Government v market in America
美国政府vs.美国市场

The visible hand
看得见的手

May 28th 2009 | INDIANAPOLIS AND WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition

Americans have grown slightly more receptive to the idea of an activist government. Will they go along with Barack Obama’s aspirations?
美国人现在已些许倾向接受政府积极介入这一观点。那么他们愿不愿意同巴拉克.奥巴马一道呢？

THE demonstrators thronging the steps of the war memorial in central Indianapolis are a small but spirited bunch. Steps away from the head office of one of the country’s biggest health-insurance companies, they chant slogans calling for a single government-run health plan and wave signs with slogans like “One plan one nation” and “Patients not profits”. One cheekily advises: “Accept personal responsibility. Do your own colonoscopy”. After pursuing their cause for years, advocates of universal health care got a jolt of energy when Barack Obama took office. “Something happened in January that changed our cultural story for ever,” a folk singer tells the crowd before launching into a song, “If not now, tell me when.”
印第安纳波利斯市中心的战争纪念碑前，游行者人头攒动——他们不过是“一小撮”，却精神充沛。距美国最大的健康保险公司总部只有几步之遥，他们高唱口号，呼吁单一政府健康保险，手中挥舞着诸如“一个计划，一个国家”、“病人第一，盈利第二”的标语。有人厚颜无耻地建议：“认你的个人责任，做你的结肠检查。”普及健康保健的倡议者们在多年努力之后，终于在巴拉克.奥巴马上任时冒出来一股劲儿。“1月永远地改变了我们的文化史。”一位民谣歌手在开唱前这样告诉他面前的人群。“若非现在，更待何时？”

Across the street, an argument breaks out. Dennis Majewski, a public-defence lawyer, agrees with the protesters. “We’ll never rebound until we have national health-care insurance.” But should the government look after “a known druggie whose drug habit gets him to the point he is seriously ill?” queries his cousin, Tom Majewski, a retired executive. Well, yes, says Dennis: “That person has a serious illness.” Tom shoots back: “But it’s a choice!”
街道另一旁，一场争论正如火如荼。公设辩护律师丹尼斯.马杰维斯基的对抗议者们点头称是：“如果不在全国普及健康保健，我们根本无法重新振作。”但是他的表弟，退休主管汤姆.马杰维斯基却质问，那政府是不是也应该照管一个“已经无可救药的瘾君子”呢？丹尼斯的答案是肯定的，因为“他已经并入病入膏肓”。可汤姆却回击：“但是他可以选择！”

The debate in Indianapolis is a microcosm of a broader re-examination by Americans of government’s role in the economy. Private risk-taking run amok has plunged the country into its worst recession in decades. Partly in response, Mr Obama and Congress are exploring ambitious new ways to expand the government’s responsibilities.
再思政府在经济世界之角色，印第安纳波利斯的这场争辩正是美国人对此不同观点的缩影。私营企业不顾危险，最终失去控制，导致美国陷入了几十年不遇的经济萧条。奥巴马总统和国会现正寻求颇有抱负的新方式扩大政府职能，也有对此回应之故。

Mr Obama has been elusive on where he believes the boundary between government and the market should be. “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works,” he said in his inaugural address. Yet his actions belie that agnosticism. Most of the big domestic initiatives taken since he became president involve expanded federal-government activity, either temporary or permanent. They include more oversight over the financial system and executive pay, extending health insurance to the 15% of Americans who lack it, shifting energy consumption from fossil to renewable fuels, and redistributing income from the wealthy to the middle-class.
政府与市场之界限在何处，奥巴马的观点难以捉摸。就职典礼中他曾说：“今天我们的问题，不是我们的政府是否过大或太小，而是我们的政府是否有效。”然而他却言行不一。自上任以来，大部分对内举措都是扩大政府参与——有些是短期的，另外则是永久——包括对金融体制和主管薪水的更严格监管，将健康保险扩大到从前未覆盖的15%美国民众，能源消费从矿物燃料转向可更新能源，还有把原先富人收入重新配置，发放到中产阶级的手中。

Congress is even more unabashedly activist. On May 22nd it passed by overwhelming majorities the most sweeping crackdown on the credit-card industry in decades. Even its name, the “Credit cardholders’ bill of rights”, suggests not just a set of rules but a treaty between business and the people. Now that credit cards are as vital to life as telephony or electricity, they will be regulated as such.
国会插手，更不知廉耻，5月22日以绝大多数通过了几十年以来信用卡行业最彻底的“镇压”——“信用卡持有者人权法案”，连名字都昭然显示这不仅事关一套规章，已成为商业和民众的一纸契约。既然信用卡对人身之重要程度不亚于电话电力，严加管制固然无可厚非。

But are Mr Obama and Congress in tune with America? Laissez-faire has clearly lost some lustre since Ronald Reagan was president. Yet a survey by the Pew Research Centre, released on May 21st, shows that Americans still like business. It found that 76% agree that the country’s strength is “mostly based on the success of American business”, and that 90% admire people who “get rich by working hard”, proportions that have changed little in two decades. People are, however, jaded by business’s excesses: just 37% of respondents believe that business strikes the right balance between profits and public interest, the lowest proportion since Pew began asking the question in 1987.
然而奥巴马和国会的看法，是不是就代表了美国人的心声呢？自罗纳德.里根就任总统之后，“自由放任”经济体显然已不再如此诱惑，皮佑研究中心5月21日发布的调查结果却显示美国人仍旧热衷商业：接受调查的民众中，76%认为美国强大主要是“基于美国商业成功”；90%对“通过自身努力富起来”的人们钦佩有加——这20年都未曾显著改变。无论如何，佛靠金装，人靠“商”装：只有37%认为商界在盈利和公众利益之间找到了平衡，这是1987年皮佑开展调查以来的最低比率。

This undoubtedly helped fuel the country’s shift to Democrats in the last two elections. Indiana, solidly Republican for years, has recently become a swing state. In 2006 its nine seats in Congress shifted from 7-2 in favour of Republicans to 5-4 in favour of Democrats. Mr Obama carried it in the 2008 presidential election, the first time a Democrat had done so since 1964.
无疑，过去两次总统大选中，此情势对民主党占上风推波助澜。印第安纳曾经是多年的共和党“铁杆”，现在却成了摇摆州。从前，印第安纳在国会的9个席位中，共和党7-2占优，而2006年却演变成了5-4民主党领先。2008年总统大选，奥巴马得此天时地利——1964年以来，这还是民主党的头一遭。

On the other hand Mitch Daniels, Indiana’s Republican governor, was re-elected by a wide margin. Mr Daniels suggests it is too soon to say that Americans want bigger government. Indiana voted for Mr Obama because it wanted change. “He got a significant crossover vote in the Republican suburbs,” admits Mr Daniels. But he goes on to say: “Those people did not become French in the last five months.” He argues that Mr Obama will lose the state in 2012 if he pursues what the governor derisively calls “shock and awe statism”, such as the caps on carbon emissions that are so unpopular in coal-reliant Indiana.
另一方面，印第安纳共和党州长米奇.丹尼尔斯却连任大胜。他认为现在说美国人需要更“大政府”，为时过早；而印第安纳支持奥巴马，是因希望改变。丹尼尔斯承认：“在共和党选区，他拿到了至关重要的跨党选票。”但他还说：“不过这五个月他们也没成法国人啊。”他戏谑奥巴马追求的是“大跌眼镜的中央集权”，并称如果2012年他还坚持，就会失去印第安纳的选票——在对煤十分依赖的印第安纳，诸如限制碳排放的举措的确不得人心。

Polls back him up: Pew finds that Americans still think the federal government controls too much of their lives. Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Centre, sees a parallel with 1981, when polls showed high approval for Reagan coupled with anxiety about his policies, such as cuts to Social Security (government-funded pensions) and welfare. Reagan may have wanted to push the country further right than it wanted to go. In 1982, with the economy deep in recession, voters punished the Republicans in the elections.
调查结果亦说明了这一点：皮佑结果显示，美国人仍认为联邦政府对他们的生活插手过多。研究中心主席安德鲁.卡哈特认为这与1981年的情况十分相似：当时民众对里根总统的支持率很高，然而对他的削减社会福利（即政府供给的补贴）和保障之类政策颇为担忧。里根可能些许过火。1982年美国经济陷入深度萧条，共和党也在竞选中得到了票民的惩罚。

Polls show that the increased trust in government is almost entirely limited to Democrats. Republicans are more distrustful, and the views of independents have not changed much. This seems to suggest that what looks like increased faith in government is actually faith in Mr Obama. Yet history suggests that many of Mr Obama’s expected moves towards big government, however controversial they may be, will in the end turn out to be permanent.
调查结果还显示，人们对政府的信任几乎局限于民主党。共和党现在口碑更差，人们对独立党派的观点也没有太大改观。这似乎说明，表面上对政府的信心实际上只是对奥巴马的信心。按历史规律，奥巴马所期望的进军大政府举措不管现在争议多大，最终都会“敲定终生”。

A history lesson
以史为鉴

Americans trace their mistrust of government to their roots. The country was founded by refugees from state-sanctioned religious persecution who later revolted against English-imposed taxes. “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and for government to gain ground,” said Thomas Jefferson. Henry David Thoreau, writing some years later, mused: “I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which governs least’…It finally amounts to this, which also I believe, that government is best which governs not at all.”
美国人不信任政府，事出有史。回顾过往，就是那些受到宗教“合法”迫害的难民对英国人征收税务加以反抗，美国才得以建成。托马斯.杰弗逊说：“按照自然进程，自由必将获得，政府必将普及。”几年后，亨利.大卫.梭罗耶在作品中沉思：“我真心相信这样一句格言：‘管之愈少，政府愈佳’……其实归根到底可以这样说：政府无管，天下大安，我坚信这一点。”

This self-portrait, however, has always been as much mythology as fact. The constitution, often portrayed as designed to shackle government, actually imposed a structure that the earlier Articles of Confederation lacked, notes Garry Wills, a historian. “We are pious toward our history in order to be cynical toward our government,” he wrote in “A Necessary Evil”. Thoreau’s anti-government, anti-tax crusades captured American sentiment, but he never had much of a following.
然而，对美国如此自述，虽证据确凿，也相当神秘。历史学家盖瑞.威尔斯称，虽然我们经常把宪法视作政府的桎梏，但它却强加了一个从前《联邦条例》中没有的体系。“以史为鉴，可以对我们的政府加以批判。”在《必要之恶》一书中，他如是写道。虽然梭罗的反政府、反税收运动让美国人拍手叫好，但是他的支持者却屈指可数。

The federal government was tiny for much of the first century of the country’s existence, then expanded steadily. Industrialisation and unionisation led to an era between the 1890s and early 1920s that brought antitrust laws, regulation of interstate commerce, income tax and the regulation of food and drug quality. Price Fishback, an economist at the University of Arizona, writes that the ideological bias against government began seriously to retreat in the face of the Depression and the two world wars, so that “by 1950 the majority of elites and the general public easily turned to government when they saw a problem they thought should be solved.”
国家建成之初的一个世纪中，联邦政府微乎其微，后来才稳步扩展。19世纪90年代到20世纪20年代的工业化和工会化为美国带来了反垄断法、州际交易调控、个人所得税和食品药物质量法。亚利桑那大学经济学家普莱斯.费史拜克写道，面对大萧条和两次世界大战，美国人在意识形态上对政府的偏见开始显著减弱，因此“至1950年，大部分精英和公众阶层在遇到问题的时候，要是他们认为可以解决，就首先求助政府。”

Crises usually bring about clamour for more government. It sometimes shrinks afterwards, but never back to its original size. The federal government first issued a national currency to finance the civil war. Financial panic in 1907 led to the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. The Depression led to the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to safeguard the financial system, and the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) to develop a national mortgage market. The federal safety-net came into existence with Social Security and unemployment insurance. The second world war cemented the conviction that an active government was needed to preserve full employment, a belief that was codified in the 1946 Employment Act.
危机出现，总是扬起政府管制的呼声。虽然危机后政府会有所回缩，但从未回到原来水准。最早是联邦政府发行美元资助内战；1907年财政危机后，1913年美联储建立；大萧条带来了证券交易管理委员会和联邦存款保险公司来保护金融体系和联邦国民住房抵押贷款协会（房利美）来发展国家抵押贷款市场。二战让人们更加坚信政府需要插手还保证社会充分就业，而这一观念又导致了1946年《劳工法》的签署。

The first concerted effort to roll back some of this power began under Jimmy Carter with the deregulation of airlines, transport and banking. Reagan turned the trend into a governing philosophy, declaring on becoming president in 1981 that: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” In 1986 a CBS News poll found 41% of respondents thought the government regulated business too much and 22% thought it regulated it too little (a view that has now been reversed; see chart 1). Reagan’s enduring legacy was to entrench lower taxes as part of small-government philosophy. Lower taxes seized the public’s imagination in a way that deregulation never has. Even so, the government did not actually shrink under Reagan; it merely stopped growing. Federal spending, excluding defence, grew from less than 5% of GDP at the outset of the Depression to around 16% in the late 1970s, and has remained there until now (see chart 2).
首次收回政府权力的共同努力还发生在吉米.卡特执政时期，对航空、交通和银行业撤销管制决定。而里根把这一趋势演变成为执政理念，1981年就任总统时，他说：“政府并不是解决症结的良药；政府才是我们的症结所在。”1986年，CBS新闻调查结果显示，41%接受调查的民众认为政府对商业的监管过严，而22%认为监管过松（现在这样的观点已经颠覆；见图1）。里根为美国留下的不朽遗产就是将低税收注入了小政府理念——它所抓住公民心理的成功，为放松管制所不能及。自大萧条时代起，除却国防的联邦开销从GDP的5%一直上升到20世纪70年代晚期的16%左右，直到现在仍停留在这一水平（见图2）。

For the next two decades, small government remained the stated preference of presidents, including Bill Clinton, who in 1996 declared that “the era of big government is over.” Though there was only a little true deregulation in this period, financial innovation grew most where regulation was lightest. The fastest-growing derivatives, for example, were not covered by commodity-futures laws, and the fastest-growing subprime lenders were not banks and thus not federally regulated.
接下来的20年中，总统们一直声称自己支持小政府，其中就包括比尔.克林顿。1996年，他宣布“大政府时代业结束”。虽克林顿时期放松管制举措不多，但管制最为放松的金融创新却见证了最迅速增长。猛增的金融衍生品之类并不受商品-期货法律管制，而同样激增的次贷行业也不属银行之流，从而不受联邦所控。

The swing back towards more activist government began under George Bush, partly in response to new crises. The terrorist attacks in 2001 led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, the federalisation of airport security, an expansion of money-laundering rules and federally subsidised terrorism insurance. The stockmarket collapse led to the Sarbanes-Oxley act overseeing corporate governance and accounting standards. Mr Bush was happy to expand government in order to maintain Republican hegemony so long as he could also cut taxes; that this meant a larger budget deficit was not a priority for him. He thus introduced a costly drug benefit for the elderly.
政府恢复积极角色始于乔治.布什，其中存在应对新危机之原因。2001年恐怖主义袭击后，美国建立国土安全部、颁布《爱国者法案》，开始机场安全联邦化，拓展洗钱监管，并由联邦出资补助恐怖主义保险。股市崩溃后，国家签署萨班斯-奥克斯利法案，对公司管理和结算标准进行监督。只要能够继续减税，布什就乐于以“大政府”方式来维持共和党霸权；但是这就意味着他不会优先选择增加预算赤字。因此，布什为老年人引入了开销不容小觑的药物福利。

Household income stagnated as energy and health-care costs rose and more of the gains in income went to the wealthy. One result was that Americans, traditionally fonder of the free market than the rest of the world, became less so. In 2007 an international survey by Pew found that American support for free markets had edged down from five years earlier. Yet in most countries it rose, especially in the developing world (see chart 3). The globalisation that had benefited them so much had unsettled Americans, many of whom blamed stagnant wages on competition from poorer countries.
能源和医疗开销上涨，收入更多流入富人腰包，家庭收入于是止步不前，后果之一就是从前比任何国家都热爱自由市场的美国人现在却不那么热衷了。2007年皮佑调查结果表明，美国人对自由市场的支持相较五年前微微下跌。与此同时，其他国家对自由市场的支持却有所上升，在发展中国家尤是（见图3）。这些国家在全球化中受益，美国人颇为不安，许多人都发出抱怨，认为这是同其它国家相比，美国工资水平萧条所造成的。

Thus the arrival of the financial crisis found Americans already souring on unconstrained capitalism. Luke Kenley, an influential state senator from Indiana, sees a philosophical divide along generational lines. People over 50, such as himself, “have a great comfort level with the American free-enterprise system”, and recognise the current turmoil as the marketplace correcting its own previous excesses.
因此，金融危机到来之时，美国人已经对毫无节制的资本主义大失所望。印第安纳颇具影响的议员鲁克.肯利认为，在不同年龄段之间已经出现了观念分歧。50岁以上的公民——其中也包括他自己——“对美国的自由市场体系感到非常惬意”，而将眼下的混乱视作市场对从前不加节制的纠正。

But his own grown-up children do not share that faith. His son John, a lawyer aged 38, suggests that “Reagan had a time and a place, but those messages don’t resonate.” The disaster in the housing and mortgage markets shows that free markets don’t always get incentives right or generate the information people need to make wise decisions. There may be times, he adds, when government is better suited to giving people the information they need.
但是他已经成年的孩子们却不这样认为：38岁约翰是一名律师，他认为“当年里根有天时地利，但现在跟当时不是一回事儿。”住房和抵押贷款市场的灾难显示，自由市场并不总是能萌生正确动机，也不能总是给予人们所做出明智选择的信息。他补充道，有时候政府更有能力提供人们所需信息。

The financial crisis propelled Mr Obama into the White House and he has aggressively exploited the opportunity. Some of the ways are obvious: he is using the government’s ownership stakes in banks to change how they pay their executives, and its control of General Motors and Chrysler to boost their production of cars that use alternative fuels.
奥巴马得金融危机之便入主白宫，而他也积极利用了这一机会。有的做法是光天化日：使用政府在银行中的股份改变管理人员获得的薪酬，还利用政府对通用汽车和克莱斯勒的控制权推动使用代用原料汽车的生产。

Mr Obama explained his thinking on May 22nd on C-Span: “We want to get out of the business of helping auto companies as quickly as we can…In the same way I want to get out of the business of helping banks. But we have to make some strategic decisions about strategic industries.”
5月22日，奥巴马在C-Span对自己的想法加以诠释：“我们希望尽可能早日不再插手汽车公司的业务……同样我也希望早日不再插手银行事务。但对于战略产业，我们必须做出战略决策。”

Other approaches are a bit more subtle. Much of the $787 billion federal stimulus package passed in February goes to the states, but only if they comply with federal guidelines on how to spend the money. For instance, to obtain additional federal assistance for unemployment insurance, states must make more workers eligible for benefits, in particular part-time workers.
其它的方式则不易觉察。2月通过的7870亿美元的联邦刺激计划大部分分发到各个州中，但条件是各州必须遵从联邦关于款项花销的指导方针。比如说，如果想要获得失业保险的更多联邦赞助，就必须要让更多的工人——尤其是临时工人——能够获取福利。

Many states have revolted against such conditions, arguing that they will saddle states and employers with added costs long after the stimulus money has run out. Republican governors in South Carolina, Alaska, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas have made a show of refusing some of the stimulus money.
对这样的条件，已有许多州表示反抗，称这样会在刺激资金告罄之后增加开销，从而为州和雇主增加负担。南卡罗来那、阿拉斯加、路易斯安那、密西西比和得克萨斯州的共和党州长已经做出姿态，拒绝接受刺激资金。

Indiana has so far turned down the unemployment-insurance money but took most of the rest, although not enthusiastically. Mr Kenley flips through a thick wad of paper on his desk. It contains the federal guidelines a state must follow to get education-stimulus money, such as ensuring that poor and minority children are not taught disproportionately by unqualified teachers. Federal money to weatherproof poor families’ homes must be channelled primarily through non-profit groups. It is the micromanagement that Mr Kenley objects to, not the goals: “They’re going to control your behaviour with specifications and regulations. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but we have to take the money and do the best we can.”
目前，印第安纳州拒绝了失业保险金，但是却接受了其它大部分——虽然并不是欢天喜地。肯利先生翻阅着桌上的一叠文件，其中有联邦下达，各州如希得到教育刺激资金必须遵守的指导方针，比如保证贫困和少数民族的学生不会因为师资不足得不到应得教育。另外，为得到贫穷家庭改善住房的联邦资金，州政府必须保证其首先分配到非盈利组织手中。肯利先生并不是对这样的目标心存不满，而是这种微观的管理方式有意见：“他们想要用条条框框来管制我们的行为。这剂药是苦药，但是我们需要尽可能拿到赞助。”

Governor Daniels, who was a budget director under Mr Bush and has impeccable conservative credentials, has a more nuanced view. “People in a time of difficulty and apprehension are looking for energy, for active government, but that doesn’t necessarily mean statist government. People…are still suspicious, though maybe a little less so, of government.”
丹尼尔斯州长曾经是布什麾下的预算办公室主任，十足的保守派，他有一个更加细微的观念：“人们在困难、恐惧的时候就会寻找力量，寻求积极的政府——但不一定中央集权。其实人们还是对政府不信任，虽然可能程度没有那么深了。”

Accordingly, in 2007 Mr Daniels raised cigarette taxes to pay for health insurance for poor families who could not afford to have it. Mr Kenley opposed him, arguing that it would be more appropriate to encourage people, through the tax system, to provide for their own care. Mr Daniels’s response was: “You need to do this or you’ll end up with single payer [the single scheme that the protesters in Indianapolis were calling for].” He argues that reducing the number of uninsured by discouraging smoking does not conflict with Republican principles: “If it’s not conservative enough for some, that’s one of my rare heresies.”
于是2007年，丹尼尔斯提高香烟税，来为贫穷家庭支付他们难以承担的医疗保险。而肯利先生对此不赞同，认为还不如通过课税制度鼓励人们支付自己的保险。而丹尼尔斯对此回应：“不然这样做，不然就实行单一保险人制度（也就是印第安纳波利斯的抗议者们所呼吁的）。”他认为通过打击吸烟来提倡保险和共和党的信条并不冲突：“如果有些人认为这还不够保守，那这就算我胡说八道好了。”

Robert Stone, an affable, bearded emergency-room doctor who organised last week’s demonstration in Indianapolis, says it is encouraging that a conservative governor like Mr Daniels is willing to raise taxes to pay for expanded health care. But not, he goes on to say, if this is just a substitute for universal access.
急诊医生罗伯特.斯通是上周印第安纳波利斯抗议的组织者，和蔼可亲，还留有胡须，他说像丹尼尔斯这样的保守派州长愿意提高税收来扩展卫生保健，无疑激动人心。然而他补充道：如果这样做只是为了代替医疗保健普及，就另当别论了。

Mr Stone has run up small victories in the past year. In January the city council of New Albany, in the conservative southern part of the state, passed a resolution supporting a single-payer health plan. But Mr Stone has been unable to persuade many of the state’s senior Democratic politicians to endorse the idea. Baron Hill, a Democratic congressman who represents the southern part of the state, has sounded sympathetic, and has even invited Mr Stone to address the Blue Dogs caucus of fiscally conservative Democratic congressmen. But, to Mr Stone’s frustration, he has yet to set a date. Government-run health care is still anathema to many Americans. Mr Stone received a reminder of that the day before the rally; a vitriolic letter decrying “so many socialist if not communist [sic] working against the best social economic and progressive system in the world, capitalism.”
去年，斯通先生小有斩获。1月，印第安纳波利斯南部的保守派地区新奥尔巴尼城市议会通过了支持单一保险人制度的计划。但是许多州中民主党的高层政界人士，斯通先生却未能说服。代表州南部的民主党国会议员巴伦.希尔言辞中透露些许赞同，甚至还邀请斯通先生来为由保守财政民主党议员组成的蓝狗联盟致词。但日期还未敲定，让斯通比较郁闷。很大一部分美国人仍旧对政府经营的卫生保健不存好感。就在游行的前一天，还有人提醒斯通先生准备日期，他收到了一封措辞尖刻的来信，称“就算不是共产主义者，也有那么多社会主义者[sic]现在正在跟世界上最好的社会经济和渐进体系——资本主义——唱反调。”

Can he get away with it?
“逍遥”法外？

Mr Obama, too, is aware of the emotional opposition that government ownership can elicit. He once advocated a single-payer system, but has since said that would make sense only if starting from scratch; now, he vows to work within the current system of employer-based health care. He has advocated a public plan similar to the federally funded Medicare plan (which is only for retirees) to compete with private plans, but even that is open to negotiation.
奥巴马同样清晰地认识到“公有”举措能够引发的反对。他曾经也主张过单一保险人体系，但也说只有从头做起才会有效；而今，他又誓言要在现行的基于雇主的医疗体系上再接再厉。他曾经推行过同联邦资助的医疗保险计划（仅对退休公民有效）相似的公共保险来同私营保险竞争，但是这也招来不少争论。

That scaled back goal, like many of Mr Obama’s ambitions, faces a daunting obstacle: money. The economy has turned out weaker than the president expected, depriving him of hoped-for tax revenue. Congress is inclined to give away rather than sell permits to emit carbon dioxide in its cap-and-trade programme. Meanwhile, polls show high anxiety among voters about record deficits and rising debt.
就像奥巴马的许多其他雄心壮志一样，缩减这一目标面临的障碍也令人生畏。经济好转程度不及总统之预期，计划中的税收因而只得泡汤。对于“限制排放与交易许可”项目中二氧化碳的排放，国会更倾向于发放而非出售许可证。同时投票结果显示，选民对创纪录的赤字和愈发增加的债务甚是担忧。

Such fiscal constraints, however, do not apply to new regulations. The costs will be difficult to identify, notes Robert Litan, a scholar at the Kauffman Foundation, a think-tank. Mr Obama, for example, has said his administration will be less inclined than its predecessor to invoke federal rules to shield companies from state consumer-protection laws. That means companies face a higher risk of product-liability suits, which could discourage innovation and restrain growth.
而这样的财政限制却不对新规定适用。考夫曼基金会学者，智囊团成员罗伯特.利坦认为，开销数量尚难定论。比如，奥巴马就称自己的政府不会像前任那样，援引联邦法律来保障公司不受消费者保护法律影响。如此一来，公司就会面临更大的产品责任诉讼风险，这对创新和生长控制都是一种打击。

The public, however, will not see those costs, and thus probably will not care. “The public is not in a discriminating mood when it comes to regulation,” says Mr Litan. “If it addresses something they’re angry about, like executive compensation, fine. As for everything else, the public wants more certainty and less anxiety in their lives.” In a few years, the question will be: “Did Obama move us out of the cellar? If the answer is yes, they won’t care about the details.”
可是这些开销公众却无从看到，因此很可能不会关注。利坦说：“论及管理，公众并非持有偏见，如果者能够解决他们一直所气愤的高管薪酬这种问题，万事大吉。至于其他，大家还是希望自己的生活能够更稳定，少些焦虑。”几年过后，美国面临的问题将会是：“奥巴马有没有把我们带出低谷呢？如果答案肯定，那么细枝末节，也就无人理会了。”

《经济学人》（The Economist（http://www.economist.com））
仅同意本网站翻译其杂志内容，并未对上述翻译内容进行任何审阅查对。

rhineyuan:  http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=19569&highlight=