[2009.01.29] The first ten days: Brief Encounter

The first ten days
上任前十天

Brief encounter
短兵相接

Jan 29th 2009
From The Economist print edition
原载：《经济学家》印刷版，2009年1月29日

Barack Obama’s bipartisan honeymoon has ended even sooner than anyone expected
巴拉克治下两党和谐与共的蜜月期结束得比任何人预料的都快

 

EVERY incoming American president promises that he will reach across the aisle. Senators and congressmen, Republican and Democrat alike, join in the hymn to the virtues of bipartisan effort. This time was no different: everyone applauded when Barack Obama said from the steps of the Capitol that “the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.” But, as usual, the stale political arguments have begun all over again.

美国的每届总统上任之初，都表示将摒弃门户之见。无论是参议员还是国会议员，无论是民主党员还是共和党员，都会同心协力，共谱两党合作之颂歌。这一次也不例外，奥巴马在国会大厦发表演说时，称“政治斗争的陈辞溢调已经折腾了我们太久”，当时听众无不欢欣鼓舞。然而和以往一样，政治斗争的陈词滥调又卷土重来了。

Mr Obama set a cracking pace in his first days in office. He signed a lot of admirable orders, such as one closing Guantánamo within a year and others pushing for more fuel-efficient cars and ending the prohibition on sending aid to international organisations that provide abortion. He has buttered up the Republican minority in Congress, and they have gushed about how nice it is to work with him. Nonetheless, the first big partisan row of the new administration has already begun.

入主白宫的第一天，奥巴马表现的极为出色。他签署了许多大受欢迎的政府令，其中之一是在一年之内关闭关塔纳摩监狱。此外他还颁布相关措施，推动节能型汽车的发展，结束对向支持堕胎的国际组织提供的援助的禁运等。国会中的共和党少数派也得到了奥巴马的鼓舞，纷纷表示与奥巴马共事非常令人高兴。虽然如此，新政中第一次党派之争已经开始了。

It concerns the new president’s plans for the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan”, the largest economic stimulus package ever devised: no less than $819 billion over the next two years in a bid to buoy up the shrinking economy and prevent the loss of millions of jobs. Many Republicans are worried about the hole this will make in the nation’s accounts. They note that plenty of pork has crept into the bill, and that it will be impossible to spend that much that fast. It also contains some protectionist nasties in the shape of “Buy American” provisions. The bill, they say, is just a sneaky way of achieving standard Democratic big-government aims.

争论的焦点是新总统的“美国复苏与复兴计划”，这项一揽子计划旨在刺激经济发展，手笔之大无出其右：在接下来的两年中，美国政府将投入至少8190亿美元，遏止经济的萎缩势头，同时将使数以百万计的人免于失业。许多共和党认为这项计划将在国家预算中造成大笔的亏空，并为此忧心忡忡。他们指出该法案中暗含了太多的交易条款，而且在如此短的时间内进行这么大的资金调度是不可能的。其间还夹杂着“必须购买美国产品”的条款，这是贸易保护主义者的恶劣行迳。共和党认为，这项法案是民主党为实现大政府的野心耍的花招。

A bit rich, the Democrats retort, coming from the party that inherited a healthy surplus from Bill Clinton and turned it, thanks to tax cuts unmatched by savings, into a fair-sized deficit even before the recession began to bite. And besides, what else do the Republicans have to offer as a solution to the mess their president created? (Not very much, is the sad truth.)

而民主党人则反唇相讥，比尔•克林顿时代好歹还为美国留下了一点财富，预算处于良性的结余状态；而即使是衰退开始之前，由于共和党的减税政策与储蓄金变化脱节，国家预算中有了大笔的赤字。再说，共和党为处理布什留下的烂摊子提供了什么样的解决方案呢？惨淡的现实告诉我们，共和党还真没什么好办法。

Visible party lines
党派之别，清晰可见

On January 28th the stimulus bill passed in the House of Representatives without a single Republican vote. In principle, that means that it could die in the Senate next week, since the Democrats are currently two votes short of a filibuster-proof majority there. That seems unlikely: the Republicans will not want to be blamed for the recession. But it signals an early end to bipartisanship and bodes ill for the future of more difficult legislation, which will require a lot more co-operation.

1月28日，众议院代表会通过了这项经济发展计划，然而没有一个共和党成员投赞成票。通常来讲，这意味着下周这项法案可能在参议院遭到枪毙，因为民主党还缺两票才能形成绝对多数。发生这种事情的可能性不大：共和党肯定不愿因经济衰退而遭到指责。然而这也预示着两党之间的合作将早早结束，也为将来的争执留下了伏笔。将来在进行更为艰难的立法工作时，两党间需要更多的合作。

Whom to blame for the breakdown? The stimulus row apart, the Republicans can claim to have behaved reasonably well, confirming Mr Obama’s appointments without much fuss, though they did try, unsuccessfully, to vote down his new treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, for failing to pay his taxes on time. Mr Obama, for his part, has offered a lot of fine words about bipartisanship but has not produced very much of it, preferring instead to deliver on cherished Democratic aims. The same holds for the stimulus plan. True, the package contains a large dollop of tax cuts: some $275 billion of the $819 billion comes in this form. But most of that was proposed long ago by Mr Obama on the campaign trail, and so can hardly represent an attempt to forge post-election consensus. The Republicans have been given little say in drafting the plan, and the Democratic majority has taken advantage of the rules of procedure to frustrate their attempts to amend it.

谁该为两党的关系破裂负责？抛开经济激励计划不谈，共和党可以声称他们已经尽力而为了，他们尝试着以未能按期缴税为由否决奥巴马新任的财政部长Tim Geithner，然而遭到了失败；今后他们将执行奥巴马的指示，不作太多的抱怨。而从奥巴马方面来看，他虽然用华丽的词藻鼓吹党派合作，却并不曾真正付出什么努力，而是更多地注重于民主党的执政目标。这项援助计划也是如此。的确，援助计划中包含大量的减税措施：8190亿美元中的2750亿是以减税的形式支付的；然而这些减税措施都是奥巴马在选战中做出的许诺，并不代表他在选举获胜之后仍然会维护两党间的一致意见。在制订计划的过程中，共和党并没有获得什么发言权，而民主党多数派利用程序规则的便利，粉碎了他们试图修订计划的努力。

On the other hand, Mr Obama has been careful to drop a few of the least stimulative and most contentious items. And no one doubts that some form of big stimulus is urgently needed. The Republicans could equally be accused of playing a cynical game, voting against a package they know will pass in order to appear thrifty yet not risk being accused of sabotage. In other words: it’s politics as usual.

从另一方面讲，奥巴马小心翼翼地绕开了一些最有争议性、（对经济）刺激作用却不大的领域，毫无疑问，美国迫切需要政府大力推动经济发展。人们同样可以责备共和党在刻意做出不合作的姿态，他们明知一揽子计划能够获得通过，却仍然投了反对票。这样一方面可以显得自己注重节俭治国，另一方面也不会担上蓄意破坏经济建设的恶名。总而言之，一切都是政治，和以往没什么区别。

 

译者：Lennon.W   http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=16851&highlight=