【经济学人】美国政府勒紧裤腰带丨2017.03.02丨总第839期

DURING his campaign for the White House, Donald Trump touted a “penny plan” for government spending. This meant cutting the part of the budget that funds day-to-day operations—ie, excluding Social Security, health care, debt interest or defence—by 1% a year. Critics said such cuts were unachievable. Department budgets are already beneath their historical average as a share of the economy. They would have to shrink by nearly a third over a decade, after accounting for inflation, to satisfy the penny plan.

 唐纳德·特朗普在竞选中的美国总统时，吹捧对于政府开支实行“便士”计划。这意味着削减预算的一部分，来维持基金日常运营，不包括社会保障，医疗保健，债务利息或国防。批评者说，这些削减是无法实现的。部门预算作为经济的一部分已经低于其历史平均水平。他们将不得不在经通胀因素调整后，用十多年来将预算紧缩近三分之一，以满足“便士计划”。

That has not deterred Mr Trump. On February 27th the White House announced its headline budget numbers, ahead of a more detailed plan due soon to appear soon. In his first year in office, Mr Trump is proposing to cut so-called “non-defence discretionary” spending not by 1%, but by more than 10%, relative to current law. The $54bn (0.3% of GDP) this would free up would flow to the defence budget .

这并不能够阻挡特朗普先生。2月27日，白宫公布了其整体预算数字，先于一项即将出现的更具体的规划。在特朗普先生就职的第一年，他提议缩减所谓的非国防开支数额，不是现行法律规定的1%，而是超过了10%。这项540亿美元（国内生产总值的0.3%）的缩减将流向国防预算。

• deterred 制止

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Cue incredulity. The part of the budget Mr Trump would cut, which funds things like education, housing and national parks, has already fallen by over 10% in real terms since 2010. Strict spending limits in the Budget Control Act of 2011, sometimes called the “sequester”, caused the dive. These kicked in automatically after Congress failed to pass a more palatable plan to bring down deficits. The sequester was supposed to be so severe that lawmakers would have to strike a deal to avoid it. Cutting budgets by a further 10% would be painful. The White House wants the State Department and foreign-aid budgets to bear much of the burden. But these make up only a small proportion of the federal budget: about $57bn in total

（期待您的翻译：明天将会有针对这句话的长难句解析哟~）在2011年的预算控制法案中对预算开支进行了严格的限制，有时也称为“缩减”，造成了骤降。这些自动踢回的问题未能在国会之后通过一个更好的计划来降低赤字。这种缩减如此严重以至于立法者不得不立刻达成协议来避免它。进一步削减预算的百分之十将是痛苦的。白宫希望国务院和对外援助的预算能够承担起大部分负担。但是这些只占联邦预算的一小部分：约570亿美元。

• sequester使隔绝；使隐退；没收，扣押

The sequester also cut defence spending deeply, which is why hawks like Senator John McCain have been questioning America’s military preparedness. Barack Obama’s last budget proposed a boost to defence spending about two-thirds as big as Mr Trump’s (see chart). A recent paper by Mr McCain argues that an additional $54bn is needed on top of Mr Obama’s figure—for a total boost of $91bn, compared with the sequester.

这项自动减支也会更深的缩减国防支出，这也是Senator John McCain 等鹰派人对军队准备提出质疑的原因所在。巴拉克·奥巴马的最终预算计划加大国防支出，其数额大约有川普（如图）的三分之二。Mr McCain的最近的研究表明，在奥巴马所表示的数额之上，一项附加的540亿美元的开支是有必要的-总计要增加910亿美元，与缩减数目相比。

Congress can usually write budgets with a simple majority in both houses. But amending the sequester may require 60 votes in the Senate, and hence bipartisan co-operation. (This happened in 2013 and 2015.) Democrats will never support cuts on the scale Mr Trump seems to want. Plenty of Republicans, too, worry about cuts to the State Department. Mick Mulvaney, Mr Trump’s budget chief, says that he is under no illusions about the budget’s prospects in Congress, recalling that Republicans paid little attention to Mr Obama’s proposals. The budget, he says, was not written for Congress, but for the people.

国会通常会用两院的一种简单的多数同意方式来撰写预算。但修订自动预算削减方案可能需要参议院60票绝对多数，进而可能需要两党合作。（这类事件在2013年和2015年发生过。）民主党永远不会支持特朗普先生想要的那种规模的开支缩减。许多共和党人也担心政府部门的开支削减。特朗普先生的预算办公室主任Mick Mulvaney回想起共和党人不在意奥巴马先生的建议，于是他说对国会预算的前景没抱有任何幻想。他说预算不是为国会撰写的，而是为人民撰写的。

翻译 ▍甜甜，小静菁， 沙漠下雨，eve

审核 ▍向北

编辑 ▍毛毛

背景 ▍沙漠下雨