It’s too soon to predict the winner of November’s presidential election, but not too soon to predict the loser: economics.
现在预测11月美国总统大选的赢家还为时过早，但预测输家时间恰好，答案是经济学。
Economists routinely advise against price controls, tariffs, discriminatory taxes and wider budget deficits. Donald Trump, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are entertaining some or all of them.
经济学家们通常建议不要实行价格管制、关税、歧视性税收和扩大预算赤字。然而，唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)、乔·拜登(Joe Biden)和卡马拉·哈里斯(Kamala Harris)正在考虑采纳其中部分或全部措施。
Of course, no one expects economic principles to always take precedence over other priorities. And there are times when price controls, tariffs and deficits are actually good economic policy.
当然，没人指望经济原则总是优先于其他重要事务。而且，有时价格管控、关税和赤字实际上是不错的经济政策。
But the candidates haven’t just demoted economic principles this year; they’ve jettisoned them altogether. It’s as if they wanted to flip the bird at the economic establishment.
但今年的总统候选人不仅贬低了经济原则，还完全抛弃了这些原则。就好像他们想对经济学界竖中指。
“Doesn’t anyone listen to economists anymore?” asked Columbia University economist Glenn Hubbard, who chaired President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. “Economists don’t seem very involved in either campaign or in internal decisions in recent administrations.”
“难道没人再听经济学家的话了吗？”哥伦比亚大学(Columbia University)经济学家格伦·哈伯德(Glenn Hubbard)问道。“在最近几届政府的竞选和内部决策中，经济学家似乎都不怎么参与。”哈伯德曾在小布什(George W. Bush)主政时期担任总统经济顾问委员会(Council of Economic Advisers)主席。
Sure, these ideas look politically shrewd. But if implemented, they may come back to haunt a future president who learns just how harmful or impractical they are.
当然，这些想法在政治上看起来很精明。但如果付诸实施，未来的总统可能会发现这些政策有多么有害或不切实际，从而自食其果。
No taxes on tips
小费不征税
Tax policy usually involves a trade-off between equity (treating people fairly) and efficiency (improving growth and consumer well-being). Former President Trump’s proposal to end taxes on tips, quickly adopted by Harris, manages to be both inequitable and inefficient.
税收政策通常涉及公平（公平对待所有人）与效率（提高经济增长和消费者福祉）之间的权衡。前总统特朗普关于取消小费税的提议很快被哈里斯采纳，但这一提议既不公平又低效。
It’s inequitable because it would tax people paid mostly via wages, such as cooks, more heavily than similar people paid mostly via tips, such as waiters.
说它不公平，是因为取消小费税之后，那些主要通过小费获得收入的就业人群（比如服务员）税负将减轻，而那些主要以工资形式获得收入的就业人群（比如厨师）不会。
It’s inefficient because it rewards a clumsy and often arbitrary form of compensation. Research finds tips only loosely correlated with quality of service. Tips survive because of social norms and psychological bias: restaurants that replace tips with higher wages have to raise prices, but customers prefer lower posted prices even when the all-in expense is the same.
说它效率低下，是因为它奖励了一种笨拙且往往任意的报酬形式。研究发现，小费与服务质量之间的关联度并不高。小费之所以存在，是因为社会规范和心理偏见：那些用更高的工资取代小费的餐馆不得不提高餐饮价格，但如果从两家餐馆（一家收小费，另一家不收小费）二选一，消费者更喜欢价格较低的餐馆，即使这顿饭的总开销是一样的。
When tips are no longer taxed, employees and employers will try to take advantage by structuring more compensation as tips. The losers: consumers who already resent proliferating requests for tips, often before a service is rendered. Tax breaks are supposed to encourage things we like, such as children and homeownership; this one does the opposite.
若是不再对小费征税，雇员和雇主将试图调整薪酬结构，让薪酬中的更多部分以小费形式发放，从而减少税负。取消小费税政策的输家是消费者，他们已对日益普遍的小费要求感到不满。小费要求通常是在商家提供服务之前提出的。减税本来是为了鼓励我们做喜欢的事情，比如生孩子和买房；而这项政策却起到了相反的作用。
Price and rent controls
价格和租金管制
The U.S. hasn’t had economywide wage and price controls since the early 1970s, and Harris isn’t proposing them now.
自20世纪70年代初以来，美国一直没有实施全经济范围的工资和价格管制，哈里斯现在也没有提出这些建议。
She and Biden are proposing something narrower: taking federal tax benefits away from corporate landlords that raise rents more than 5%, and cracking down on “price-gouging.”
她和拜登提出了一个范围更窄的方案：租金涨幅超过5%的企业房东不得享受联邦税收优惠，并打击“哄抬价格”行为。
In spirit, these are similar to existing federal, state and local laws that regulate prices of insurance and drugs or during natural disasters. Yet as with formal price controls, they short-circuit the essential role of higher prices: drawing in new supply and encouraging substitution toward cheaper alternatives.
从性质上讲，这些措施与现有的联邦、州和地方法律类似，这些法律规范了保险和药品价格或自然灾害期间的价格。然而，与正式的价格管制一样，这些措施阻碍了价格上涨的重要作用：吸引新的供应并鼓励人们转向更便宜的替代品。
Price controls are justified when a few companies enjoy market power, because they are monopolists or oligopolists, or because of an emergency. Those conditions don’t apply to apartments or food.
当少数公司享有市场支配力时，价格管制是合理的，因为它们是垄断者或寡头垄断者，或者因为出现了紧急情况。但这些条件不适用于公寓或食品。
After apartment rents soared during the pandemic, developers responded by building record new units. Thanks to that flood of supply, new lease rents are now falling, according to the Labor Department.
在新冠疫情期间公寓租金飙升后，房地产开发商的反应就是建造了数量创纪录的新公寓。据美国劳工部称，由于新公寓供应大量涌入，新租赁租金目前正在下跌。
Alexei Alexandrov, former chief economist of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said no multifamily developer controls enough of the apartment market to have market power. While some landlords have been accused of colluding, “that’s why we have…antitrust laws already on the books.”
美国联邦住房金融局(Federal Housing Finance Agency, 简称FHFA)前首席经济学家阿列克谢·亚历山德罗夫(Alexei Alexandrov)表示，目前没有哪家多户型住宅开发商控制了足够多的公寓市场份额，从而拥有市场支配力。虽然一些房东被指控串谋上涨租金，但“这就是为什么我们已经制定了反垄断法”。
A temporary rent cap won’t have much effect given rents aren’t rising much anyway, Alexandrov said. If perceived to be permanent, developers will try to raise rents immediately, screen tenants more tightly, build fewer of the affected buildings (more than 50 units), or convert apartments to condominiums, he said.
亚历山德罗夫表示，由于租金无论如何都不会上涨太多，对租金设临时上限不会产生太大影响。他说，如果此举被认为是永久性的，那么开发商将试图立即提高租金，更严格地筛选租户，减少受影响建筑（超过50套）的建设，或将出租公寓改建为共管公寓。
Since Harris hasn’t explained how her price gouging ban would work, its effects can’t be predicted. A bill sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) would punish companies that brag about price increases, which would certainly reduce bragging, if not price increases.
由于哈里斯尚未解释她的价格欺诈禁令将如何发挥作用，因此无法预测其效果。马萨诸塞州民主党参议员伊丽莎白·沃伦(Elizabeth Warren)提出的一项法案将惩罚那些鼓吹涨价的公司，该法案无疑会减少这种行为，即使不会抑制涨价。
Trump has branded Harris’s proposals as socialism, yet he too has a soft spot for price controls. As candidate and president he routinely called for Medicare to negotiate drug prices. It finally happened this year, under Biden. Given Medicare’s size, and the penalties for not cooperating, drug companies consider this tantamount to price controls.
特朗普称哈里斯的提议是社会主义制度，但他也对价格控制青睐有加。在作为总统候选人和担任总统期间，特朗普经常呼吁美国联邦医疗保险(Medicare)就药品价格进行谈判。今年，在拜登主政期间，这件事终于实现了。考虑到联邦医疗保险的规模以及对不合作企业的惩罚，制药公司认为这无异于价格管制。
Tariffs
关税
Economists have a visceral dislike of tariffs. They’re a tax on imports, and imports are quite useful. In recent years, a more nuanced view has emerged. Trump’s tariffs on China, which Biden continued and Trump now proposes to expand, reduce U.S. vulnerability to a geopolitical adversary.
经济学家们发自内心地反感关税。关税是对进口商品征收的一种税，而进口商品用途很大。近年来，出现了一种更微妙的观点。特朗普对中国商品加征的关税降低了美国对这个地缘政治对手的风险敞口。拜登政府继续实施了这些关税，而特朗普现在提议扩大其范围。
But Trump’s proposed 10%, or even 20%, “baseline” tariff on every country and product serves no obvious purpose. He claims this will cause American consumers to buy U.S. instead of foreign-made goods, boosting jobs and reducing the trade deficit.
但特朗普提议对所有国家的所有产品征收10%、甚至20%的“基准”关税，却看不出有什么明显的目的。他声称，这将促使美国消费者购买美国制造的商品，而不是外国商品，从而增加就业并减少贸易逆差。
Certainly, if you’re willing to force consumers to pay thousands of dollars extra, you can make them buy domestic instead of imported products. But for what purpose? Factory jobs are not intrinsically superior to other jobs; pay and working conditions are often better in services. Protection can be justified for infant industries such as green tech or products essential to national security, like semiconductors. T-shirts, wine and countless other imported products don’t qualify.
当然，如果你宁愿强迫消费者额外支付数千美元，你可以让他们购买国产商品，而不是进口商品。但这又是为了什么呢？工厂工作本质上并不比其他工作优越；服务行业的薪酬和工作条件往往更好。对绿色科技等新兴产业或半导体等对国家安全至关重要的产品进行保护或许是合理的。但T恤、葡萄酒和无数其他进口产品并不符合这些情况。
In any case, tariffs alone won’t reduce the trade deficit because currencies, interest rates, savings, and the budget deficit often work in the other direction, boosting imports and reducing exports. Despite tariffs, the trade deficit widened during Trump’s presidency.
无论如何，单靠关税无法减少贸易逆差，因为汇率、利率、储蓄和预算赤字往往会起反作用，增加进口并减少出口。尽管加征了关税，但在特朗普担任总统期间美国贸易逆差还是扩大了。
Perhaps Trump thinks tariffs give him leverage to force other countries to reduce trade barriers. Some might, but others, such as the European Union and China, will likely retaliate, as they did in his first term. In a May report, Deutsche Bank economists show that manufacturing employment deteriorated in the U.S. after Trump’s trade war began in 2018, with the biggest impact in the most manufacturing-intensive counties. The Tax Foundation estimates Trump’s 10% tariff would shrink U.S. output by 0.7% and cost 505,000 jobs.
也许特朗普认为，关税让他在迫使其他国家降低贸易壁垒方面有了筹码。有些国家可能会屈从，但其他国家可能会像在特朗普第一个任期内那样进行报复，比如欧盟和中国。德意志银行(Deutsche Bank)经济学家在今年5月的一份报告中指出，在特朗普于2018年发动贸易战后，美国制造业就业情况恶化，制造业最密集的县受影响最大。Tax Foundation估计，特朗普提出的10%的关税将使美国经济产出减少0.7%，并导致50.5万个工作岗位流失。
The tax giveaway arms race
税收减免军备竞赛
Harris has proposed a $6,000 tax credit for the parents of a newborn child. Not to be outbid, Trump’s running mate JD Vance has pitched a $5,000 credit for every child, no matter how rich the parents. The fiscal arms race doesn’t stop there; Harris is promising a $25,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers. Trump would end income taxes on Social Security benefits.
哈里斯提议为新生儿父母提供6,000美元的税收抵免。特朗普的竞选搭档万斯(J.D. Vance)也不甘示弱，提出为每个孩子减免5,000美元，无论其父母多么富有。这场财政军备竞赛没有就此停止；哈里斯承诺为首次购房者提供2.5万美元的税收抵免。特朗普提出取消对社会安全福利征收的所得税。
These ideas aren’t inherently bad, but boy, they’re expensive. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates Harris’s promises, beyond those already made by Biden, cost about $1 trillion over a decade; Trump’s Social Security tax repeal would cost at least $1.6 trillion.
这些想法本质上不坏，但问题在于成本太高。美国联邦预算问责委员会(Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget)估计，除了拜登已作出的承诺之外，哈里斯的承诺在未来10年将耗资约1万亿美元；特朗普废除社会安全福利税的计划将耗资至少1.6万亿美元。
The U.S. budget deficit is already close to a record outside wars and crises, and these plans would make it worse. There are times when it’s OK, even necessary, for the government to borrow more: at war and in crises, and when inflation and interest rates are low. None of those things are true now.
在非战争和危机时期，美国的预算赤字已接近创纪录水平，而上述计划将使情况变得更糟。在某些时候，政府增加借款是可以的，甚至是必要的：比如在战争和危机时期，以及在通货膨胀和利率较低的时候。但现在这些情况都不存在。
The political types will say not to worry; a few bad ideas are worth electing a good candidate, and besides, many won’t be enacted.
政界人士会说不用担心；为了选出一个好总统，出几个坏主意是值得的，况且很多想法都不会付诸实施。
But some will. In December 2020, Trump called for a new round of $2,000 stimulus checks, which even at the time looked excessive. The Democratic candidates in Georgia’s Senate runoff elections picked up the call. After they won, new checks became a centerpiece of Biden’s stimulus and helped fuel the inflation that haunts him, and Harris, now.
但有些想法会。2020年12月，特朗普呼吁发放新一轮2,000美元的经济刺激支票，即使在当时看来这也有些过头。佐治亚州参议院决选中的民主党候选人响应了这一号召。在他们获胜后，发放更多支票成了拜登经济刺激方案的一个核心内容，并加剧了如今困扰着他和哈里斯的通胀难题。