Congress responds

A $2 trillion bazooka

国会的回应

一个2万亿美元的“火箭炮”

WASHINGTON, DC

A habitually dysfunctional system leaps into action

华盛顿特区

一个惯于功能失调的系统飞速付诸行动

    Even to the housebound and socially distanced, the signs of a contraction are apparent. The 18th Street corridor of Adams Morgan, a typically bustling stretch of restaurants and shops in Washington, dc, is shuttered—closed as part of the nationwide effort to contain the epidemic of covid-19 that had, as of March 25th, infected 65,778 Americans and killed 942, according to Johns Hopkins University. One fledgling business—a new bar called Death Punch— never managed to open its doors. Down the road, an established whiskey bar called Jack Rose has been selling off its gargantuan collection at discount to support its staff. The queue for it snaked several blocks—a long dotted line of aficionados standing a careful six feet apart.

  即使是居家不外出和保持社交距离，收缩的信号是明显的。亚当姆斯·摩根街的18号走廊，一个典型的华盛顿特区的餐馆和商店的熙熙攘攘的延申，被关闭了。它的关门是国家范围的限制新冠状病毒传染病的努力的一部分。依据约翰·霍普金斯大学的数据，这种病毒截止3月25日，已感染了65778名美国人，杀死942人。一桩新手的生意，叫死亡击打的新酒吧，永远也不用开张了。沿着路往下走，已正常经营的名为杰克萝思的威士忌酒吧一直在打折卖其庞大的收藏品，以维持酒吧人员生计。排队买收藏的人蜿蜒了几条街道——爱好者们如同一条长长的点状线，各点谨慎地分开站在6英尺远。

    These are just the premonitions of the pain to come. Unemployment will rocket as much of the economy is put into a sort of medically induced coma. So many unemployment claims are being filed in Ohio that the state website has crashed. The national weekly unemployment numbers that will be released on March 26th are widely expected to be the worst in history. Goldman Sachs has predicted that there could be 2.25m new claims over the week— triple the previous record. And just as the covid-19 epidemic has not yet reached its apex, neither has the economic crisis. Morgan Stanley predicts that gdp will fall by 8% year-on-year in the second quarter and unemployment will rise to 12.8%, compared with just 3.5% in February.

  这些只是痛苦将要到来的征兆。大部分经济被“麻醉”，失业率将飞速上升。俄亥俄州有如此之多的初次失业申请人提交的申请，以至于州政府网站都崩溃了。广泛预测国家于3月26日公布的州失业人数将达到历史最多。高盛集团已预测，该州本周将由225万人份的初次失业申请，达到过去记录的三倍。且新型冠状病毒传染尚未达到顶峰，经济危机也尚未到最严重的时候。摩根斯坦利预测二季度国民生产总值同比将下跌8%。同时失业率将上升12.8%，而二月相比仅3.5%。

    To head off the damage, Congress has prepared the largest fiscal stimulus in modern history. Its provisions—including bail outs for firms both big and small, expanded unemployment insurance benefits and a straight cash transfer to Americans—are expected to cost close to $2trn, roughly one-tenth of gdp. This is the third substantial piece of legislation to deal with covid-19. Even this may not be enough.

  为了阻止对经济的破坏，国会准备了现代历史上最大规模的财政刺激计划。其提供了包括大小公司在内的援助、失业保险金的受益增加，以及直接转给美国人的现金——预测将花费接近2万亿美元，大概十分之一的国民生产总值。这是第三项应对新冠病毒疫情的实质性立法。即便如此可能仍然不够。

    Whole industries rely on congregating people. So too, unfortunately, does the virus. Twelve states have ordered all non-essential businesses closed. Seventeen states, covering half the country’s population, have urged residents to stay at home. Many white-collar tasks can just about be performed remotely. But cruelly, those likeliest to lose income or their jobs are in more precarious, less well-paid industries—restaurant staff (of which there are 9.6m), retailers (8.8m) or hotel workers (2m). If they lose their livelihoods, the effects will ripple through the economy.

  各行业的整体有赖于的众志成城的人。不幸的是，也同样决定于病毒。12各州已经勒令停止所有非关键性的商业活动。覆盖了美国一半的人口的17个州，已要求居民留在家中。许多白领只能在家中远程完成任务。但是残酷的是，这些最可能失去收入或工作的人是在更岌岌可危的、收入更少的行业中，如餐馆的工作人员（其中有960万），零售人员（880万）或宾馆工作人员（200万）。如果他们失去了他们的生计，影响将波及整个经济。

    One corrective for this problem is unemployment insurance. Yet this is not as robust as in other parts of the rich world. The American version replaces a smaller share of previous income than the average in the oecd, a club of mostly rich countries, and declines faster with time. Individual states, which administer the programme jointly with the federal government, differ in their generosity: Mississippi caps its maximum benefits at a paltry $235 a week.

  一种改正这一问题的方法是失业保险。但是失业保险在美国并不如其他富有国家一样发达。美国版本的保险用过去收入的更小份额代替了oecd的平均值，且随着时间减少更快。其中OECD是一个大多数富有国家的组织。独立的州政府连同联邦政府一起管理保险项目，但在他们的慷慨程度上并不相同，如密西西比最高一周仅有微不足道的235美元的保险补助。

    At the insistence of Democrats, Congress would make this part of the safety-net decidedly more European, at least temporarily. The federal government would pay to top up unemployment-benefit levels by $600 a week—an enormous increase, given that the current weekly average is $385. The set of people eligible for benefits would also be expanded to include independent contractors, such as gig-economy workers. Those who have been laid off but not fired could receive compensation for lost hours. And the length of the benefit period would be extended from the usual 26 weeks to 39 weeks. The cost of all of this is thought to be $260bn: a serious expansion of a targeted programme.

  在民主党人的坚持下，国会将明确地让这部分安全网更欧洲化，至少暂时是这样。联邦政府将支付最高级别达每周600美金的失业补助。鉴于现在每周平均只有385美金，这是一次巨额的增加。适用于补助的人员群体将扩大到独立承包商如零工经济工作者。这些下岗了但是没有被解雇的人可以收到失去时间的补偿。补助的时间跨度将从平时的26周延长到39周。估计这些所有的花费约2600亿美金。这是一个有目标项目的巨幅扩大。

    A similarly gargantuan wad of cash— $250bn—will be spent on a less targeted scheme, sending cheques to Americans direct from Uncle Sam. Below some generous income thresholds ($75,000 a year for a single person and $150,000 for a married couple) every family can expect $1,200 per adult and $500 per child. This is the best version of a cash transfer that was proposed. Previously the White House had pushed the idea of a payroll-tax holiday; an early version of the stimulus bill ignored people who did not file taxes. Both would have excluded those with the lowest incomes from an ostensibly universal programme. Reaching everyone eligible now will require ingenuity, such as using administrative data from states, says Sam Hammond of the Niskanen Centre, a thinktank. But even if sent quickly, the cheques could be both too small for those who need them and too big for those who do not.

  类似的巨额现金，2500亿美元，将花在一个目标更小的计划上，即山姆大叔直接发支票给美国人。每个家庭可以预计获得每个和每个儿童500美金成年人1200美金，低于一些一般收入线（已婚夫妇每个人一年7万5千美元）。这是提出的现金转移的最好版本。过去白宫已经推出了所得税假期的概念；刺激法案在早期忽略了不叫税的人群。这两种版本都排除了表面上从所有项目中获得了最低收入的人。现在送到所有合格发放的人手中需要灵活性，如使用州管理数据，智库尼斯坎南的山姆·哈蒙德说。但是即便能快速发放，这些支票对需要他们的人太少，而对不需要他们的人又太多。