with the Obama Administration to reduce the input level. From 2012 through 2015, the growth in credit eclipsed the net input of the Federal government. Since early 2016, the growth in Federal input has once again dominated the role of the banks in the private economy. After the tax cuts passed last year, the Federal government will drain less taxes out of the economy and further cement its dominant role as an input into the engine.

For the past 65 years, quarterly credit growth has averaged 1.9%. In the last ten years, it has averaged .4%. From April 2017, two months after Trump took office, through March 2018, quarterly net credit growth averaged the same .4% as it did during the Obama years. Banks may express confidence in the Trump presidency, but their credit policies indicate that they have as little confidence in Trump’s Washington as they had in Obama’s Washington. Unless Trump can turn that sentiment, his administration will suffer the same lackluster growth as the Obama administration. If the Federal government continues to dominate economic input, Trump’s pledge to drain the swamp will be broken. Federal economic power only feeds the K-Street crocodiles lurking in the swamp waters.

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Notes

1. The growth of credit outstanding (net input) is a function of new credit issued (input), debtors’ payments on existing loans (drain) and the write-off of non-performing loans (drain).

K-Street in Washington is the location of many of the nation’s most powerful lobbying firms.