经济学人:奥斯本的第二次预算报告

 　　Green shoots

　　继往开来

　　George Osborne’s second budget was quiet but creditable

　　奥斯本的第二次预算报告并不高调但做法可靠

　　SOME people think football is a matter of life and death; on the contrary, Bill Shankly, a legendary¹ coach, once observed, it’s more important than that. Some people billed George Osborne’s budget on March 23rd as a matter of life and death for the government. It wasn’t: the coalition’s big decisions—and big gamble—were taken last year, when the chancellor² of the exchequer³ set out his plan to eliminate Britain’s structural⁴ deficit⁵ during this parliament. This budget merely restated that commitment. But it also groped towards an answer to an even more important question. As Mr Osborne put it, how can Britain “earn its way in the modern world”? His response, like his plan for the deficit, is broadly right.

　　有人认为足球比赛乃生死对决；相反，传奇教练Bill Shankly却说，足球赛的意义远不止生死对决这么简单。有人把奥斯本3月23日公布的预算报告看作是决定本届政府存亡大局的关键。这种看法并不对。联合政府的关键性决定——也是赌得最大的一把——在去年财政大臣给出本届政府针对减少英国结构性赤字计划的时候就已成定局。这次的预算报告只是重申了那次的计划，但它也摸索着另外一个更重要的问题的答案。就像奥斯本说的，英国怎么才能“在当今世界赢得机会”呢？他的回答跟他针对减少赤字的计划一样，大致上是正确的。

　　Britain’s recovery has proved more fragile than Mr Osborne hoped last June, when he announced the fiercest public-spending squeeze in living memory, plus some tax rises to go with the ones bequeathed by Labour. The economy contracted by 0.6% in the last quarter of 2010 and growth in 2011 is projected to be only 1.7%. Meanwhile inflation has risen (to 4.4% in February), pushing up the welfare bill and putting pressure on household incomes. The Bank of England’s monetary⁶ policy committee is split on whether to raise interest rates, but it has got more hawkish⁷. Mr Osborne could have softened⁸ the effect of a future interest-rate hike by loosening fiscal⁹ policy a jot¹⁰. Yet by not loosening, he has made it more likely that the bank will delay putting up rates—and he has also maintained his deficit-reduction strategy. On balance he did the right thing.

　　事实证明，英国的经济复苏比奥斯本去年六月所希望的要不堪一击得多。当时他公布了人们记忆中最为大刀阔斧的公共支出紧缩计划，并在沿袭劳工党的税收政策基础上进一步提高了一些税收。英国经济在去年末季下滑了0.6%，而2011年的增长预期仅为1.7%。同时，上涨的通胀（2月份已上升至4.4%）推高了福利费用，并给居民收入施压。英国央行的货币政策委员会就是否调高利率问题立场不一，但整体上更倾向鹰派手腕。假设财政政策放松了一点，奥斯本就可以软化未来利率提升的效应。但他没有放松财政政策，这增加了央行延后调高利率计划的可能性，同时他自身减少赤字的战略也没有受到影响。总的来说他的做法是正确的。

　　Politically, that strategy is far from old news. Its real-world impact will begin to be felt only in full next month, when a gamut¹¹ of tax rises, benefit cuts and public-sector¹² pay freezes take effect. This week Mr Osborne announced some measures designed to make the squeeze look fairer, such as a new crackdown on tax evasion¹³. He pinched North Sea oil companies by introducing a “fair-fuel stabiliser”, which will fund a deferral¹⁴ of rises in fuel duty (currently a big gripe in Britain as elsewhere) through an increased levy¹⁵ on oil production, so long as the oil price stays high. Bashing business is never good, but his swipes at the usual targets were relatively¹⁶ harmless.

　　从政治角度来讲，这种战略可不是什么老生常谈。它的整体现实影响至少要在下个月税率全部上升，福利减少还有公务员停止涨薪开始生效的时候才能被感觉出来。奥斯本本周宣布了一系列措施，比如新一轮的打击逃税行动，力图让停止涨薪显得公平一点儿。他盯住了北海的石油公司，推出“公平燃料稳定措施”。该措施规定，只要油价保持高位，石油生产就征收高税率，在燃料税调高（跟其他国家一样，这是当前英国的民怨所在）之前，这起措施会为政府筹集一定的资金。打击企业的成长一直以来都是错误的做法，但他所打击的常规目标相对来说没有受到什么伤害。

　　And compared with last year’s policies, they were trivial. This budget’s most interesting bits were the ones designed to rebuff those who say the government is better at inflicting¹⁷ pain than at fostering economic gain, and to help win Mr Osborne’s underlying¹⁸ bet: that the private sector will provide the growth and jobs to compensate¹⁹ for the state’s retrenchment²⁰.

　　跟去年相比，今年的这些政策简直微不足道。这次预算报告最有趣的部分就是那些严厉回绝政府造孽不造福说法的政策；为了让奥斯本的赌注赢得支持，报告称私营部门将会成为经济增长和制造就业机会的来源，抵消公共部门减裁带来的消极影响。

　　Growth is a trickier²¹ subject than cuts for governments in general and this one in particular. If a chancellor has the gumption—and Mr Osborne seems to—he can bend the public finances to his will. By contrast, he is likelier to hinder growth than cultivate it. Mr Osborne is anxious not to seem the dry neoliberal of caricature: his camp stresses his intellectual debt to Michael Heseltine, an interventionist Tory minister of the 1980s, as well as to Nigel Lawson, a tax-cutting Thatcherite chancellor. But a fully²² fledged industrial policy does not chime with the government’s world view as fixing the deficit does.

　　一般来说，经济增长这件事比缩减政府开支要困难一些，而当前的经济增长尤其困难。如果一个财政大臣够英明，奥斯本看起来挺英明，那么他应该想把公共财政怎么样就怎么样。与此相反，比起让经济增长，他倒更加可能妨碍增长。奥斯本对自己不像漫画中的新民主派人士表现得那般机敏感到十分焦虑：在支持团队中，他欠下的一些出谋划策人情债尤其突出，包括80年代的干涉派保守党财政大臣Micheal Heseltine,以及撒切尔执政期间支持减税的财政大臣Nigel Lawson. 但全方位的工业扶持政策并不能像修正财政赤字一样，与政府的世界观保持一致。

　　Some of what Mr Osborne had to say was depressingly familiar. A plan to create new “enterprise zones” might—or might not—prove more effective than similar, underwhelming efforts in the past. Promises to cut business regulations are good but in the past they have seldom been met. And his sensible bid to loosen up the sclerotic planning regime might be thwarted²³ by nervous local councils.

　　奥斯本提到的一些做法已经让人耳朵听出了老茧。创建新型“企业区“的计划或许会，也或许不会比过去类似的平庸做法更加有效。减少商业法规的承诺是可取的，但按照过去的经验来看，也只是说说而已。他尝试放松计划过度的体制的想法虽然明智，却有可能受到对此感到紧张的地方行政的阻挠。

　　Mr Osborne’s basic message on growth, however, was that he wants to make Britain a better place to do business. He sees the global economy as a contest to attract increasingly mobile companies; as part of it, he announced that corporation tax would be cut faster than expected, plus some useful incentives²⁴ for entrepreneurs and investors²⁵. (He also floated the idea of merging²⁶ income tax and national insurance, a complicated ancillary²⁷ tax: he should have just got on with it.) Like his populist fiddles²⁸, these measures were relatively modest, but their thrust was welcome: that Britain can only prosper²⁹ as an open, trading nation with a thriving private sector.

　　然而，奥斯本关于经济增长传递出的基本信息是：他想让英国成为一个更加适合发展商业的地方。他将全球经济视为吸引移动性渐强的公司的一场比赛。包含其中的，不乏他宣布将比预期更快地消减企业税，并为企业家和投资人增加动力而推出鼓励政策的声明。（他还提出把收入税和国民保险合并成一种复杂的附属税的想法，他本应该继续坚持做下去。）跟他讨好平民的手段一样，这些措施相对温和，但其中的重点是受人欢迎的：英国只有依靠欣欣向荣的私营部门才能蓬勃发展，成为一个开放的贸易国度。

　　And a skilled workforce³⁰. One of the country’s biggest economic problems is the educational failure of a stubbornly large chunk³¹ of its population. Labour’s basic solution was to fix the symptoms of that failure, making exams and access to university easier. This week Mr Osborne found some money for new technical colleges—the hope being that vocational education will one day rival Germany’s, complementing³² the government’s broader school reforms. That is an even longer-term project than deficit reduction—but even more vital.

　　还需要技术劳动力。这个国家最大的经济问题之一就是一直没有教育好很大一部分人口。劳工党的基本方案是修正这种失败的表象，简易化试题和大学的入学途径。本周奥斯本为新的技校提供了部分资金，希望有一天职业教育会赶超德国，实现政府广义上的教育改革。这比起减少赤字是一项更加长远的项目，但也更加重要。

1 legendary   

adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学）

参考例句：

• Legendary stories are passed down from parents to children.传奇故事是由父母传给孩子们的。
• Odysseus was a legendary Greek hero.奥狄修斯是传说中的希腊英雄。

2 chancellor   

n.(英)大臣；法官；(德、奥)总理；大学校长

参考例句：

• They submitted their reports to the Chancellor yesterday.他们昨天向财政大臣递交了报告。
• He was regarded as the most successful Chancellor of modern times.他被认为是现代最成功的财政大臣。

3 exchequer   

n.财政部；国库

参考例句：

• In Britain the Chancellor of the Exchequer deals with taxes and government spending.英国的财政大臣负责税务和政府的开支。
• This resulted in a considerable loss to the exchequer.这使国库遭受了重大损失。

4 structural   

adj.构造的，组织的，建筑（用）的

参考例句：

• The storm caused no structural damage.风暴没有造成建筑结构方面的破坏。
• The North American continent is made up of three great structural entities.北美大陆是由三个构造单元组成的。

5 deficit   

n.亏空，亏损；赤字，逆差

参考例句：

• The directors have reported a deficit of 2.5 million dollars.董事们报告赤字为250万美元。
• We have a great deficit this year.我们今年有很大亏损。

6 monetary   

adj.货币的，钱的；通货的；金融的；财政的

参考例句：

• The monetary system of some countries used to be based on gold.过去有些国家的货币制度是金本位制的。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

7 hawkish   

adj. 鹰派的, 强硬派的

参考例句：

• My staff's advice that first day was amazingly hawkish. 在第一天，我的僚属们的意见是令人吃惊的鹰派意见。
• Antiwar groups fear Barack Obama may create hawkish Cabinet. 反战团体担心巴拉克·奥巴马可以创建强硬派内阁。

8 softened   

（使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰

参考例句：

• His smile softened slightly. 他的微笑稍柔和了些。
• The ice cream softened and began to melt. 冰淇淋开始变软并开始融化。

9 fiscal   

adj.财政的，会计的，国库的，国库岁入的

参考例句：

• The increase of taxation is an important fiscal policy.增税是一项重要的财政政策。
• The government has two basic strategies of fiscal policy available.政府有两个可行的财政政策基本战略。

10 jot   

n.少量；vi.草草记下；vt.匆匆写下

参考例句：

• I'll jot down their address before I forget it.我得赶快把他们的地址写下来，免得忘了。
• There is not a jot of evidence to say it does them any good.没有丝毫的证据显示这对他们有任何好处。

11 gamut   

n.全音阶，(一领域的)全部知识

参考例句：

• The exhibition runs the whole gamut of artistic styles.这次展览包括了所有艺术风格的作品。
• This poem runs the gamut of emotions from despair to joy.这首诗展现了从绝望到喜悦的感情历程。

12 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

13 evasion   

n.逃避，偷漏(税)

参考例句：

• The movie star is in prison for tax evasion.那位影星因为逃税而坐牢。
• The act was passed as a safeguard against tax evasion.这项法案旨在防止逃税行为。

14 deferral   

n.延期，缓役

参考例句：

• It also calls for the deferral of a share of bonuses. 协议还要求一部分奖金延期发放。 来自互联网
• Even implementing the interest-deferral scheme for homeowners has proved inconveniently tricky. 甚至是对房主实行的推迟利息的方案，结果证明也是极不方便的。 来自互联网

15 levy   

n.征收税或其他款项，征收额

参考例句：

• They levy a tax on him.他们向他征税。
• A direct food levy was imposed by the local government.地方政府征收了食品税。

16 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

17 inflicting   

把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He was charged with maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm. 他被控蓄意严重伤害他人身体。
• It's impossible to do research without inflicting some pain on animals. 搞研究不让动物遭点罪是不可能的。

18 underlying   

adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的

参考例句：

• The underlying theme of the novel is very serious.小说隐含的主题是十分严肃的。
• This word has its underlying meaning.这个单词有它潜在的含义。

19 compensate   

vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消

参考例句：

• She used her good looks to compensate her lack of intelligence. 她利用她漂亮的外表来弥补智力的不足。
• Nothing can compensate for the loss of one's health. 一个人失去了键康是不可弥补的。

20 retrenchment   

n.节省，删除

参考例句：

• Retrenchment will be necessary. 有必要进行紧缩。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Defense planners predict an extended period of retrenchment. 国防规划人员预计开支紧缩期会延长。 来自辞典例句

21 trickier   

adj.狡猾的( tricky的比较级 )；（形势、工作等）复杂的；机警的；微妙的

参考例句：

• This is the general rule, but some cases are trickier than others. 以上是一般规则，但某些案例会比别的案例更为棘手。 来自互联网
• The lower the numbers go, the trickier the problems get. 武器的数量越低，问题就越复杂。 来自互联网

22 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

23 thwarted   

阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过

参考例句：

• The guards thwarted his attempt to escape from prison. 警卫阻扰了他越狱的企图。
• Our plans for a picnic were thwarted by the rain. 我们的野餐计划因雨受挫。

24 incentives   

激励某人做某事的事物( incentive的名词复数 )； 刺激； 诱因； 动机

参考例句：

• tax incentives to encourage savings 鼓励储蓄的税收措施
• Furthermore, subsidies provide incentives only for investments in equipment. 更有甚者，提供津贴仅是为鼓励增添设备的投资。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

25 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

26 merging   

合并（分类）

参考例句：

• Many companies continued to grow by merging with or buying competing firms. 许多公司通过合并或收买竞争对手的公司而不断扩大。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• To sequence by repeated splitting and merging. 用反复分开和合并的方法进行的排序。

27 ancillary   

adj.附属的，从属的

参考例句：

• The transport corps is ancillary to the infantry.运输队是步兵的辅助部队。
• This is just an ancillary business.这仅仅是一项辅助业务。

28 fiddles   

n.小提琴( fiddle的名词复数 )；欺诈；（需要运用手指功夫的）细巧活动；当第二把手v.伪造( fiddle的第三人称单数 )；篡改；骗取；修理或稍作改动

参考例句：

• He fiddles with his papers on the table. 他抚弄着桌子上那些报纸。 来自辞典例句
• The annual Smithsonian Festival of American Folk Life celebrates hands-hands plucking guitars and playing fiddles. 一年一度的美国民间的“史密斯索尼安节”是赞美人的双手的节日--弹拔吉他的手，演奏小提琴的手。 来自辞典例句

29 prosper   

v.成功，兴隆，昌盛；使成功，使昌隆，繁荣

参考例句：

• With her at the wheel,the company began to prosper.有了她当主管，公司开始兴旺起来。
• It is my earnest wish that this company will continue to prosper.我真诚希望这家公司会继续兴旺发达。

30 workforce   

n.劳动大军，劳动力

参考例句：

• A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
• A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。

31 chunk   

n.厚片，大块，相当大的部分（数量）

参考例句：

• They had to be careful of floating chunks of ice.他们必须当心大块浮冰。
• The company owns a chunk of farmland near Gatwick Airport.该公司拥有盖特威克机场周边的大片农田。

32 complementing   

补足，补充( complement的现在分词 )； 求反

参考例句：

• Maligrant segregants may, therefore, arise when complementing chromosomes are lost. 因此当互补染色体丢失时，就会产生恶性分离子。
• A complementing circuIt'selects either the subtracter output or the output of the complementing circuit. 取补线路可任意选通减法器的输出或补取线路的输出。