经济学人下载:违约杯具已避,跛脚政治风险犹存

Les grandes illusions 宏大的幻想

Pundits and political wise men have long dreamed of a “grand bargain”, which would arrest the growth of entitlement spending while raising tax revenue by closing loopholes. It is more or less the only formula that solves America’s budget woes while sharing political pain equally between the two parties. It is no coincidence that such a bargain lies at the heart of most recent bipartisan deficit-reduction schemes, including those put forward by the Senate’s “Gang of Six” and the president’s own fiscal commission. Both plans would have cut the deficit by roughly $4 trillion over the next decade, enough to put the debt on a downward path relative to GDP. Many hoped the debt-ceiling increase would be the vehicle to deliver it.

权威人士和明智的政客一直以来都梦想着能有一个“宏大的协议”，一方面可以控制福利开支的增长，另一方面通过堵住税收漏洞来增加收入。这起码还是目前唯一能够解决美国预算困境的方案，另外两党还能均摊政治苦果。所以说，这个协议能够成为最近两党减赤计划表，包括由参议院“六人小组”和总统自己的财政委员会提出的计划表，的核心议题，绝非巧合。这两个计划表方案都要求在未来十年削减大约4万亿的赤字，对比GDP的比例，已经足够使债务呈现一个下降趋势。很多人还希望债务上限的提升只是达成这一趋势的一个手段。

But Mr Obama, despite much talk about the need for long-term fiscal consolidation, has done little to advance it. He ignored his commission’s findings, and instead proposed a budget in February that left entitlements untouched. As for the Republicans, they have been as obdurate as Mr Obama was feckless. They walked out of negotiations no fewer than three times over the summer because the Democrats had the temerity to propose tax increases. Mr Obama and John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House, came close to striking a grand bargain a few weeks ago that would have reformed entitlements and tamed future deficits; but they fell out, both sides agree, on the subject of tax.

虽然奥巴马嘴上嚷嚷着要制定长期稳固的财政方案，但在行动上却丝毫未见其踪影。早些时候，他完全无视其委员会（即前面提到的总统专属财政委员会）给出的建议，转而于今年2月份提交了另一份财政方案，而这个方案中福利项目依旧完好无损。对于共和党来说，他们同样也倔得像奥巴马，指望他们是没戏了，这个夏天他们已经至少三次使谈判破裂，就因为民主党人一个劲地想提高税收。奥巴马和共和党国会议长约翰．博纳，数周前曾经一度接近达成这项“宏大的协议”，它涉及到了福利项目改革和限制未来财政赤字，但就是在这个税收问题上，双方谈崩了。

The result was a deal that neither side believes can fix the deficit. All $917 billion of the immediate spending cuts comes from discretionary outlays: items such as defence, law enforcement and research, which must be authorised each year by Congress. Spending on these was already heading downwards (see chart 2), and the deal accelerates the decline.

两党都不认为目前达成的这个协议能够解决赤字问题。事实上，9170亿美元的立减开支全都来自于可变动开销：比如国防、司法执行研究开支等这类条目，而且这些都还必须每年得到国会的批准授权。况且这些方面的支出，之前已经呈现下降趋势（见图表2），这项协议不过是加速了这个趋势而已。