评论
打印
This election, how the U.S. government is going to pay for stuff is less clear than ever.
这次选举中，美国政府将如何支付开支比以往任何时候都更加不明朗。
Donald Trump has proposed to eliminate taxes for everybody from firefighters to people working overtime. He's also proposing cutting taxes on Social Security benefits.
唐纳德·特朗普提议取消从消防员到加班人员的所有人税收。他还提议削减社会保障福利税。
And the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget last week released a report that has estimated that that policy, among others, would mean that the Social Security fund would run out of money in 2031.
负责任联邦预算委员会上周发布了一份报告，估计这项政策以及其他政策将意味着社会保障基金将在2031年耗尽资金。
That's a few years earlier than it would be otherwise. Now, to be clear, when the Social Security fund runs out of money,
这提前了几年。现在，需要明确的是，当社会保障基金耗尽资金时，
it doesn't mean that no Social Security payments will go out to retirees and disabled people and survivors of deceased spouses. But if nothing is done, it could mean lower payments.
并不意味着不会向退休人员、残疾人和已故配偶的幸存者发放社会保障金。但如果什么都不做，可能意味着支付额会降低。
To date, Social Security has been self-sustaining. And when it runs out of money - as it's projected to do - politicians might ask, could we just borrow more money?
到目前为止，社会保障一直是自给自足的。当它耗尽资金时——正如预计的那样——政客们可能会问，我们能不能借更多的钱？
If the government starts borrowing for Social Security, though, that would put pressure on already rising government debt.
但是，如果政府开始为社会保障借款，这将给本已不断上升的政府债务带来压力。
That's right. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget separately estimated that both candidates' policies would increase the wider federal debt -
没错。负责任联邦预算委员会分别估计，两位候选人的政策都将增加更广泛的联邦债务——
Kamala Harris by around $4 trillion over 10 years, and Donald Trump nearly double that.
卡玛拉·哈里斯在10年内增加约4万亿美元，唐纳德·特朗普几乎将这一数字翻了一番。
This is THE INDICATOR FROM PLANET MONEY. I'm Adrian Ma. And I'm Darian Woods.
这里是THE INDICATOR FROM PLANET MONEY。我是Adrian Ma。我是Darian Woods。
Today on the show, given all these election goodies for voters, how worried should we be about Social Security and the federal debt? Today, we explain a fresh indicator to assess whether or not America's getting too far in the red.
今天在节目中，考虑到对于选民的所有这些选举好处，我们应该对社会保障和联邦债务有多担心？今天，我们解释了一个新指标，以评估美国是否陷入了太多赤字。
When you're talking about the government's finances, a good place to start is Social Security. That accounts for more than 20% of all government spending.
当你谈论政府的财政时，一个很好的起点是社会保障。它占所有政府支出的20%以上。
The way Social Security works is that payroll taxes go into this big fund, which then pays out monthly checks.
社会保障的运作方式是工资税进入这个大基金，然后每月支付支票。
But the problem we have now is the money coming into that fund is not keeping up with the money going out.
但我们现在面临的问题是，进入该基金的资金跟不上流出的资金。
Under current policies, the Social Security fund is estimated to run out in about nine years.
根据现行政策，社会保障基金预计将在大约九年后耗尽。
Jason Furman is an economics professor at Harvard University and served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under Obama.
贾森·弗曼是哈佛大学的经济学教授，曾担任奥巴马政府的经济顾问委员会主席。
Under the way the law functions now, it's not entirely clear what has to happen.
根据目前法律的运作方式，目前还不完全清楚会发生什么。
But it appears to be the case that the Social Security Administration would automatically cut everyone's benefits, and they would just have to do that legally.
但似乎社会保障管理局会自动削减所有人的福利，而且他们必须合法地这样做。
Those automatic cuts would be nearly 20%. And in the past, they've been avoided. Politicians on both sides of the aisle came together and found compromise - raising a little more payroll tax here, trimming benefits there.
这些自动削减将接近20%。在过去，他们一直避免这样做。两党政客走到一起，找到了妥协方案——在这里提高一点工资税，在那里削减福利。
In the early 1980s, Congress agreed to raise the age of full retirement benefits to 67 while payroll taxes rose. There is a third option, though.
20世纪80年代初，国会同意将全额退休年龄提高到67岁，同时提高工资税。不过，还有第三种选择。
Now, Congress could pass a law saying you're allowed to borrow money and send people full benefits.
现在，国会可以通过一项法律，规定允许借钱并向人们发放全额福利。
I think that would be unfortunate because that law would just take this deficit in Social Security and shift it elsewhere in the budget.
我认为这很不幸，因为这项法律只会将社会保障的赤字转移到预算的其他部分。
It means it would squeeze money that currently is going for education or medical research or something else. But that would, regardless, require a law of Congress to borrow money.
这意味着它将挤压目前用于教育或医学研究或其他方面的资金。但无论如何，这都需要国会通过一项借钱的法律。
And if Congress starts borrowing money instead of paying retirees and others through payroll taxes built up through the Social Security fund, well, that adds to the national debt, which is already very high by U.S. historical standards.
如果国会开始借钱，而不是通过社会保障基金积累的工资税来付给退休人员和其他人，那么这将增加国家债务，而按美国历史标准来看，这已经很高了。
Under current policies, it's on track to hit 125% of gross domestic product in about a decade.
根据现行政策，它有望在大约十年内达到国内生产总值的125%。
Gross domestic product is the value of everything that the country produces in one year.
国内生产总值是该国一年内生产的所有产品的价值。
So if you hypothetically spent all of America's earnings on paying down that national debt, it'd take a year and a quarter.
如果你假设将美国的所有收入都用于偿还国家债务，则需要一年零四分之一的时间。
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that Donald Trump's policies would raise the debt even further, to 143% by 2035.
负责任联邦预算委员会估计，唐纳德·特朗普的政策将使债务进一步增加，到2035年将达到143%。
Kamala Harris' policies would also cause an increase to the debt, but less so, to 134%.
卡玛拉·哈里斯的政策也会导致债务增加，但程度较轻，达到134%。
Either way, there seems to be a bipartisan lack of concern about the federal debt this election. So we asked Jason Furman whether he was worried.
无论如何，这次选举中两党似乎都对联邦债务缺乏担忧。我们问贾森·弗曼他是否担心。
It concerns me to some degree. Debt cannot be indefinitely on a rising path. If it keeps rising decade after decade after decade, eventually, you're going to hit a problem.
这在某种程度上让我担心。债务不可能无限期地上升。如果它十年又十年地持续上升，最终，你会遇到问题。
It's a little trickier to pinpoint exactly when you do hit that problem. Argentina had a huge crisis when its debt was only 45% of GDP.
准确地指出你何时会遇到这个问题有点棘手。阿根廷在债务仅占GDP的45%时经历了一场巨大的危机。
Great Britain, 150 years ago, went all the way to 250% of GDP without having a problem. So we don't quite know where the line is.
150年前，英国一路达到GDP的250%，没有出现问题。所以我们不太清楚界限在哪里。
We don't know when we'd cross it, but we can't keep going this way forever. And, you know, I'd rather stop digging the hole deeper now than wait to figure out what the point of no return is.
我们不知道什么时候会越过这个界限，但我们不能永远这样下去。我宁愿现在就停止挖更深的坑，也不愿等着弄清楚不归路在哪里。
And even if there is not a crisis, Jason says more government borrowing means higher interest rates for everyone in the economy.
贾森说，即使没有危机，政府借款越多，经济中每个人的利率就越高。
When the debt is higher, that puts upward pressure on interest rates. Basically, there's a limited pool of saving.
当债务较高时，就会给利率带来上行压力。基本上，储蓄池是有限的。
And if the government is competing for more of it and borrowing more of it, that drives up the price, just like anything - where demand goes up, the price goes up.
如果政府争相借入更多资金，就会推高价格，就像任何事情一样——需求上升，价格就会上涨。
So for example, mortgage rates are pretty high right now. You want to bring mortgage rates down?
例如，现在的抵押贷款利率相当高。你想降低抵押贷款利率吗？
Well, it turns out cutting government spending or raising taxes would take some of the pressure off of mortgage rates and help families in addition to businesses.
事实证明，削减政府支出或提高税收会减轻抵押贷款利率的一些压力，并帮助家庭和企业。
So where is the point where this is just too much borrowing for the economy? At the moment, one of the main measures people use is that debt-to-GDP ratio - the 143% debt-to-GDP ratio under Trump or 134% under Harris.
经济过度借贷的临界点在哪里呢？目前，人们使用的主要衡量标准之一是债务与GDP之比——特朗普执政期间的债务与GDP之比为143%，哈里斯执政期间为134%。
That sounds scary, but we don't need to pay our debt off in a single year. It's not like we need to take all of that year's income to pay the debt off.
这听起来很可怕，但我们不需要在一年内还清债务。我们不需要拿出当年的全部收入来偿还债务。
We can spread it over time. How easily you can spread it over time depends a lot on what the interest rate on your debt is.
我们可以分期偿还。随着时间的推移，您能否轻松分摊债务，很大程度上取决于您的债务利率。
So when interest rates are lower, I think higher levels of debt are sustainable. And by the way, right now, interest rates are higher than where they were prior to the pandemic, but they're a lot lower than they were 30, 40 years ago.
当利率较低时，我认为较高的债务水平是可持续的。顺便说一句，目前的利率高于疫情之前的水平，但比30、40年前低得多。
And so we do have more room to run debt than I would have thought 20 years ago.
与我20年前想象的相比，我们确实有更大的举债空间。
So instead of looking at the famous debt-to-GDP ratio as a measure of how secure the government's finances are,
贾森不会将著名的债务与GDP比率视为衡量政府财政安全性的指标，
Jason prefers to look at how much it's spending each year on interest payments and how that compares to the size of the economy.
而是更愿意看政府每年在利息支付上花费了多少，以及这与经济规模相比如何。
I like looking at real interest payments as a share of GDP.
我喜欢将实际利息支付视为GDP的一部分。
Real interest payments - just meaning adjusted for inflation - when inflation is high, the government's actually doing great on its debt because high inflation means that debt isn't worth as much.
实际利息支付——仅指剔除通货膨胀因素后——当通胀率高企时，政府在债务方面实际上表现良好，因为高通胀意味着债务价值不高。
So yeah, he just wants to adjust for that effect. How much is the government paying on interest after inflation?
他只是想针对这种影响进行调整。扣除通胀后，政府支付的利息是多少？
And if you look historically, if that ratio is below 2%, generally, we've been fine. As it approaches or exceeds 2%, we've seen some bigger tremors in the economy. So for me, that is the metric I keep my eyes on.
如果你回顾历史，如果该比率低于2%，通常我们都会过得很好。当该比率接近或超过2%时，我们会看到经济出现一些更大的震动。所以对我来说，这是我关注的指标。
And where are we now in the U.S.? Are we above or below that magic 2% number? So we are currently below that magic 2% number.
我们现在在美国处于什么位置？我们是高于还是低于那个神奇的2%？我们现在低于那个神奇的2%。
But under either candidate's plans, within a decade, we will be at or above it and continuing to rise, which is why I think we should take steps now to avoid being in that position, but also why I'm not panicked.
但根据任何一位候选人的计划，在十年内，我们将达到或超过这个数字并继续上升，这就是为什么我认为我们现在应该采取措施避免处于那种境地，也是为什么我并不惊慌的原因。
We don't need to drop everything, have a huge fiscal summit to figure out all our problems, but let's not make them worse when we're heading above the threshold that might be a danger signal.
我们不需要放弃一切，召开一次大型财政峰会来解决我们所有的问题，但当我们超过可能是一个危险信号的阈值时，不要让它们变得更糟。
In the past, a spark for a big fiscal summit has been Social Security crises. Yet, in some ways, the whole conversation about Social Security running out of money is an accounting fiction.
过去，大型财政峰会的导火索是社会保障危机。然而，在某些方面，关于社会保障资金耗尽的整个讨论都是一个会计虚构。
Yeah, under the current law, it would need to trim payments to retirees and others. But Congress can always change that law.
根据现行法律，它需要削减对退休人员和其他人员的支付。但国会随时可以修改该法律。
On the other hand, it is one big, burning platform that brings congresspeople together to work on either raising more taxes, cutting spending or some combination.
另一方面，这是一个巨大的、迫切的平台，将国会议员聚集在一起，共同努力提高税收、削减开支或两者兼而有之。
It's an incredibly useful accounting fiction. It's served the program well for 90 years. It's served our country well overall.
这是一个非常有用的会计虚构。它为该计划服务了90年。它总体上为我们的国家服务得很好。
And I would much rather politicians be brought to the table by an accounting fiction than by a very real fiscal crisis. We tell each other accounting stories to live, Adrian.
我更希望政客们被会计虚构而不是真正的财政危机逼到谈判桌前。我们互相讲述会计故事是为了生存，Adrian。
