当安迪·伯纳姆在7月就职时，这位热爱足球的首相承诺要发起进攻。他的政府将监督“过去40年来最大的变革”。厌倦了现状的英国人将“重新开始相信”。这种雄心需要一名前锋坐镇财政部，一位能改变局面的财政大臣。遗憾的是，约翰·希利10月28日提交的首份预算案全是防守。它应对了眼前的担忧：适度的增税巩固了公共财政，甚至更适度的发放缓解了生活成本。但预算案将大问题搁置一旁，无论是改革英国破碎的税制，还是为其支出雄心寻找资金，均未触及。
When Andy Burnham entered office in July, the football-mad prime minister promised to go on the attack. His government would oversee “the biggest changes in the last 40 years”. Britons fed up with the status quo would “start to believe again”. That ambition calls for a striker at the Treasury, a game-changing chancellor. Unfortunately John Healey’s first budget, on October 28th, was all defence. It dealt with the immediate worries: modest tax rises shored up the public finances, and even more modest handouts eased the cost of living. But the budget left the big problems, whether on reforming Britain’s broken tax system or finding the money for its spending ambitions, untouched.
公平地说，希利先生是在泥泞的球场上比赛。预算责任办公室（OBR）——一家财政监督机构——将2027年的增长预测从1.6%下调至1%，归咎于中东战争引发的能源危机。冲突推高了2027年的预估通胀率，从2%升至3.4%。中期来看，平均每年借贷成本将增加120亿英镑（160亿美元）。到2031-32财年，债务利息支出将吞噬GDP的4.2%（每年1600亿英镑），是疫情前水平的两倍多。
To be fair, Mr Healey was playing on a boggy pitch. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), a fiscal watchdog, cut its 2027 growth forecast from 1.6% to 1%, blaming the energy crisis caused by war in the Middle East. The conflict pushed estimated inflation for 2027 from 2% to 3.4%. Borrowing costs will be £12bn ($16bn) a year higher on average in the medium term. By 2031-32 debt-interest spending will consume 4.2% of GDP (£160bn a year), more than double the pre-pandemic level.
财政大臣的比赛计划是展示“财政纪律”，并给“英国在生活成本上一些喘息空间”。在这两点上，希利先生取得了短期成功，却为长期失败埋下伏笔。政府仍有望遵守其财政规则，债务下降，且到2029-30财年日常开支将由税收收入覆盖。赤字预计将减半，从今年的4.2%降至2029-30财年的2.1%。如果希利先生设法做到这一点，他的表现将远好于法国或美国。
The chancellor’s game plan was to show “fiscal discipline” and give “Britain some breathing space on the cost of living”. On both counts, Mr Healey achieved short-term success but set himself up for long-term failure. The government remains on track to meet its fiscal rules, with debt falling and day-to-day spending covered by tax revenues by 2029-30. The deficit is forecast to halve, from 4.2% this year to 2.1% in 2029-30. If Mr Healey manages to pull this off, he will be doing much better than the French or the Americans.
希利选择缩小其相对于财政规则的余量，从3月的240亿英镑降至150亿英镑。由于这些规则只在2029-30财年才具有约束力，他提前悄悄增加了支出（见图1）。即便要把余量维持在这一水平，也需要一系列琐碎的小幅税收调整。储蓄收入和房产收入的税率将上调两个百分点，在稳定状态下每年增加10亿英镑收入。对银行利润征收的限时附加税将增加15亿英镑收入。赌客和大型私人租车运营商也将不得不掏钱。所有这些变化都让税制更加繁杂，但无一对英国的竞争力构成根本性挑战。
Mr Healey chose to shrink his margin against the fiscal rules, to £15bn from £24bn in March. As the rules only bind in 2029-30, he snuck in higher spending early on (see chart 1). Holding the margin at even that level then required a medley of small, fiddly tax tweaks. Taxes on savings and property income will go up by two percentage points, raising £1bn a year in steady state. A time-limited surcharge on bank profits will raise £1.5bn. Gamblers and large operators of private-hire cars will also have to cough up. All these changes made the system messier, but none poses existential challenges to Britain’s competitiveness.
尽管希利没有进一步恶化公共财政值得欢迎，但不应误以为他是财政责任的典范。预计2029-30财年债务将占GDP的96.7%，高于目前的95.5%。如果政府即使在疫情这样的危机之外也无法稳定债务，那么当下一次危机来临时，它的应对能力将更弱。
Although it is welcome that Mr Healey did not degrade the public finances further, he should not be mistaken as a paragon of fiscal responsibility. Debt is expected to be 96.7% of GDP in 2029-30, up from 95.5% now. If the government cannot stabilise debt even outside a crisis like the pandemic, it will have less firepower when the next one hits.
更糟的是，很少有人相信工党会坚持其支出计划。希利乐于设定到2030年将GDP的3%用于国防的目标。（他几乎别无选择，因为他此前因拒绝设定这一目标而辞去国防大臣一职，当时是在基尔·斯塔默爵士手下。）然而，他对如何为此买单含糊其辞，把决定推给了明年的支出审查。预算责任办公室估计，按照当前计划，大多数部门在预测期的最后三年将面临每年2.6%的实际削减。
Worse, few believe Labour will stick to its spending plans. Mr Healey delighted in setting a target to spend 3% of GDP on defence by 2030. (He could hardly have done otherwise, having resigned as defence secretary under Sir Keir Starmer over a refusal to set such a target.) Yet he was hazy on how to pay for it, punting the decision to next year’s spending review. The OBR reckons that, under current plans, most departments face real-terms cuts of 2.6% a year in the last three years of the forecast.
政府似乎不太可能让挥霍成性的后座议员们通过这一方案，而伯纳姆本人也希望为国民护理服务等优先事项投入更多资金。
It seems unlikely that the government will get that past its spendthrift backbenchers, and Mr Burnham himself wants more money for priorities such as a National Care Service.
生活成本方面的情况也类似。这份预算延续了伯纳姆的策略，即给选民送上廉价的小恩小惠，就像吉祥物在中场休息时向看台抛撒糖果一样。大多数家庭将获得100英镑，用于补贴取暖费。一项能源减税措施将延长至7月，燃油税也将冻结至那时。然而，尽管公众或许能暂时享受这种“糖分带来的快感”，这些措施并不能掩盖一个事实：这是一个生活水平严峻的时期。
The story on the cost of living is similar. The budget continued Mr Burnham’s strategy of giving the electorate cheap goodies, like a mascot lobbing sweets into the stands at half-time. Most households will receive £100 to help with their heating bills. An energy tax-cut will be extended until July, with taxes on fuel also frozen until then. But although the public might temporarily enjoy a sugar rush, these measures will not disguise the fact that this is a grim period for living standards.
预算责任办公室认为，今年家庭可支配收入按实际价值计算将会下降，此后增长乏力（见图表2）。到本十年末，这一收入将仅比疫情前高出1%。归根结底，改善生活水平靠的是经济增长，而不是施舍。“繁荣联盟”是一个由技术官僚组成的支持增长的游说团体，该组织测算，如果增长沿着2008年前的趋势继续下去，中位数家庭每年将多出1.6万英镑。
The OBR thinks that household disposable income will fall in real terms this year, and grow weakly thereafter (see chart 2). By the end of the decade it will be only 1% higher than before the pandemic. Ultimately it is economic growth, not handouts, that will improve living standards. The Prosperity Alliance, a pro-growth lobby stuffed with technocrats, calculates that if growth had continued along pre-2008 trends the median household would be £16,000 a year better off.
然而，这份预算在改善增长前景方面几乎无所作为。其中确有一些不错的措施，比如加快数据中心建设的计划，以及更加注重把降低账单作为能源政策的首要优先事项。将征税权力下放给地方也应能激励地方政客推动增长。但希利本可以走得更远。英国僵化的规划体系布满否决节点，基本上原封未动。该国高得离谱的签证费让世界上最优秀的人才不愿加入英国企业。英国人将不得不等到12月，才能得知政府让领取福利者重返工作岗位的计划。
Yet the budget did little to improve the prospects for growth. There were some good measures, like a plan for building data centres more quickly and a greater focus on making cheap bills the foremost priority of energy policy. The devolution of tax-raising powers to local areas should also incentivise local politicians to push for growth. But Mr Healey could have gone much further. Britain’s sclerotic planning system, choc-a-bloc with veto points, remains mostly intact. The country’s sky-high visa fees put off the world’s brightest from joining British companies. Britons will have to wait until December to find out about the government’s plans to move people from welfare to work.
最令人失望的是希利未能改革英国的税收制度，而这一制度处处抑制增长。他原封不动地保留了阻碍人们为更好工作而搬迁的房屋销售印花税。他未能取消高边际税率（例如年收入在10万至125140英镑之间的人面临62%的税率），这种税率阻碍人们延长工作时间。如果说有什么变化，那就是财政大臣让税制变得更加复杂。年收入13000英镑的养老金领取者如果想在业余时间赚点钱，现在面临53%的边际税率。更多小企业将免缴商业房产税，但成人游戏中心和电子烟商店却被排除在豁免之外。
The biggest disappointment was Mr Healey’s failure to reform Britain’s tax system, which disincentivises growth at every turn. He left stamp duty on home sales, which stops people moving to better jobs, untouched. He failed to remove the high marginal tax rates (like 62% for those earning between £100,000 and £125,140 a year) which stop people from working longer hours. If anything, the chancellor made the system more complicated. Pensioners on £13,000 a year now face a 53% marginal tax rate if they want to make a bit of money on the side. More small businesses will be exempt from commercial-property taxes, but adult gaming centres and vape shops are exempt from the exemption.
乏善可陈的预算最终应归咎于队长——首相。伯纳姆先生希望用眼前的小恩小惠和日后激进改革的承诺来赢得选民。这误解了治理的运作方式。大刀阔斧的时机在于早期，此时政府仍拥有权威，且距离选举还有数年时间让政策见效。希利先生成功完成了防守。但只有进球才能改变比赛。■
Blame for a lacklustre budget should ultimately be laid at the foot of the team captain, the prime minister. Mr Burnham hopes to win voters over with small treats now and the promise of radical reform later. That misunderstands how governing works. The time for big moves is early, while a government still has authority and years to let its policies pay off before an election. Mr Healey mounted a successful defence. But only goals change games. ■