[金融时报2011.08.11]美国选择自我毁灭

Jigong

Washington’s appetite for self-destruction

http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001040073/en

It is difficult to remember a more dismal moment in American politics. The debt ceiling crisis and the agreement that ended it point to deep dysfunction in our system. In a variety of ways, the episode portends continued short-term economic misery and long-term national decline. It is as if the US chose at the last minute not to commit financial suicide – but only out of preference for a slower, more excruciating form of self-destruction.

The crisis has, however, been clarifying in several respects. We can now say with some confidence that Washington will be doing nothing more to help the ailing economy. President Barack Obama is trying to push an employment agenda. But for the federal government to spur growth or create jobs, it has to spend additional money. The antediluvian Republicans who control Congress do not think that demand can be expanded in this way. They believe that the 2009 stimulus bill, which prevented an even worse economy over the past two years, is responsible for the current weakness. Their approach of depression economics – embedded in the debt ceiling compromise – demands that we address the risk of a double-dip recession by cutting public expenditure immediately.

So instead of trying to pull out of the stall, the US economy will simply have to absorb whatever blow is coming. Some congressional Republicans are just backward, rejecting modern economics on the same basis that they reject Darwin and climate science. Others are cynical, desiring the worst possible economy as an aid to recapturing the White House and Senate in 2012. Still others simply do not believe that government action can ever be a force for good. Whatever their motivations, there is something sad about desperate Americans looking to a party that lacks any inclination to alleviate their misery.

A second lesson is that Washington will not be doing anything to address the fiscal imbalance that threatens America’s long-term economic vitality. The deal Mr Obama and John Boehner, the Republican House speaker, tentatively agreed in early July was far from perfect, unbalanced in favour of spending cuts over revenues by a ratio of 4:1. But that $4,000bn “grand bargain” would have constituted a serious downpayment on the deficit and sent a strong signal to financial markets that our political establishment took the problem seriously.

Instead we got this week’s sad bargain – a much smaller, deferred and contingent reduction in spending projections. This sends quite a different signal: our political system cannot cope with the difference between what comes in and what goes out. The quandary is now doubly insoluble because closing that gap, by all sensible accounts, requires both higher revenues and reductions in entitlement spending. Faced with Republican intransigence on taxes, Democrats are less likely than ever to give ground on social security or Medicare.

We now also understand that the US is not going to make meaningful investments in its economic future. The conservative position that all spending is evil obliterates any distinction between investment and consumption, between the long term and the short term. The US suffers with an increasingly third-world level of infrastructure, third-tier education system and enormous gaps in the preparedness of its workforce. The debate has now ended; money to upgrade those faltering systems will not be forthcoming. And by the way, the US is not going to take on any other major problems either – immigration, tax reform or climate change, for example. It is not going to do so for the same reason it has failed at sensible economic management: because the Tea Party has a veto.

Some lessons of the crisis have added significance beyond our shores. One is that America now regards its most solemn financial obligations as flexible commitments. The problem is not just that some members of Congress were willing to contemplate national default. It was that some of them clearly desired default as an ultimate weapon against social spending. The precedent has been set for using America’s credit rating as blackmail. The issue comes up again in less than a year and a half, at which point the masochistic drama of recent weeks could be repeated with a different outcome. This is the way in which the US resembles Greece – not in its underlying creditworthiness, but in making paying its debts a political question.

At the level of political culture, we have learnt some other sobering lessons: that compromise is dead and there is no point trying to explain complex matters to the American people. The president has tried this approach and has failed. It has been astonishing to watch Mr Obama’s sheer unwillingness to give up on his opponents after their refusal to work with him on the stimulus package, healthcare reform or the extension of the Bush tax cuts last autumn. A Congress dominated by mindless cannibals is now feasting on a supine president. But surely even he now realises there is no middle ground with antagonists whose only interest is in seeing you humiliated.

The writer is chairman and editor-in-chief of The Slate Group and author of ‘The Bush Tragedy’

Jigong

美国选择自我毁灭
2011年08月11日
作者：美国网络杂志Slate主编 雅各布•韦斯伯格 为英国《金融时报》撰稿

http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001040073

我们很难记起美国政治中还有比眼下更哀凉的时刻。债务上限危机、以及标志这一危机告终的协议，表明我们的体系存在严重的功能失调问题。从很多方面来说，这一插曲预示着短期内经济苦难将继续，而长期内国家将走向衰落。这好比美国在最后一刻选择了放弃金融自杀——但只是因为想选择一种更缓慢、也更令人痛苦的自我毁灭。

然而，在多个方面，这场危机已变得明朗起来。现在我们已经可以有点把握地说，美国政府将不会做出更多努力，来帮助陷入困境的经济。美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)正试图推动一项就业日程。但联邦政府要想刺激增长或创造就业，就必须支出更多的资金。把持国会的那些守旧的共和党人认为，不能以这种方式扩大需求。他们认为，避免了过去两年经济陷入更严重的困境的2009年经济刺激法案，正是当前经济疲弱的根源。他们这种萧条经济学的态度——在债务上限妥协中得到了鲜明体现——要求我们立即通过削减公共支出，来化解双底衰退风险。

因此，美国经济没有试图摆脱这种停滞，而是将被迫接受可能来临的一切打击。国会中的一些共和党人正在后退，他们拒绝现代经济学的原因，与当初有人否认达尔文(Darwin)和气候学的原因一样。另外一些人见利忘义，希望经济尽可能糟糕，以便为在2012年重新夺回白宫和参议院大权助一臂之力。还有一些人根本就不相信政府行动还能起什么好作用。无论他们的动机如何，绝望的美国人把希望寄予一个不可能减轻他们苦难的政党，实在令人遗憾。

第二点是美国政府将不会采取任何举措、来解决危及美国长期经济活力的财政失衡问题。奥巴马与众议院议长、共和党人约翰•博纳(John Boehner)在7月初暂时达成的协议远远称不上完美，也很不平衡：协议中支持削减支出的内容与支持增加税收的内容分量之比为4:1。但这一规模为4万亿美元的“大妥协”(grand bargain)本应构成美国赤字一笔有诚意的“定金”，并向金融市场传递一个强有力的信号：即我们的政治当局在严肃看待这一问题。

相反，我们上周得到的却是一项令人遗憾的妥协——支出预期的削减幅度要小得多、进行了延期而是是有条件。这传递了一种非常不同的信号：我们的政治体系解决不了收支的差距。现在要解决这个问题更是加倍困难，因为按照所有理性的说法，弥补这一缺口既需要增加税收、又需要减少福利支出。面对共和党在税收方面拒绝妥协的态度，与任何时候相比，民主党都更不可能在社保或老年医保(Medicare)上做出让步。

我们现在还明白了，美国不会对其经济前景做出任何像样的投资。保守的观点认为所有支出都是罪恶，这抹杀了投资和消费、长期和短期之间的所有差异。美国现在面临着基础设施日益沦为第三世界的水平、教育体系也位居三流，同时劳动力储备极度短缺的局面。眼下辩论已结束；升级这些摇摇欲坠的体系所需的资金不会唾手可得。另外，美国也不会去应对任何其它重大问题——例如移民、税收改革或气候变化，原因与未能实现明智的经济管理一样：茶党(Tea Party)拥有否决权。

在美国之外，此次危机带给人们的一些教训有着更大的意义。其一，目前美国将其最严肃的金融义务视为灵活的承诺。问题不仅仅在于一些国会议员愿意考虑国家违约，而在于其中一些人显然希望把违约当作反对社会支出的终极武器。用美国的信用评级进行讹诈的先例曾经有过。在不到一年半的时间里，这个问题再度出现，最近几周这场自虐式的戏剧可能会被重新演绎，而结局将是另一番模样。这正是美国与希腊的相似之处——不在于其根本的信誉度，而在于将还债变成一个政治问题。

在政治文化层面，我们吸取了其它一些让人警醒的教训：妥协已死，试图向美国民众解释复杂的问题毫无意义。总统曾尝试过这种方法，但以失败告终。目睹这一景象让人吃惊：去年秋季，在对手拒绝与奥巴马在经济刺激计划、医疗改革或延长布什减税政策方面进行合作之后，奥巴马仍一点也不愿放弃他们。由一群没有头脑的食人族统治的国会，眼下正对着一位懒得动弹的总统大块朵颐。但即使奥巴马现在肯定也意识到，面对唯一兴趣就是看着自己受到羞辱的对手，不存在任何妥协的空间。

本文作者为美国Slate集团董事长兼主编，著有《布什悲剧》(The Bush Tragedy)一书

译者/梁艳裳