财政悬崖 进退两难

英语自学网

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美国经济形势依然不容乐观。
Hints:
Tax Policy Center
Bill Frenzel
Republican
Brookings Institute（注意播音员口误）
主持：shenyubin
校对：cryforwhat
翻译&注解：cjsfight
答疑：赤_月
口语点评：goden0505
口语节目链接：http://bulo.hujiang.com/menu/2120/item/666289/Well, the economic pundits in Washington have been busy computing what will happen if the American economy does go skittering over this fiscal cliff. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center estimates that 90% of Americans will be affected with the average family facing an annual tax hike of almost three and a half thousand dollars. Their income falls even further when you include the spending cuts. In total, the Tax Policy Center reckons that the cliff represents over $600 billion - about 5% of total American GDP - more than enough, say economists, to plunge the US economy back into recession. Bill Frenzel is a former Republican congressman and a guest scholar at the Brookings Institute. I put it to him that the fiscal cliff might be just the austerity package that an indebted America needs.
"It would be a wonderful package except that we would not like it to hit all at one time."
"But America's got a huge, huge budget deficit, there needs to do something about it, doesn't there?"
"I will certainly agree with you 100%. But we do not want to do $700 billion all at once. We cannot stand another recession that will harm our economic growth and take continued amount of money out of our economy."华盛顿的经济学权威最近忙于谋算着美国经济一旦跌落财政悬崖会有怎样的后果。美国无党派税收政策中心预测将会有90%的美国人受此影响，平均每个家庭将会面临年税收新增3,500美元。如果考虑花销削减，他们的收入会更低。总体来看，税收政策中心认为这一悬崖意味着六千亿美元之多，大概是美国GDP总额的5%，这一数额足够把美国经济拽回萧条时期了。比尔·弗兰泽尔是美国共和党前国会议员，也是布鲁金斯学会的客座学者。我询问他，财政悬崖是否可能是深陷债务危机的美国所需要的紧缩计划。
“如果这个计划不会令一切付之一炬，将会是个不错的计划。”
“但是美国背负着巨额预算赤字，必须做点什么，对吧？”
“我完全同意你的观点。但是我们不想突然做一单七千亿美元。我们经受不起它所带来的另一个萧条时期，这会妨碍经济增长，并不断掏空我们的经济体。”