“大卫·斯托克曼现象”

曾担任里根政府预算办公室主任的前众议员大卫·斯托克曼，是美国经济史上的重要人物。他曾坚决支持里根政府的大减税，但在离开政府后，他开始抨击里根和后来共和党人的经济政策。这是什么情况？最近，他出了本长篇巨幅而晦涩的书，批判主流经济学界和政界，经济学家布鲁斯·巴特利特讲述了“斯托克曼现象”的前因后果。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

David Stockman 斯托克曼在1977-81年出任密歇根州联邦众议员，随后在里根的第一个任期（81-85）担任预算办公室主任。他以批评共和党只顾减税不管赤字著称，宣称自己投资黄金、罐头、矿泉水、电池等“所有不能被伯南克毁掉的东西”

whiz-kid 神童

Rep[rep] n.众议员(Representative)名字前的正式头衔。一般通俗称呼Congressman/Congresswoman.

adjunct ['ædʒʌŋ(k)t] n.附属物，助手

Rep Jack Kemp 杰克·肯普众议员，因发起通过了减税高达30%的肯普-罗斯减税法案而著称（signature issue）。在1996年他作为鲍勃·多尔的搭档出任共和党副总统候选人，最终他们输给克林顿-戈尔组合。本文作者Bartlett曾担任肯普的幕僚。

bedevil [bɪ'dev(ə)l] v.使痛苦，使苦恼

screed [skriːd] n.冗长的文章

crank [kræŋk] n.奇想

fiat money 以政府信用为担保的，不以金银为基础的法定货币

blurb [blɜːb] v.大肆宣传

tenet ['tenɪt] n.原则，信仰

Austrian economics 奥地利学派经济学

garner ['gɑːnə] v.把…收入谷仓

The David Stockman phenomenon (852 words)

by Bruce Bartlett

This week, a new book, “The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America” by David A. Stockman was published in the US, garnering a great deal of notice. The attention is due not so much to the 742-page book, which is dense with discussions of obscure financial topics, but because of the author, who once played a critical role in American economic policy.

Mr Stockman was the proverbial whiz-kid of American politics. After college, he worked on the staff of the US Congress for Rep John B. Anderson of Illinois, the third-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives. In 1976, Mr Stockman returned to his native state of Michigan to run for Congress himself, winning elective office on his first try.

I first met David in early 1977 while working for Rep Jack Kemp of New York, whom Mr Stockman greatly admired. In fact, his office was like an adjunct of Kemp’s. The two staffs working closely together on a variety of issues. Mr Stockman was a strong supporter of Kemp’s signature issue – an across-the-board tax rate reduction of 30 percent that Ronald Reagan adopted and enacted into law in 1981.

Mr Stockman, however, was not a Reagan man. In the 1980 Republican primaries he supported John Connally, the former Texas governor and Treasury secretary . But he quickly recovered after the election, writing a widely discussed memo to president-elect Reagan on “Avoiding a GOP Economic Dunkirk” that outlined various economic crises looming on the horizon that the new administration needed to tackle immediately.

On the strength of this memo, Mr Stockman was named by Reagan to be his White House budget director. By this time, he had become highly skeptical of a big tax cut without offsetting spending cuts. Rather foolishly, he confided his doubts about Reagan’s plan to cut taxes first and spending later to the journalist William Greider, who published them in the December 1981 issue of The Atlantic magazine.

Although Kemp and other Reagan supporters believed that Mr Stockman had betrayed them, Reagan forgave him and he remained budget director until 1985, when he left Washington to join the Wall Street firm Salomon Brothers. In 1986, Mr Stockman published a memoir, “The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed.”

In the years since, Mr Stockman has kept a low political profile, working in the auto industry. Although out of the public eye, he has remained a symbol of what many people believe was a wrong turn on economic policy in the 1980s. That is when fiscal policy, in particular, got on the wrong track, with large budget deficits emerging that have bedeviled policymakers ever since. It is when Republicans abandoned their long-held support for a balanced budget and became fanatical tax cutters under any and all circumstances.

Mr Stockman himself shares these misgivings. Over the years, his concerns about governmental debt have grown to encompass all forms of debt, which he now appears to view as the root of all evil. His new book is really an extended screed against corporate, financial, housing and personal debt.

In this respect, Mr Stockman has aligned himself with monetary cranks who have long denounced “fiat money” and demanded the return to a rigid gold standard.

One tenet of Austrian economics, which Mr Stockman now embraces, is that all economic downturns are caused by government and only government. Inflation breeds indebtedness which breeds overinvestment which inevitably ends in an economic blow-up. Recessions are viewed both as necessary to cleanse economic excesses and as penance for straying from the one true path of gold, balanced budgets, and the night watchman state that does pretty much nothing except enforce contracts.

Believers in this worldview see Keynesian economics as their blood enemy. Mr Stockman spends many pages in his new book denouncing the British economist John Maynard Keynes as being primarily responsible for leading policymakers from the true path of fiscal and monetary righteousness onto the path sin, as exemplified by debt and fiat money.

Had someone other than Mr Stockman written such a tract or if it appeared at a different time, it would be ignored and quickly disappear. But at a time when excessive debt is at the root of many of the world’s economic problems, when nations like Cyprus simply confiscate bank deposits to pay national debts, and countries like Japan are actively attempting to inflate their currencies, many people are attracted to the simplicity and moral certitude of the old time religion that Mr Stockman articulates.

It may well be true that a more financially conservative set of policies would have spared us the current crisis. But it doesn’t follow that an immediate return to such policies will improve the situation. Preventative and curative measures often require different approaches in both medicine and finance. Using the former when the latter is needed can easily make matters worse.

The writer is a former senior economist at the White House, US Congress and Treasury. He is author of ‘The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform – Why We Need It and What It Will Take’.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.What does the writer trying to say when he introduced a lot about Stockman's relationship with Kemp?

A. That he had a good chance to enter the party's leadership in Congress.

B. That he was a proverbial whiz-kid of American politics.

C. That he once supported Reagan tax cuts.

D. That it was through Kemp that the writer met Stockman.

答案(1)

2.Why Kemp and Reagan supporters believed that Stockman had betrayed them?

A. Because he voted against Reagan.

B. Because he publicly confided his doubts about Reagan’s plan.

C. Because he left the administration as budget director.

D. Because he later became a "fanatical tax cutter".

答案(2)

3.What do we know about Austrian economics?

A. They believe that all economic downturns are caused by government.

B. They favor a strong central bank.

C. They endorse Bush and Obama's bailout and stimulus programs.

D. It is the Republican party's mainstream economics.

答案(3)

4.To sum up, what is "the David Stockman phenomenon"?

A. Writing unimaginably long books denouncing Capitalism in America.

B. Bashing mainstream politics after leaving the Congress.

C. Being too cautious and conservative financially.

D. Proposing preventive measures when curative measures are necessary.

答案(4)

* * *

(1) 答案：C.That he once supported Reagan tax cuts.

解释：A文中未提到，B与问题无关，而D并不需要一大段的话来介绍。显然这是为了讲主角斯托克曼思想变化的一个阶段。

一点速读小技巧：看到很多人名时，可以这样简记：主角曾为Rep JA工作，后来也当了Rep；作者是在为Rep JK工作时认识主角的，主角与JK志同道合。主角没有支持里根选总统，而是支持州长JC。 ——这样，即使都是陌生名字，看到问题后你也可以迅速理清关系。出现次数越多的人越重要，州长JC只出现一次，不需要费时关注。

(2) 答案：B.Because he publicly confided his doubts about Reagan’s plan.

解释：这是文中原话。还可以用上面的小技巧简记：他写建议给里根，入阁，质疑减税，愚蠢地公开发表对总统的怀疑，被认为是背叛，却留任，离开后写书抨击里根政策。

A文中未提到，而且他让里根支持者不满是在担任阁员期间。斯托克曼在总统第一个任期结束后正常离开，因此C不对。至于D，这是他后来对共和党的批评。

(3) 答案：A.They believe that all economic downturns are caused by government.

解释：奥地利学派经济学是一个很有影响的学派。显然他们不赞同美国主流学界和政界的观点。 比如，文中可以看到，他们认为一切经济危机的根源都是政府干预，政府干预--负债和通胀--央行压低利率--overinvestment--资产泡沫破裂。 所以政府最好啥也不做，除了当守夜人，甚至央行不要也行，恢复金本位就好了。

(4) 答案：D.Proposing preventive measures when curative measures are necessary.

解释：在文章最后一段，作者认为保守的经济政策的确可能避免经济危机，但这是预防药，现在需要治疗用的药，用预防药可能会easily make matters worse. A显然不正确，B现象也确实偶尔存在，但不是本文讨论的。文章的题目或第一段意义不明时，需要留心文章是如何解释的。