特朗普预算案中的初级错误

Details of President Donald Trump’s first budget have now been released. Much can and will be said about the dire social consequences about what is in it and the wildly optimistic economic assumptions it embodies. My observation is that there appears to be a logical error of the kind that would justify failing a student in an introductory economics course.

美国总统唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)第一份预算案的细节现已对外公布。关于预算内容和预算体现出来的极为乐观的经济假设会带来的可怕社会后果，有很多值得说的，也会有很多评议。我认为，预算里看上去存在一个逻辑错误，因这个逻辑错误挂掉一名学生的经济学导论课也无可厚非。

Apparently, the budget forecasts that US growth will rise to 3.0 per cent by 2021 because of the Trump administration’s policies — largely its tax cuts and perhaps also its regulatory policies. Fair enough if you believe in tooth-fairies and ludicrous supply-side economics.

显然，这份预算预测称，由于特朗普政府的政策——主要是其减税、也许还有监管方面的政策——到2021年美国经济增长率将提高至3%。说得不错，如果你相信牙仙子和荒谬的供给学派经济学的话。

Then the administration asserts that it will propose revenue-neutral tax cuts, with the revenue neutrality coming in part because the tax cuts stimulate growth! This is an elementary double count. You cannot use the growth benefits of tax cuts once to justify an optimistic baseline and then again to claim that the tax cuts do not cost revenue. At least not in a world of logic.

特朗普政府接着坚称，其将提议不影响财政收入的减税措施，财政收入不受影响的部分原因在于，减税刺激增长!这是一种初级的重复计算。你不能先用减税对增长的好处来为乐观的预算基线辩护，接着又宣称减税不影响财政收入。起码在讲逻辑的世界里，这是说不通的。

The Trump team prides itself on its business background. This error is akin to buying a company assuming that you can make investments that will raise profits, but then, in calculating the increased profits, counting the higher revenues while failing to account for the fact that the investments would actually cost some money to make. The revenue generated by the investments might exceed their cost (though the same is almost never true of tax cuts), but that does not change the fact that the investment has a cost that must be included in the accounting.

特朗普团队为自己的商界背景而自豪。上面这个错误类似于：在收购一家公司时假定，你可以进行将要带来利润的投资，接着在计算增加的利润时，把提高的收入算进来，却忽视了做这笔投资实际上要消耗一些资金。投资带来的收入也许会高于投资成本(尽管这对减税几乎从不适用)，但这不能改变投资有成本、成本必须计入账目的事实。

This is a mistake no serious business person would make. It appears to be the most egregious accounting error in a presidential budget in the nearly 40 years I have been tracking them.

这是任何严肃的商人都不会犯的错误。这似乎是我追踪总统预算案近四十年以来发现的最糟糕的错误。

Who knew what when? I have no doubt that there are civil servants in the Office of Management and Budget, the Treasury and the Council of Economic Advisers who do know better than this mistake. Were they cowed, ignored or shut out? How could the Treasury secretary, director of the OMB and director of the National Economic Council allow such an elementary error? I hope the press will ferret this out.

什么人在什么时候知道什么?我毫不怀疑，白宫行政管理和预算局(OMB)、财政部和国家经济顾问委员会(Council of Economic Advisers)里面有公务员懂，不至于犯这种错误。他们被恐吓、被忽视，或者被隔离在圈外了吗?财长、行政管理和预算局局长和国家经济委员会(NEC)主任怎么能允许出现这样一个初级错误?我希望媒体会找出真相。

The president’s personal failings are now not just centre stage but whole stage. They should not blind us to the manifest failures of his economic team. Whether it is Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin’s absurd claims about tax cuts not favoring the rich, commerce secretary Wilbur Ross’s claim that the small squib of a deal negotiated last week with China was the greatest trade result with that country in history, NEC director Gary Cohn’s ridiculous estimate of the costs of Dodd Frank, or Tuesday’s budget, the Trump administration has not yet made a significant economic pronouncement that meets a minimal standard of competence and honesty.

总统的个人失败如今不仅仅占据了舞台的焦点，而且占据了整个舞台。这些失误不应遮蔽我们的眼睛，让我们看不到他的经济团队的明显失败。无论是财长史蒂文•姆努钦(Steven Mnuchin)有关减税并非偏向富人的荒谬说法、商务部长威尔伯•罗斯(Wilbur Ross)将上周与中国达成的令人失望的协议称为历史上取得的对华最大贸易成果、国家经济委员会主任加里•科恩(Gary Cohn)对多德-弗兰克法案(Dodd Frank)成本的可笑估算，还是周二的预算案，都表明特朗普政府至今没能发布一项满足最低能力和诚信标准的重大经济声明。