美国面临的最紧迫政策问题——如何恢复财政控制——在期中选举的竞选活动中却鲜见踪影。两党都不愿提出解决这一问题的可行方案，因此他们似乎达成了一致，决定对此闭口不谈。这种沉默是治理的彻底失败。人们不禁要问，华盛顿还能在这条路上蒙混过关多久。
The most pressing policy question facing the US — how to restore fiscal control — has been conspicuously absent in campaigning for the midterm elections. Neither party is willing to frame a plausible way to solve the problem, so they’ve seemingly agreed not to discuss it. Their silence is an abject failure of governance. One wonders how much longer Washington will be able to get away with it.
诚然，关于税收和公共支出的具体争论占据了显著位置，但这并非关于削减预算赤字辩论的一部分。民主党不乏让政府花更多钱的办法，而共和党也一如既往地致力于减税。只是别提赤字。
Yes, narrower arguments about tax and public spending have featured prominently — but not as part of a debate about reducing the budget deficit. Democrats aren’t short of ways for the government to spend more, and Republicans are as devoted as always to cutting taxes. Just don’t mention the deficit.
一些民主党人确实赞成向富人征收更高税收，以及“全民医保”等等。但他们并不假装任何此类计划能够自负盈亏，或者更广泛意义上的“更公平税收”足以支付他们对额外支出的诸多雄心壮志——更不用说产生能够削减公共借款的盈余了。出于竞选目的，这或许是明智之举，因为这种说法经不起推敲。相反，他们将增加支出和增加税收作为本身就值得追求的目标来倡导。无需算账。无需提及公共借款。
Some Democrats do favor higher taxes on the wealthy as well as “Medicare for all” and so forth. But they don’t pretend that any such plan would pay for itself, or that “fairer taxes” more broadly would be enough to cover the cost of their many ambitions for extra spending — much less yield a surplus that would cut public borrowing. That might be wise for campaign purposes, since such a claim couldn’t withstand scrutiny. Instead, they advocate higher spending and higher taxes as worthy goals in their own right. No need to do the math. No need to mention public borrowing.
对共和党而言，相应的坚定信念是更多的减税是一切问题的答案，并且能够带来足够的增长来治愈财政顽疾。时至今日，这既已被证明是虚假的，表面上也难以令人信服——因此在选举中不应着重强调。取而代之的是，应该把重点放在对方企图剥夺你的健康保险以及更大比例工资的计划上。赤字？什么赤字？
For Republicans, the corresponding article of faith is that more tax cuts are the answer to everything and would raise growth by enough to cure the fiscal sickness. By now, this is both provably false and implausible on its face — and therefore not to be emphasized for electoral purposes. Concentrate instead on the other side’s plans to take away your health insurance and an even bigger chunk of your wages. Deficit? What deficit?
或许这些选举关乎更重大的事情。你可能会认为，轻重缓急有先后：财政控制可以等等。好吧，它可能等不了。想想债券市场最近发出的信号。在公共借款占国内生产总值（GDP）的6%（尽管经济增长尚可且充分就业）以及净公共债务占GDP的100%（按目前趋势将在2036年达到120%）的情况下，10年期国债收益率已攀升至5%以上——这是几十年来的最高水平，与法国政府在对全面债务危机的担忧日益加剧之际所必须支付的利息不相上下。
Maybe bigger things are at stake in these elections. First things first, you might think: Fiscal control can wait. Well, it may not. Consider the signal the bond market has been sending lately. With public borrowing at 6% of gross domestic product (despite decent growth and full employment) and net public debt at 100% of GDP (on track to hit 120% by 2036), 10-year yields have climbed to more than 5% — the highest in decades and on a par with what France’s government has to pay amid rising fears of an outright debt crisis.
值得注意的是，即便一切顺利，美国的公共债务预计仍将不断攀升。这是一个大胆的假设。美国投资者在对公共借款初现的焦虑和对未来人工智能驱动的利润的极度亢奋之间左右为难。如果前者恶化，债券收益率的上行压力将会增加，从而加剧财政失衡，并在最坏的情况下，引发加速恶化的恶性循环。如果后者骤然消退，对总需求的打击可能会放慢经济增速——这本身就会加剧预算赤字，并需要采取相机的财政刺激措施来缓冲冲击。
Note that US public debt is projected to keep on rising even if all goes well. A brave assumption. US investors are torn between incipient anxiety over public borrowing and peak exuberance over future AI-driven profits. If the first gets worse, upward pressure on bond yields will rise, adding to the fiscal imbalance and, in the worst case, starting an abruptly accelerating vicious circle. If the second subsides all at once, the hit to aggregate demand could slow the economy — adding to the budget deficit in its own right and demanding discretionary fiscal stimulus to cushion the blow.
即使华盛顿立即着手，要想摆脱这个泥潭也十分困难。继续忽视它并不能让事情维持在渐进的、因而是可控的恶化状态。随着债务不断攀升，它最终会达到一个问题实际上无法解决的地步。足以稳定债务的严厉财政紧缩对经济的打击将如此之大，以至于适得其反。在这个末日临头的拐点到来之前很久，多年来对这一主题的回避将导致“财政主导”——这意味着美联储被迫通过购买债务来为公共借款融资，推高通胀，并实际上默许了债务违约。
Digging out of this hole will be difficult even if Washington starts immediately. Continuing to ignore it doesn’t keep things in a holding pattern of gradual, hence manageable, deterioration. As the debt creeps up, it eventually reaches a point where the problem is literally insoluble. Fiscal restraint severe enough to stabilize the debt would hit the economy so hard as to be self-defeating. Well before that doomsday tipping-point is reached, years of avoiding the subject will have achieved “fiscal dominance” — meaning that the Federal Reserve is forced to finance public borrowing by buying debt, driving up inflation, and in effect enabling default.
与此同时，危害并不局限于假设的最坏情况。财政控制的崩溃已经让美国人的生活状况大大恶化。
Meantime, the harm isn’t confined to hypothetical worst-case scenarios. The collapse of fiscal control is already making Americans a lot worse off.
财政脆弱使得撤销那些推高物价并抑制非人工智能投资的关税变得更加困难，因为这些税收收入无法省去。财政过度迫使美联储将短期利率维持在高于正常水平的位置。不断上升的长期利率推高了抵押贷款利率和信贷成本，加剧了人们对负担能力的抱怨。不断恶化的前景使人们更难以解决社会保障和医疗保险信托基金即将破产的问题，从而加剧了普遍的经济焦虑。
Fiscal fragility makes it harder to unwind the tariffs that have raised prices and suppressed non-AI investment, because the revenue can’t be spared. Fiscal excess obliges the Fed to keep short-term interest rates higher than otherwise. Rising long-term rates drive mortgage rates and the cost of credit, adding to complaints about affordability. The worsening outlook complicates remedies for the impending insolvency of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, adding to the prevailing economic anxiety.
原谅我认为这一切至少值得讨论。一旦该国的政治家们决定提出一些答案，这些答案将会引发激烈的争端——本该如此。你是通过加税、削减支出、还是两者兼而有之来恢复财政控制？哪些税？哪些支出项目？权衡是什么？谁来买单？民主党和共和党以截然不同的先验立场接近这些问题。选举本该就是为了进行这样的争论并做出一些选择。
Forgive me for thinking all this is at least worth discussing. The answers, once the country’s politicians decide to come up with some, will be bitterly contested — as indeed they should be. Do you restore fiscal control by raising taxes, cutting spending, or some of both? Which taxes? Which spending programs? What are the trade-offs? Who pays? Democrats and Republicans approach these questions with radically different priors. Elections are supposed to be about having such arguments and making some choices.
两党合作并没有死。在关键问题上，民主党和共和党是团结一致的：财政崩塌不把这个国家狠狠打击一下，是不会得到解决的。
Bipartisanship isn’t dead after all. Where it counts, Democrats and Republicans are united: Fiscal breakdown won’t be addressed until it kicks the country in the teeth.