http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_3e66af46010170ma.html
America's European moment
美国的欧洲时刻
The troubling similarities between the fiscal mismanagement in Washington and the mess in the euro zone
华盛顿的财政处置失当与欧元区的混乱不堪有着令人不安的相似之处
FOR the past three years America's leaders have looked on Europe's management of the euro crisis with barely disguised contempt. In the White House and on Capitol Hill there has beenincredulity that Europe's politicians could be so incompetent at handling an economic problem; soaddicted to last-minute, short-term fixes; and so incapable of agreeing on a long-termstrategy for the single currency.
过去三年间，美国领导人一直以几乎不加掩饰的蔑视态度旁观欧洲对欧元危机的处理。白宫和国会山一直都在怀疑的是，欧洲的政客们在处理一个经济难题时会如此不胜任；他们会如此热衷于在最后一刻达成一个短期的修补协议；他们会如此没有能力为单一货币达成一项长期的战略。
Those criticisms were all valid, but now those who made them should take the planks from their own eyes. America's economy may not be in as bad a state as Europe's, but the failures of its politicians—epitomised by this week's 11th-hour deal to avoid the calamity of the “fiscal cliff”—suggest that Washington's pattern of dysfunction is disturbingly similar to the euro zone's in three depressing ways.
这些批评无可指摘，但是如今那些做出批评的人们应该把他们眼前的遮挡物拿掉了。美国的经济处境或许不如欧洲差，但是美国政客们的失败——从本周为避免财政悬崖灾难而达成最后时刻历协议中体现出来——提醒人们注意，华盛顿的功能紊乱形式在三个令人沮丧的方面同欧元区有着令人不安的相似之处。
Can-kicking* is a transatlantic sport
踢盒子是大洋两岸的游戏
The first is an inability to get beyond patching up. The euro crisis deepened because Europe's politicians serially failed to solve the single currency's structural weaknesses, resorting instead to a succession of temporary fixes, usually negotiated well after midnight. America's problems are different. Rather than facing an imminent debt crisis, as many European countries do, it needs to deal with the huge long-term gap between tax revenue and spending promises, particularly on health care, while not squeezing the economy too much in the short term. But its politicians now show themselves similarly addicted to kicking the can down the road at the last minute.
第一个相似之处是无力超越打扑丁。欧元危机深化是由于欧洲政客们在解决单一货币的结构性缺陷时一而再再而三的失败，继而求助于一连串的暂时性修补，并且常常为此而谈判至凌晨。美国的问题有所不同。她所面临的并不是像大多数欧洲国家那样的紧迫的债务危机，需要应对的是税收收入与开支承诺之间巨大的、长期的差距，医疗保健上的差距尤为明显；同时，只需注意别在短期内过度压迫经济即可。但是，美国政客如今表现得同样热衷于在最后时刻玩在马路上踢盒子的游戏。
This week's agreement, hammered out between Republican senators and the White House on New Year's Eve, passed by the Senate in the early hours of New Year's Day and by the House of Representatives later the same day, averted the spectre of recession. It eliminated most of the sweeping tax increases that were otherwise due to take effect from January 1st, except for those on the very wealthy, and temporarily put off all the threatened spending cuts. Like many of Europe's crisissummits, that staved off complete disaster: rather than squeezing 5% out of the economy (as the fiscal cliff implied) there will now be a more manageable fiscal squeeze of just over 1% of GDP in 2013. Markets rallied in relief.
本周的协议由共和党籍参议员与白宫经过艰苦谈判后在新年之夜达成，随后参议院在新年的头几个小时内通过了这份协议，当天晚些时候，这份协议也在众议院获得通过，该协议避开了衰退的魔影。除了对非常富有的人增税之外，协议消除了大多数的大幅度增税，不然的话这些措施原定于1月1日开始生效；同时，该协议暂时推迟了所有的迫在眉睫的开支消减。如同多数欧洲危机峰会一样，这推迟了完全的灾难：现在这种更加可控的财政挤压仅占2013年GDP的1%多一点，而不是从经济中挤占5%（如财政悬崖所暗示的那样）。市场在如释重负中大幅上涨。
But for how long? The automatic spending cuts have merely been postponed for two months, by which time Congress must also vote to increase the country's debt ceiling if the Treasury is to be able to go on paying its bills. So more budgetary brinkmanship will be on display in the coming weeks.
但是，这会持续多久呢？自动的开支消减仅仅被推迟了两个月。届时，若财政部能够继续支付账单的话，国会还必须投票以决定提高国家的债务上限。因此，未来的几个星期内会出台更多的预算应急方案。
And the temporary fix ignored America's underlying fiscal problems. It did nothing to control theunsustainable path of “entitlement” spending on pensions and health care (the latter is on track to double as a share of GDP over the next 25 years); nothing to rationalize America'shideously complex and distorting tax code, which includes more than $1 trillion of deductions; and virtually nothing to close America's big structural budget deficit. (Putting up tax rates at the very top simply does not raise much money.) Viewed through anything other than a two-month prism, it was an abject failure. The final deal raised less tax revenue than John Boehner, the Republican speaker in the House of Representatives, once offered during the negotiations, and it included none of the entitlement reforms that President Barack Obama was once prepared to contemplate.
同时，暂时的修补忽视了美国潜在的财政问题。它没能调控养老金和医疗保险（后者已步入在未来25年内在GDP中的份额翻一番的轨道）等“津贴”开支的不可持续之路；它没能使美国异常复杂和扭曲的纳税编码更加合理，这其中包括一万多亿美元的减税项目；因而，实际上也没能填补美国巨大的结构性财政赤字。（仅提高最高收入人群的税率无法筹集太多的资金。）除了从两个月的角度来看，从任何一方面来说这都是一个糟糕透顶的失败。最终协议所提高的税收收入少于众议院议长约翰·博纳曾在谈判中提出的数额，并且该协议不包括贝拉克·奥巴马总统一度预期的任何一项津贴改革。
The reason behind this lamentable outcome is the outsize influence of narrow interest groups—which marks a second, unhappy parallel with Europe. The inability of Europeans to rise abovepetty national concerns, whether over who pays for bail-outs or who controls bank supervision, has prevented them from making the big compromises necessary to secure the single currency's future. America's Democrats and Republicans have proved similarly incapable of reaching a grandbargain; both are far too driven by their parties’ extremists and too focused on winningconcessions from the other side to work steadily together to secure the country's fiscal future.
这种可悲结局的背后原因在于特殊利益集团的影响力过大——这是第二个同欧洲相似的遗憾之处。无论是在由谁为救助买单还是在由谁掌控银行监管等问题上，欧洲在超越不重要的国家利益上的无能妨碍了他们为确保单一货币的未来而达成必要的重大妥协。美国的民主党和共和党已经证明了达成一项重大交易的同样的无能；双方受各自党内极端派的影响过大，同时过于重视赢得对方的妥协从而使使双方难以稳定地合作以确保国家的财政前景。
The third parallel is that politicians have failed to be honest with voters. Just as Chancellor Angela Merkel and President François Hollande have avoided coming clean to the Germans and the French about what it will take to save the single currency, so neither Mr Obama nor the Republican leaders have been brave enough to tell Americans what it will really take to fix the fiscal mess. Democrats pretend that no changes are necessary to Medicare (health care for the elderly) or Social Security (pensions). Republican solutions always involve unspecified spending cuts, and they regard any tax rise as socialism. Each side prefers to denounce the other, reinforcing the very polarisation that is preventing progress.
第三个相似之处在于，政客们没能对选民们坦率诚实。就如同安格拉·默克尔总理和弗朗索瓦·奥朗德总统避免向德国人和法国人讲清楚，为拯救单一货币将付出什么代价一样，奥巴马和共和党人也没能鼓足勇气告诉美国人，到底如何才能治愈财政混乱。民主党人装模做样地称，没有必要对医疗保险（针对老年人的卫生保健福利）或社会安全保障（养老金）进行变革。共和党的解决方案总是涉及含糊的开支消减，而且他们认为任何的增税都是社会主义的。每一方都倾向于贬低另一方，从而强化了正在阻碍进步的两极分化。
Fixed today, hobbled tomorrow
今天修修补补，明日一瘸一拐
Optimists will point out that America is unlikely to face a European-style debt crisis in the near future, but the slow-burning fuse is itself a problem. One positive side-effect of Europe's crisis is that it has forced euro-zone countries to raise their retirement ages and rationalise pensions and health-care promises. America, which has the biggest structural budget deficit in the rich world bar Japan, will become an outlier in its failure to deal with the fiscal consequences of an ageing population. Its ageing is slower than Europe's but, as its debt piles up and business and consumer confidence is dampened, the eventual crunch will be more painful.
乐观派会认为，美国不可能在不久的将来面临欧洲式的债务危机，但这条缓慢燃烧的导火索本身就是一个问题。欧洲危机的一个积极的副作用是，危机强迫欧元区各国提高了他们的退休年龄，并且使养老金和医疗保险承诺变得更加合理。美国是除日本之外世界上结构性赤字最大的国家，若她不能处理好老龄化人口的财政后果，将会变成一个弃儿。美国的老龄化慢于欧洲，不过，随着债务的累积以及商业和消费信心的受挫，最终的危机会更加痛苦。
The saddest thing about this week's deal is how unaware Messrs Obama and Boehner seem to be of the wider damage their petty partisanship is doing to their country. National security is not just about the number of tanks or rockets you have. As it has failed to deal with the single currency, Europe's standing has crumbled in the world. Why should developing countries trust American leadership, when it seems incapable of solving anything at home? And while the West's foremost democracy stays paralysed, China is making decisions and forging ahead.
本周协议最不可救药之处莫过于，奥巴马和博纳似乎都没有意识到他们狭隘的党派偏见对他们国家造成了更广泛的破坏。国家安全不仅仅在于你拥有多少坦克和火箭。正是由于没能处理好单一货币，欧洲的地位在世界上一落千丈。当美国看上去无法解决任何国内问题时，发展中国家为什么要相信她的领导力？同时，恰逢西方居于首位的民主制度瘫痪之时，中国正在下定决心奋勇前进。
This week Mr Obama boasted that he had fulfilled his mandate by raising taxes on the rich. In fact, by failing once again to clear up America's fundamental fiscal trouble, he and Republican leaders are building Brussels on the Potomac.
奥巴马在本周吹嘘说，他通过提高对富人的税收业已履行了他的使命。事实上，正是由于在清除美国根本的财政问题上的再次失败，他和共和党大佬们正在波托马克岸边建造布鲁塞尔。