美不坚合众国

America’s public finances
美国的公共财政

The Unsteady States of America
美不坚合众国

It is not just Detroit. American cities and states must promise less or face disaster
不仅局限于底特律。摆在美国诸多城市与州面前的有两条路：要么减少对选民的福利承诺，要么直面一场灾难

Jul 27th 2013 |From the print edition2013年7月27日|来自印刷版



WHEN Greece ran into financial trouble three years ago, the problem soon  spread. Many observers were mystified. How could such a little country  set off a continental crisis? The Greeks were stereotyped as a nation of  tax-dodgers who had been living high on borrowed money for years. The Portuguese, Italians and Spanish insisted that their finances were  fundamentally sound. The Germans wondered what it had to do with them  at all. But the contagion was powerful, and Europe’s economy has yet to  recover.
三年前，希腊遭遇金融困境，这一问题迅速蔓延。对此，许多观察家都困惑不解：像这么一个弹丸小国，怎么会引发了一场席卷整个欧洲的危机？在人们的固有印象中，希腊人作为一个习于逃税的民族，数年来一直靠着借来的钱耽于享乐。葡萄牙人、意大利人和西班牙人则坚称，他们的财政基本上来说是安全的。德国人则一直百思不得其解：对上述这些国家，到底该采取什么样的对策？然而不管怎么说，这一问题蔓延之深之广，直到现在欧洲的经济都还没有恢复过来。


America seems in a similar state of denial about Detroit filing for bankruptcy (see article). Many people think Motown is such an exceptional case that it  holds few lessons for other places. What was once the country’s  fourth-most-populous city grew rich thanks largely to a single industry.  General Motors, Ford and Chrysler once made nearly all the cars sold in  America; now, thanks to competition from foreign brands built in non-union states,  they sell less than half. Detroit’s population has fallen by 60% since  1950. The murder rate is 11 times the national average. The previous  mayor is in prison. Shrubs, weeds and raccoons have reclaimed empty neighbourhoods. The debts racked up when Detroit was big and rich are unpayable now that it is smaller and poor.

无独有偶，美国汽车城底特律已申请破产，这同样令人难以接受。许多人认为，底特律一例太过特殊，并不能给其它地区带来什么经验教训。该城曾是美国第四大人口密集地，其财富的增长很大程度上依赖于单一产业汽车业。过去，底特律三大汽车品牌通用、福特和克莱斯勒几乎占领了整个美国市场；时至今日，来自未加入工会联盟的州的外国品牌带来竞争，三大品牌的市场份额还不到50%。自上世纪50年代至今，底特律的人口已减少了60%；其犯罪率是全国平均水平的11倍；而该市前任的市长如今已身陷囹圄；社区再次变得空荡荡，再次被灌木、荒草和浣熊占领。在底特律强大而富裕的时候，债务问题没有显露出来而是迅速地堆积；现在，这个城市变得渺小而穷困，已经无力偿还巨额债务了。

Other states and cities should pay heed, not because they might end up  like Detroit next year, but because the city is a flashing warning light  on America’s fiscal dashboard. Though some of its woes are unique, a  crucial one is not. Many other state and city governments across America  have made impossible-to-keep promises to do with pensions and health  care. Detroit shows what can happen when leaders put off reforming the  public sector for too long.

其它的州和城市应该提高警惕了，这倒不是因为它们明年可能会落得和底特律一个下 场。真正的原因在于，底特律就像是美国财政仪表盘上的一个警示灯，它遇到的很多问题都是独一无二的，但关键的一个问题同样存在于其它州和城市。纵观美国， 许多州政府和市政府在养老金以及医疗保健等方面做出了根本无法兑现的承诺。而底特律一例表明，如果领导者长期推迟公共部门的改革，到底会发生如何惨烈的后 果。

Inner-city blues

市中心的蓝调

Nearly half of Detroit’s liabilities stem from promises of pensions and  health care to its workers when they retire. American states and cities  typically offer their employees defined-benefit pensions based on years  of service and final salary. These are supposed to be covered by funds  set aside for the purpose. By the states’ own estimates, their pension  pots are only 73% funded. That is bad enough, but  nearly all states apply an optimistic discount rate to their  obligations, making the liabilities seem smaller than they are. If a  more sober one is applied, the true ratio is a terrifying 48% (see  article). And many states are much worse. The hole in Illinois’s  pension pot is equivalent to 241% of its annual tax revenues: for  Connecticut, the figure is 190%; for Kentucky, 141%; for New Jersey,  137%.

底特律近半数的负债，都来源于政府就工人们退休后的养老金和医疗保险做出的承诺。 通常，美国的州和城市会向雇员提供养老金固定收益计划，该计划根据服务年限以及雇员的最后工资水平来确定退休金数额。按理说，政府应该专门拨出一部分基金 以支付养老金。而据美国各州自己的估计，只有73%的养老金由政府基金来支付。情况已经够糟糕的了，但现在几乎所有的州都给养老金设立了一个虚高的贴现率，这样政府的负债看上去就小得多。但如果能更克制严谨地采用较小贴现率的话，政府真正支付的养老金只占全部养老金的48%（另见文），这样的比率更可怕。很多州的状况更糟糕：伊利诺斯州的养老金缺口相当于其年度税收的241%；在康涅狄格州，该数值高达190%；而肯塔基州和新泽西州的比率则分别达到了141%和137%。

By one recent estimate, the total pension gap for the states is $2.7  trillion, or 17% of GDP. That understates the mess, because it omits  both the unfunded pension figure for cities and the health-care promises  made to retired government workers of all sorts. In Detroit’s case, the  bill for their medical benefits ($5.7 billion) was even larger than its  pension hole ($3.5 billion).

最近一项估计显示，美国所有州的养老金缺口总计2.7万亿美元，占该国GDP的17%。但此项数值实际上淡化了目前的混乱局面，因为城市中未得到基金赞助的养老金数额，以及承诺给退休政府工作人员的医疗支出，并未包含在内。从底特律一例中看出，该市医疗保险高达57亿美元，比总值35亿美元的养老金缺口还要大。

Some of this is the unfortunate side-effect of a happy trend:  Americans are living longer, even in Detroit, so promises to pensioners  are costlier to keep. But the problem is also political. Governors and  mayors have long offered fat pensions to public servants, thus buying  votes today and sending the bill to future taxpayers. They have also  allowed some startling abuses. Some bureaucrats are promoted just before  retirement or allowed to rack up lots of overtime, raising their  final-salary pension for the rest of their lives. Or their unions win  annual cost-of-living adjustments far above inflation. A watchdog in  Rhode Island calculated that a retired local fire chief would be pulling  in $800,000 a year if he lived to 100, for example. More than 20,000  retired public servants in California receive pensions of over $100,000.

美国人寿命更长了，就连底特律市民也是如此，而这一本来令人欣喜的趋势，却也非常不幸地拥有其负面效应：要兑现向退休人员许下的承诺，代价也就更加昂贵。而 这一问题同样有政治方面的因素。长期以来，州长和市长都向公职人员提供了丰厚的养老金，于当下收买了选票，却让未来的纳税人为此埋单。不仅如此，一些令人 瞠目结舌的滥用职权行径，更是在他们的允许之下发生了。一些官员在退休之前升职了，一些官员则经允许，聚揽了大量的加班费：共同点是，他们都增加了离职前薪水退休金额。又或者，他们所在的工会赢得了远超通胀水平的年度生活费调整。美国罗德岛州的一个监察机构推测，一名退休的消防队长如果能活到100岁，那么到时他每年可以得到多达80万美元的养老金。在加利福尼亚州，有2万多名退休公职人员，可以领到超过10万美元的养老金。

Money (That’s what I want)

钱，钱从哪儿来？

Cleaning up the mess in local and state government will take time.  Circumstances vary widely from place to place, but a good starting-point  would be to abandon the accounting tricks. Only when the scale of the  problem is made clear can politicians persuade voters of the need for  sacrifice.

要清理地方政府和州政府这乱糟糟的局面，可得花点时间了。各地的情况可谓是大不相同，但不再玩弄那些数字小把戏，会是个解决问题的一个很好的开端。只有把养老金缺口的大小真正弄清楚之后，政治家才能够说服选民：此时此地他们需要做出牺牲。

Public employees should retire later. States should accelerate the shift  to defined-contribution pension schemes, where what you get out depends  on what you put in. (These are the norm in the private sector.) Benefits already accrued should be honoured, but future accruals should be curtailed, where legally possible.  The earlier you grapple with the problem, the easier it will be to fix.  Nebraska, which stopped offering final-salary pensions to new hires in  1967, is sitting pretty.

公职人员应该延长工作年限。各州应该加快向养老金固定缴款计划（广泛用于私有部门）的转换，届时退休金额直接取决于工人的缴款额。已经产生积累效应的福利项目理应继续进行，而在将来法律允许的情况下，则应该缩减福利的累计规模。这个问题，越早解决也就越容易解决。内布拉斯加州已停止向1967年之后新雇佣的公职人员提供离职前薪水退休金，借此，该州的形势变得十分有利。

Yet sooner or later, some of these problems will end up in Washington,  DC. In Detroit, a judge ruled this week that federal bankruptcy law trumps a state law that makes it impossible to reduce pensions. But the issue  will arise again, and will not be truly settled until it reaches the  Supreme Court. Many places like Detroit will surely have to break some  past promises—and rightly so. And given the size of many of the black  holes, the state or federal government may have to help out. Taxpayers  should not bail out feckless local governments or investors who should have known the risks.  But they should help pensioners left stranded through no fault of their  own. Some state and municipal workers do not qualify for the federal  Social Security system; they get only the pensions promised by their  employer. If these do not materialise, there should be a backstop to  ensure that they receive at least a basic pension.

但早晚，位于华盛顿的联邦政府都必须出面解决其中的一些问题。本周，底特律一名法官判决，联邦破产法优先于密歇根州法律，而后者不允许底特律削减养老金。但这个争端肯定会再度涌起，只有联邦最高法庭作出判决，这个问题才能真正得到解决。像底特律这样的城市，迫不得已必将打破政府过去的诺言——而这么做也是正确的。许多城市的债务缺口过于庞大，联邦政府或州政府可能不得不出手相救。地方政府不负责任，而投资者本来就应该知晓福利项目的风险， 对此二者，纳税人的确不应该施以援手。但领养老金的退休人员并没有错，如今却也深陷困境，对此，纳税人理应伸出援手。一些州政以及市政工作者没有资格享受 联邦社会保障体系的福利，他们有的只是政府承诺的养老金。如果这些承诺不能实现的话，那么起码要做出应急处理，确保他们至少能获得一项基本养老金。

Americans in virtuous states and cities will be just as furious about  their tax dollars flowing to Detroit and other distressed places as  Germans are about euros going to southern Europe. But the truth is that  America’s whole public sector still operates in a financial never-never  land. Uncle Sam offers an array of “entitlements” that there is no real  plan to pay for. Barack Obama is on his way to joining George W. Bush  as a president who did nothing about that, while Republicans in  Congress imagine they can balance the books without raising taxes. The  government spends more on health care than many rich countries and still  does not cover everyone. America’s dynamic private sector is carrying on its back an unreformed Leviathan. Detroit is merely a symptom of that.

眼看着欧元大量流入南欧国家，德国人愤愤不平；而眼瞅着自己交的税白白流向底特律 以及其它穷困潦倒的地区，生活在经营良好的州或者市里的美国人，同样也是气愤不已。但真实情况是，美国整个的公共部门，依然对财政抱有乌托邦式的幻想。山 姆大叔提出了一系列“福利项目”，但并没有制定什么真正的计划来支付它们。贝拉克·奥巴马正在走小布什的老路，在切实支付福利项目上，可谓是无所作为；而国会内部的共和党人则幻想着可以不提高征税，而达到收支平衡。美国政府花在医疗保健上的钱比许多富裕国家都要多，但仍未实现全民覆盖。美国的私有部门虽颇具活力，现在也背负着一个尚未改革的庞然大物。而底特律也只是上述财政幻想症的一个体征而已。

From the print edition: Leaders