美国的财政前景是灾难性的,但却被遗忘了
经济学人: It was not so long ago that the hottest topic in American politics was the ballooning national debt. In 1992 Ross Perot had the best showing for a third-party candidate in a presidential election since 1912 on a platform of fiscal probity. Two years later the Republicans seized control of Congress for the first time in 40 years, with the first item in their “Contract with America” being a pledge to balance the budget. Bill Clinton easily won re-election two years after that, in part by negotiating spending cuts with Republicans that led to America’s first surpluses in a generation. 不久前,美国政坛最热门的话题还是不断膨胀的国债。 1992 年,罗斯 · 佩罗 (Ross Perot) 在总统选举中以财政廉洁为主题,取得了自 1912 年以来第三方候选人中的最佳表现。两年后,共和党四十年来首次控制了国会,其《美国契约》中的第一项就是平衡预算的承诺。两年后,比尔 · 克林顿轻松赢得连任,部分原因是与共和党谈判削减开支,导致美国在一代人中首次实现盈余。 At the start of this fiscal hullabaloo, in 1992, America’s net debt amounted to 46% of GDP. Today it has reached 96% of GDP. For the past five years, under first Donald Trump and then Joe Biden, the federal deficit has