财政悬崖也许只是耸人听闻

    自从11月6日奥巴马在美国总统大选中击败米特·罗姆尼以来，金融市场就开始出现下挫。11月7、8日，道琼斯指数下跌了3%，9日看来还会继续走低。是的，美国历史上每当现任总统赢得连任时，金融市场总是会走低，但这次下跌还是让很多华尔街人士感到不安。不是疲弱的公司业绩，不是袭击美国东海岸的反常飓风，也不是欧洲问题重现——不，这次下跌完全是因为正在逼近的财政悬崖。或者，我们预计正在逼近的财政悬崖。

    没错，财政悬崖问题和美国不断膨胀的国家债务一样真真切切——理论上糟糕，但还没有糟糕到能让华盛顿心甘情愿承受短期的经济痛楚。毕竟，两年后美国众议院就将重新选举，哪一方都不愿在展开大选竞选时，还要奋力捍卫为什么政府制定了抑制经济增长的缩支加税政策。这些政策的目的是解决一些债务负担问题，但目前债务融资并无没有问题，投资者仍然愿意以接近零利率的收益率提供融资。

    上周四，无党派的美国国会预算办公室（Congressional Budget Office，以下简称CBO）公布了最新的美国经济短期和长期预测。鉴于财政悬崖引发的所有争议，CBO列出了两种对立的经济观点：一是美国政府掉落财政悬崖，根据现行法律，必须得这样；二是美国政府转向，在不负责任的财政道路上越走越远。

    如果美国政府陷入党派僵局，所有布什时期的减税政策将于1月2日到期，包括资本所得税和股息税(这也是为何本周股市如此疲弱的原因之一)。由于美国国会“超级委员会”没能按去年夏天通过的《预算控制法案》（Budget Control Act）要求、列出未来十年至少1万亿美元的开支缩减，将会自动削减6,000亿美元的必需和可选支出，以及6,000亿美元的国防相关支出（这被称为“扣押”)。加税和减支共同作用，将构成可怕的财政悬崖。

    如果掉下财政悬崖，美国经济将会怎样表现？简言之，CBO预计短期内将带来较大的痛苦，而长期效益也相对有限。联邦税收增加、联邦支出减少，将把预算赤字(政府收支差额）从去年的1.1万亿美元降至减少到2013财年的6,410亿美元，削减约5,000亿美元。自从1969年以后，美国这样的预算赤字削减还从来没有出现过这么大的幅度(占GDP比例）。那一年，保守的理查德·尼克松将大手大脚的林登·约翰逊从白宫中赶了出去。

    The markets have taken a beating since President Obama trounced Mitt Romney in Tuesday's election. The Dow is down 3% in the last two trading sessions and looks to be headed further south on Friday. While it is true that the markets historically take a dive after an incumbent president wins reelection, this latest drop has many on Wall Street on edge. Forget the weak corporate earnings, the freak hurricane that hit the East Coast and renewed troubles in Europe – no, this is all because of one thing: the looming fiscal cliff. Or that is what we are to believe.

    Indeed, the fiscal cliff is about as real of a problem as the nation's burgeoning national debt – it's theoretically bad, but it isn't bad enough for Washington to risk making the short term any more economically unpleasant than it has to be. After all, there will be elections for the House in just two short years, so neither side wants to go into that election cycle trying to defend why the government instituted growth killing spending cuts while allowing taxes to shoot up to address some arbitrary debt load that investors continue to fund for next to nothing.

    Thursday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its latest short and long-term economic forecasts for the country. Given all the hubbub over the fiscal cliff, the government bean counters so kindly presented two contrasting views of the economy – one in which the government drives off the fiscal cliff, which it must under current law, and one in which the government turns and just continues to drive on the edge of fiscal irresponsibility.

    If the government gets caught up in partisan gridlock, all the Bush era tax cuts end on January 2nd – including those on capital gains and dividends (hence why the equity markets are in such a tizzy this week). Since the Congressional "super committee" failed to lay out at least $1 trillion in spending cuts over ten years as required under the Budget Control Act passed last summer, there will automatically be $600 billion in cuts to discretionary and mandatory spending and another $600 billion in defense-related spending (this is called the "sequester"). Together, the increase in taxes and the decrease in spending is what make up the dreaded fiscal cliff.

    So how does the U.S. economy fare down the rabbit hole? In a nutshell, the CBO projects that it would produce some major short-term pain with relatively little long-term benefits. The increase in federal taxes and the reductions in federal spending would cut the budget deficit (the difference between how much revenue the government takes in how much it spends) from $1.1 trillion last year to $641 billion in fiscal 2013, roughly a $500 billion cut. That represents a reduction in the budget deficit (as a percentage share of GDP) not seen since 1969 when the conservative Richard Nixon booted the free-spending Lyndon Johnson out of the White House.