美国36个月后将面临万亿美元赤字，选民们在乎吗？

既然共和党的参议员已经同意朝着1.5万亿美元巨幅减税的方向迈出第一步，我们不妨看看，在没有引入一个大胆新平台的情况下，美国财政赤字的灾难轨迹将怎样使未来的国库收入陷入危机。

此时此刻，我们正在大步奔向联邦政府遭遇1万亿美元亏空的那一天——也就是起始于2020年10月1日的2021财年。这个数字理应引发报警器尖叫，选民恐慌，以及财政缩紧。“然而不论民主党还是共和党都对财政赤字漠不关心，选民们似乎也并不在意，”偏保守立场的曼哈顿学院的布莱恩•理德尔说。

人们本应该非常关注财政赤字，因为赤字一旦突破万亿美元，就意味着财政状况已偏离正常轨道太远。

要理解为何国库亏空在短短36个月里能够翻倍，达到13位数之高，就必须把美国国会预算办公室（Congressional Budget Office）的预测报告和很有可能出现的支出增长结合起来看——国会预算办公室被禁止将后者纳入其预测报告。今年6月，国会预算办公室在《预算与经济展望报告更新版》里公布了根据当前法规作出的最新十年预测。其假设前提是，今天的法规适用于未来的收入、支出和赤字，即使这些法规很在实际中可能会变化。其实很多这些法规是肯定会变的，而且是朝着使赤字进一步恶化的方向改变。

国会预算办公室的收入展望惊人地乐观。它预测道，由于收入增加，美国家庭不断达到更高的纳税档次，因此个人所得税占财政收入的比重将大幅增加，其增量完全能够弥补工资税贡献比例下降造成的损失。老年医保基金Medicare及社保基金的收入增长将不及GDP增长，这与个人所得税强劲增长的本质原因是一样的：随着人们收入增加，越来越多的美国人收入将达到社保和老年医保缴费基数的上限，也就是说缴费金额超过上限后不再增加。国会预算办公室预计企业税占财政收入的比例将基本持平。在此背景下，财政收入将大幅增加，从占GDP的17.3%——比50年来的平均值17.4%只低一丁点儿——升高到2027年占GDP的18.4%。

财政支出的爆发式增长将远远超过收入的强势增长——这是官方给出的预测。国会预算办公室预计，赤字将在2018年从7390亿美元减少到5810亿美元，因为美国老百姓很可能会把账面资本收益推迟到次年，寄希望于税改能降低股票交易或房地产交易的税率。然而在国会预算办公室的作出官方预测中，财政亏空将从2018年开始迅猛抬头。根据《财富》的估算，实际情况很可能糟糕得多。

原因何在？自从国会预算办公室必须在预测中假设现行法规在未来仍然适用，其预测就一直认为，由于国会的减支要求，可支配开支占财政收入的比例将大幅下降。该机构预测，国防开支将减少到只占GDP的2.7%，成为1930年以来的最低水平，而国防之外——用于教育、国际援助和医疗卫生等用途的开支，都将低于国民消费指数。总体而言，国会预算办公室预计，可支配开支在未来十年将从占GDP的6.3%大幅下降到占GDP的5.4%。理德尔说：“这不大可能。国会预算办公室的预测太乐观了。”

在白宫今年春季公布的2018财年预算中，美国总裁特朗普提出了雄心勃勃的可支配支出的计划，包括国防开支增加4840亿美元，以及增加2000亿美元用于重建美国陈旧的基础设施。而更现实的预测是，可支配支出将随着GDP的增长而增长。在这种情况下，国会预算办公室预测2021年将遭遇的8790亿美元赤字——已经比2016年的水平扩大了50%——实际上还会高很多。如果调高可支配支出，再加上额外负债需要负担的利息，那么2021年的财政亏空还要增加1500亿美元，使总额远超1万亿美元。“这不但合理，而且很可能发生，”理德尔说。

实际情况更加狼狈。在修改后的预测中，2027年赤字将高达1.7万亿美元，比CBO已经给出的示警预测还高16%，而美国总体负债将高达2.9万亿美元，达到GDP的104%，那时整个国家将深陷泥沼，就像中世纪制图人说的——“恶龙来了。”

越过万亿美元红线是不是会引发民众对财政支出的强烈反对？要知道，美国赤字在2009年达到1.4亿美元，2012年也超过了1万亿美元。理德尔说：“奥巴马政府早期出现的赤字造成了人们的懈怠心理，使民众对赤字的反应变得迟钝。”这是不幸的，因为今天的情况与金融危机恢复期完全不同。这些巨大的差距根深蒂固而且还会不断恶化。

万亿美元赤字的真正意义在于，一旦它们盘踞不去，一场财政灾难几乎无可避免。如果亏空不太大，政府还有空间来控制各种福利费用的增长，不至于造成很大的痛苦。相较于大幅砍减费用，老百姓更容易接受温和的措施。然而如果赤字和债务变得无法控制，前者恐怕是唯一的出路。

那么共和党的减税提案呢？它的支持者一定会说，减免的税收大部分会以拉动增长从而增加税利的形式返回国库。在福利改革同时进行的情况下，简化税目和降低企业税率是正确的。“福利改革比税改更重要，”理德尔说。

如果不能严格控制养老保险和医疗保险，那么增长越高，税改的红利就会越多地被赤字、债务和利率削平，甚至比《财富》预测的情况更加危险。这是因为减税提案只能使未来的亏空扩大，而共和党人似乎毫不担心。几十年前，标新立异的佩罗特两次以独立候选人的身份参选总统，多次批评巨额政赤字。如果通往万亿美元赤字的高歌猛进之路将造成新一轮的恐慌和恶意，逆耳的批评声未尝不是一件好事。 （财富中文网）

译者：童明

Now that Senate Republicans have agreed on the first step towards a gigantic, $1.5 trillion tax cut, it's instructive to examine the disastrous trajectory of America's deficits without an audacious new platform putting future revenues at risk.

Right now, we're headed for federal shortfalls topping $1 trillion by fiscal 2021, a period starting October 1, 2020. That number should trigger screeching alarms, terrify voters, and prompt calls for a draconian slowdown in spending. "But neither the Democrats nor the Republicans care about deficits," says Brian Riedl of the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute. "And it's not clear the voters do, either."

They all should care plenty, because the arrival of $1 trillion deficits means fiscal sanity has become a bridge too far.

To see how shortfalls double to 13 figures in just thirty-six months, it's crucial in incorporate both the official CBO projections and likely spending increases that the CBO is barred from including in its forecasts. In June, the CBO released its "An Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook," unveiling its latest projections for the next decade. The CBO is obliged to make its predictions under "current law." Hence it assumes that the rules in place today govern future outlays, revenues and deficits, even if those rules are likely to change. In fact, many rules are certain to change, and mostly in the deficit-deepening direction.

The CBO's outlook for revenues is surprisingly strong. It forecasts that receipts from the individual income tax will grow strongly as a share of national income, as increasing incomes push families into ever-higher brackets. That trend more than offsets a decline in the contribution from payroll taxes. Receipts from Medicare and Social Security duties will lag GDP for essentially the same reason that income taxes will outperform: As their pay rises, more and more Americans will reach the taxable limits for Social Security and Medicare, capping their payments. The CBO expects corporate taxes to remain flat a percentage of national income. All told, revenues are expected to rise strongly, from 17.3% of GDP, a tad below the 50-year average of 17.4%, to 18.4% by 2027.

An explosion in spending will far outstrip that robust trend in revenues––and that's just the official scenario. The CBO projects that deficits will drop in fiscal 2018 from $739 billion to $581 billion, as folks delay booking capital gains until next year in hopes that tax reform will curb levies on sales of stocks or homes. But shortfalls surge starting in 2018 in the CBO's official forecasts. And by Fortune's estimates, the real numbers will be far worse.

Here's why. Since the CBO is obliged to project that the today's fiscal laws remain in place, it's forecasting that the Congress's sequester requirements dramatically shrink discretionary spending as a share of national income. The agency foresees that outlays for defense will fall to 2.7% of GDP, the lowest levels since the 1930s, and that non-defense spending for the likes of education, foreign aid, and HHS trails the CPI. Overall, the CBO reckons that discretionary outlays will drop steeply from 6.3% to 5.4% of GDP over the next decade. "It won't happen," says Riedl. "The CBO scenario is extraordinarily rosy."

In White House budget for FY 2018 released this spring, President Trump proposed ambitious initiatives in the discretionary realm, including $484 billion increase in defense spending, as well as an extra $200 billion for rebuilding America's crumbing infrastructure. It's far more realistic to forecast that discretionary outlays will wax with GDP. So if that happens, the CBO's projected deficit of $879 billion in 2021, already 50% above 2016 levels, will be a lot higher. Adjusting discretionary spending upwards, and counting interest on the extra debt, will add approximately $150 billion to the shortfall in 2021, pushing the total figure well over $1 trillion. "That scenario is not only plausible, but probable," says Riedl.

It gets a lot worse. In our revised projections, the deficit would reach $1.7 trillion by 2027, 16% above the CBO's already-alarming estimate, and America's debt would stand at $2.9 trillion, 104% of GDP, putting the nation in the area that Medieval cartographers labeled, "Here be dragons."

Will crossing the trillion mark prompt an outcry for spending restraint? Keep in mind that the U.S. deficit hit $1.4 trillion in 2009, and exceeded a trillion as recently as 2012. "The deficits of the early Obama years created a sense of complacency, they took away the sticker shock," says Riedl. That's unfortunate, because today's situation is totally different from the aftermath of the financial crisis. These gargantuan gaps are ingrained and growing on autopilot.

The real significance of trillion dollar deficits is that once they're allowed to take hold, avoiding a fiscal disaster becomes far more difficult. When shortfalls are lower, politicians have more room to curb the rise in spending on entitlements without causing severe pain. That's a lot more palatable to voters than demanding the steep cuts, the only solution when deficits and debt are raging out of control.

What about the Republicans' proposal for tax relief? Naturally, its proponents argue that the cuts will mainly pay for themselves by recharging growth and swelling tax receipts. Tax simplification and corporate rate reductions are the way to go––when coupled with entitlement reform. "Entitlement reform is more important than tax reform," says Riedl.

Without reining in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the danger is that the higher growth that should flow from tax reform is blunted by deficits, debt, and interest rates that are even more towering than Fortune's menacing projections. That's because the proposed tax cuts at best will add to future shortfalls, a situation that doesn't seem to bother the Republican a whit. Decades ago, a maverick named Ross Perot became a political player assailing ruinous deficits. It wouldn't be a bad thing if the march toward a trillion caused another round of fear and loathing.