【英语社会】奥巴马是个自由派

Barack Obama's first budget is a revelation. The US president's plans will not come to pass in the form he suggests. Congress writes the laws and will make a hash of it. Still, this first full statement of intentions speaks volumes, and leaves me in a paradoxical position. On one hand, I admire much of what the budget says. On the other, I feel I owe Republicans an apology.As you recall, in the debate over the fiscal stimulus, Republicans accused the president of presenting a measure they could not support, disguising this with an empty show of co-operation. Bipartisanship, they said, is more than inviting your opponents round for coffee and a chat. I did not buy it: I accused them, in effect, of brainless rejectionism and a refusal to compromise, and congratulated the president for trying to come to terms with the other side.

This budget says the Republicans had Mr Obama right all along. The draft contains no trace of compromise. It makes no gesture, however small, however costless to its larger agenda, of a bipartisan approach to the great questions it addresses. It is a liberal's dream of a new New Deal.

To be sure, there is much in this vision to admire. For a start, who expects a politician to keep his promises? With the economy crumbling and public borrowing through the roof, Mr Obama had every excuse to slither away from healthcare reform.

In the same breath, as it were, that he announces a deficit of $1,750bn (€1,380bn, £1,226bn) this year, he requests a 10-year $635bn down payment toward the cost of that reform. Mr Obama knows that the president who gives the US universal healthcare is assured of his place in history alongside FDR. He means to do it.

One may question the timing, and the method as well, no doubt, once the administration says what that will be. But the goal is worthy, one that any centrist can endorse. Most of the country wants healthcare reform and is willing to pay something for it.

When Mr Obama turns to financing this historic initiative, however, he moves left. His budget pencils in roughly $80bn a year in new revenues from a carbon cap-and-trade system – another welcome innovation, by the way, in my view. Does he use those revenues to pay for the new healthcare reserve, or to close the deficit in outlying years? No, he uses them to make permanent the tax credits in the fiscal stimulus: rebates and subsidies tilted to the working poor. To pay for healthcare reform, the plan curbs Medicare payments to private providers and, unexpectedly, reduces the value of income-tax deductions claimed by the better off.

So as well as reversing the Bush tax cuts for households making more than $250,000 a year, as promised during the campaign, the budget comes up with another way to extract tax from high earners. All but 5 per cent of households will pay “not a dime” for the panoply of public investments in the blueprint.

Take this budget at face value, and when Mr Obama talks about “a new era of responsibility” he does not mean: “We are all in this together.” He means: “The rich are responsible for this mess and it is payback time.” Leftist Democrats are thrilled, and rightly so. The budget has three themes: healthcare reform, public investment and unflinching redistribution. This is indeed a new social contract: we get, they pay. Liberals never had it so good.

Tactically speaking, Mr Obama may have overdone it. If I were advising him, I would say that the elation of his party's progressive wing is a red flag. It mocks the president's claim to be a consensus-builder, and tells the centre to watch out. Keep the left unhappy, would be my counsel.

The administration will have many chances to row back, of course, and to succeed it will have to. Despite optimistic assumptions, the budget leaves a full-employment budget deficit of 3 per cent of gross domestic product – not counting the full costs of healthcare reform, which the budget mentions but fails to provide for, and longer-term demographic and other pressures. Spending cuts and new taxes on the broad middle class are going to be needed; and to get those passed, the president will need support from the political centre.

For the moment, though, this budget reveals Mr Obama with new clarity. He is no Tony Blair, ideologically rootless, as I had previously suspected. He is a conviction politician: a bold progressive liberal. Yet his outreach to Republicans is no sham; his civility, I think, is not a front. He respects people who disagree with him, is capable of liking them, and is always willing to listen – but then stays true to his beliefs. This is a rare and devastating combination.

For years in the US, the Democratic left, despite a surfeit of brilliant minds, has neutered itself with its own rage. The fixed expression of progressive liberalism has been anger and contempt – with
perplexity at its lack of political success mixed in for comic effect. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Amid an economic crisis, with capitalism under fire and the country looking to government for answers, the liberal left finally has a leader with brains, who shares its convictions, yet is as friendly and as likeable to the politically uncommitted as anyone could wish – so appealing, in fact, that the party nearly chose somebody else to lead it.

Whether Mr Obama will be good for the country remains to be seen. We can already be sure that he is conservatism's worst nightmare.

巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)的首份预算案是一个启示。美国总统的计划最终不会以他所建议的形式获准通过。国会制定法律，因此将会大肆修改这些计划。尽管如此，这份首次充分表达政府意图的预算案仍然意义深长，并且让我落入了自相矛盾的处境。一方面，我欣赏预算案中的大部分内容；另一方面，我觉得自己应该向共和党道歉。你应该记得，在有关财政刺激方案的论战中，共和党指责奥巴马提出了一套他们不可能支持的措施，并用虚假的合作态度加以伪装。他们说，两党合作不仅仅是邀请对手喝喝咖啡、聊聊天那么简单。我没有接受这种说法：实际上，我谴责了他们愚蠢的抵制主义和拒绝妥协的态度，并称赞了总统向对方妥协的努力。

这份预算案表明共和党人对奥巴马的看法一直是正确的。草案中没有任何妥协的迹象。在它所试图解决的重大问题上，它没有做出任何准备采取两党合作方式的表示，不论这些表示对其更宽泛的议程来说，是多么微小、代价是多么低。这份预算案是自由派梦寐以求的新“新政”(New Deal)。

当然，这份愿景中有许多内容值得称道。首先一点就是，谁会指望一位政客能遵守自己的诺言呢？随着经济崩溃、公共借款高居不下，奥巴马本有充分的理由放弃医疗改革。

可以说，他在宣布今年的预算赤字将达到1.75万亿美元的同一时刻，要求国会发放用于医疗改革的10年期6350亿美元资金的头期款。奥巴马知道，给与美国全民医疗的总统必将获得与富兰克林•德兰诺•罗斯福(FDR)同等的历史地位。他正有这个打算。

毫无疑问，一旦政府给出改革的时机和方式，你完全可以就此表示怀疑。但其目的还是值得称赞的，这是任何中间派议员都会认可的目的。大部分美国人希望进行医疗改革，并且愿意为此支付一定代价。

然而，当奥巴马转而为这项历史性提案筹集资金时，他开始左倾。他的预算中追加了每年约800亿美元从碳减排限制与交易系统中获得的新收入——顺便提一下，在我看来，这是另一项受欢迎的创新。他会将这些收入用于支付新医疗储备金，或是在未来几年内结束赤字吗？不，他用它们使财政刺激方案中的抵税措施——向贫穷劳动者倾斜的退税及补助金政策——永久化。为了支付医疗改革的费用，预算案限制了美国联邦医疗保险(Medicare)向私营保险商支付的补贴，并且出人意料地降低了富人可申报的所得税减免额。

因此，除了正如在竞选时所承诺那样逆转布什(Bush)针对年收入超过25万美元家庭的减税措施之外，这份预算案提出了从高收入者身上榨取税收的另一种方法。几乎只有5%的家庭不用为这份蓝图中可观的公共投资支付“一分钱”。

我们要从字面意思来理解这份预算案，而且当奥巴马说到“负责任的新时代”时，他的意思不是：“我们所有人都有份儿。”而是：“富人应该对这种混乱局面负责，现在还债的时候到了。”这令左派民主党人激动不已，并且他们理应如此。这份预算案有三个主题：医疗改革、公共投资和坚定不移的收入再分配。这的确是一份新社会契约：我们获取，他们付出。自由派从来未曾如此舒心快乐过。

从战术上讲，奥巴马可能做得有点过。如果让我给他提建议，我会说，民主党中进步派的洋洋得意是一个危险信号。它嘲弄了奥巴马要成为共识构筑者的声明，并让中间派有了戒心。我的忠告会是，不要让左派高兴会是我的建议。

当然政府将有许多回头的机会撤回，而且如果它希望成功的话将不得不这么做，。尽管给出了乐观的假设，预算案还是留出了占国内生产总值3%的充分就业预算赤字——这还没有算上预算案中提及却未能提供融资方式的医疗改革的全部成本，以及较长期的人口压力和其它压力。广大中产阶级将必须削减开支并缴纳新税种。而要让这些提案获得国会批准，奥巴马将需要来自政治中心的支持。

不过，目前来看，这份预算案更加清晰地揭示了奥巴马的性格。与我之前的猜想不同，他不是思想飘忽不定的托尼•布莱尔(Tony Blair)。他是一位拥有坚定信仰的政治家：一位大胆的进步自由人士。然而，他向共和党示好并不是佯装；我想他的礼貌行为也不是装摸作样。他尊敬与他意见不一的人，并且能够喜欢他们。同时他总是愿意倾听——但之后还是忠实于自己的信仰。这是一种罕见且有力的组合。

数年以来，美国的民主党左派虽然有很多卓越的人才，但他们的愤怒削弱了自身的力量。进步自由主义的固有论调一直是愤怒和蔑视——而其中混杂的对于其自身缺乏政治成功的困惑感增添了一种喜剧效果。非凡的时刻将至，非凡的人亦将至。在经济危机中，当资本主义遭受攻击、全国民众向政府索要答案时，自由左翼分子终于拥有了一位有头脑的领袖。他分享了该党派的坚定信念，但却像任何人所能祈求的那样，对政治中立者表示友好，并得到他们的喜爱——实际上，他是如此讨他们的喜欢，以至于该党派差点选其他人当领袖。

奥巴马是否适合美国还有待观察。我们已经可以确定的是，他是保守主义最糟糕的梦魇。

译者/董琴