關于美國債務限額，你需要知道什么

美國是不是又要財政危機了？

華盛頓的政客、權威和券商們都在擔心這個問題——一個功能失調的共和黨能否成功推動政府提高其債務限額。

在這個問題上，大多數共和黨大佬的意見是一致的。比如財政部長史蒂文?努欽、預算管理局局長米克?姆瓦尼、參議院多數黨領袖米奇?麥康奈爾、眾議院議長保羅?瑞恩等，都呼吁要“干凈”地提高債務限額——也就是說，不要加入限制政府支出的一些額外的條條框框。不過還有一些保守派卻反對“干凈”的債務限額增長，因為他們認為這將帶來巨大的影響。比如俄克拉荷馬州共和黨代表湯米?科爾最近在接受《早安喬》（Morning Joe）節目采訪時就表示，眾議院有可能不會通過這樣一個“干凈法案”，并指出“大多數共和黨人都希望想辦法把債務限額拉得低一點?！?/p>

最近，圍繞著債務限額的問題，美國政界的舌戰不斷升溫，而美國也快到必須做出決定的時候了——努欽表示，到9月29日，美國就將達到它當前的債務限額了。在此背景下，美國時政雜志《Pacific Standard》 采訪了布魯金斯學會哈欽斯財政貨幣政策中心主任大衛?韋塞爾，請他解答關于債務限額的有關問題，以及為什么這個問題會引發如此巨大的爭議。

讓我們先從最基本的問題開始，債務限額到底是什么？

這要從第一次世界大戰期間說起。當時，美國國會對政府的借債行為設定了一個限額，現在這個限額已經達到19.8萬億美元了，而且現在財政部已經快碰到這條紅線了。由于美國政府的支出超過了收入，所以它只得持續舉債填坑。所以現在美國政府又快碰到債務限額的紅線了，這也是不能不說是一個問題。

到了9月末，如果美國國會還不提高債務限額，會發生什么？

基本上一旦美國政府的舉債達到限額，他們就不能繼續借債了。所以他們每天只能收入多少就支出多少?？赡苣硯滋煺氖杖牒芏?，但某幾天收入很少，所以政府就沒有足夠的錢來付所有的賬單，他們就只能有選擇地決定先付哪些賬單和債務。他們可能會付債務的利息，也可能會發放社會福利金支票，也可能給醫保服務的醫生發工資，或者是給聯邦政府的雇員發薪水，但他們必須要做個選擇，也就是要把有限的錢先付給誰。而這樣做顯然是會有一定的后果的。

后果會是什么樣的？

美國國債是世界公認的最安全的債券，也就是所謂的零風險債券。全世界的人都認為它很堅挺，認為它會按時付息。所以首當其沖的后果是，作為我們最大的一筆資產，美國國債的信用會受到質疑。

實際上，它已經影響到券商為美國國債設定的利率了。有些投資人擔心，如果到了9月29日左右，美國國債是否可能會延遲付息。所以現在幾乎已經有了緊急拋售的現象。如果有些債券的正好是在那個時候付息，肯定是不會有人想持有這些債券的。他們只想持有在這個日子之前或之后付息的債券。從過去的經驗中，我們知道，一旦圍繞債務限額問題出現爭議，美國財政部和納稅人都要付出沉重的代價，由于人們的神經緊張了，他們的舉債的成本就會相應地提高。而這僅僅是由于那里有一條紅線不能跨過去。所以我認為后果會是相當有破壞性的。

從目前公開的2011年美聯儲討論的情況看，針對這種局面，他們曾考慮過優先支付國債的利息，把其他要支付的賬單先放一放。但是，這種做法在政治上也是有影響的。想象一下，如果政府對所有拿社保的人說：“你的支票得多等一周才能到，因為國會在搞事情?！焙蠊麜鞘裁礃幼?。

說到優先償付的問題，現在有種說法頗受自由黨團的追捧，他們認為就算美國政府碰到了債務紅線，也不是什么大不了的事情，因為財政部事實上可以決定先支付哪些賬單。比如他們可以優先償還債務以避免實際違約。你對這種說法怎么看？

由于這些擔憂，很多人都在質疑，如果最壞的結果真的發生了，我們該怎么控制？

然而我們其實并不知道究竟會發生什么，現實要難預料得多。光是財政部無法承擔部分相關義務的事實，就足以讓人們對聯邦政府產生不信任感，不管這些義務是對國債持有人、社保居民、國防承包商還是政府雇員的……聯邦政府讓我們感到不信任的理由難道還不夠多嗎？我認為這會帶來長期的影響。我不在乎人們拋售比如0.2%的美國國債，但這會使人永遠質疑美國政府的可信性。不管是投資人還是普通美國公民都會有這種質疑。

為了防止房子著火，你有一個應急計劃是很自然的，但這并不意味著因為你有一個應急計劃，你就非得把房子燒了。我認為，所有覺得這個問題不嚴重的人都在承擔很大的風險。

除了自由黨團以外，差不多所有人都同意美國政府應提高債務限額。那為什么這個問題還這么有爭議？難道不是很容易就可以表決出結果的嗎？

這首先是因為華盛頓的功能失調。有些我們認為是自然而然的事情，現在不再是自然而然的了。

對那些想控制政府開支的人，債務限額是必然拿來說事兒的一個問題。以前債務限額往往會拉上很多附加問題，人們都把它當成一個達成自己目標的工具。比如以前有些縮減赤字的機制就曾牽扯上債務限額的問題。民主黨人會說：“等等，如果你想讓我們下周一提高債務限額，那下周二你們就得通過一些預算決議，給富人大幅減稅。這不是意味著我們要借更多的錢嗎？為什么我們要通過這種我們不喜歡的政策呢？”

而不少共和黨人則會說：“除非我們遇到了某種危機，某種不得不采取行動的情況，否則我們是永遠不會同意削減開支的。所以要想讓我投票支持提高債務限額，它就必須跟某些削減開支的承諾打包處理，好讓我也能喊一喊削減開支的口號?！边@樣一來，它就成了人們追逐自己的財政目標的工具。

這種現象已經屢見不鮮了，只不過現在情況更緊張了些，而且走向也更加不可預測。

你認為國會能否及時解決這個問題？

是的，在最后關頭，他們是能解決的。我的預測是，他們會在我們到達違約的時間點前提高債務限額。他們會找到某種方法這樣做的。要么是跟某些東西打包，好獲得足夠的共和黨選票，要么是做得足夠“干凈”，好贏得民主黨的選票。

而這恰好提醒了很多人這件事有多愚蠢。國會已經投票同意花錢了，這就好比你花了信用卡里的錢，等信用卡賬單來了，你卻說：“反正我是不會還的?！?/p>

為長度和清晰起見，本采訪稿有刪節。

本文最初以《關于債務限額，你需要知道什么》為題發表于時政雜志《Pacific Standard》的合作網站。您可以訂閱該網站的新聞，或在Twitter上關注該雜志，以支持這一關注公共利益的媒體。

譯者：賈政景

Is the United States headed for another financial fiasco?

In Washington, D.C., politicians, pundits, and bond traders are starting to worryabout that very question—whether a dysfunctional GOP will be able to successfully increase the limit on the the amount of money that the United States government can borrow (more popularly known as “raising the debt ceiling”).

Most of the Republican bigwigs seem to be in unison on the issue: Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, Director of the Office of Budget and Management Mick Mulvaney, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Speaker Paul Ryan have all called for a “clean” debt ceiling increase—that is, one without any additional provisions curbing government spending. But several other conservatives have come out against a clean bill, which could have huge ramifications: Representative Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma) told the hosts of Morning Joe that the House of Representatives is unlikely to pass a clean bill, noting that “[m]ost Republicans want to do something to lower the trajectory of the debt.”

With the battle heating up and the deadline for action fast approaching—Mnuchin says the country will hit its current limit by September 29th—Pacific Standard asked David Wessel, the director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution, to answer some of our questions about the debt ceiling and why it’s become such a controversial topic.

Let’s start with the basics. What is the debt ceiling?

This dates back to World War I, when Congress set a limit on the amount of money that the government can borrow. That limit is now $19.8 trillion, and the Treasury is bumping up against it. Because the government spends more than it takes in, it has to borrow the difference on an ongoing basis, so it’s a bit of a problem they’re bumping up against the ceiling.

And what will happen at the end of September if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling?

Basically what happens is, once they hit the debt ceiling, and they can’t borrow anymore, they can only spend as much money as they take in on any given day. Some days they take in a lot of money, some days they don’t. So they won’t have enough money coming in to pay all the bills, and they’ll have to decide which bills and obligations to pay. They might pay the interest on the debt, they might send out Social Security checks, they might pay doctors who take care of Medicare patients, they might pay federal employees, but they’ll have to make a choice as to who are they actually going to pay. And that will have consequences.

And what would those consequences look like?

Well, the U.S. Treasury debt is thought to be the most safe security in the world. It’s the one thing called a risk-free security. It’s something that everybody in the world expects will be solid, that the interest will be paid on time. So we would call into question the security of one of our biggest assets: the ability of the U.S. Treasury to borrow money.

In fact, it’s already beginning to affect the interest rate that the bond market sets on Treasury securities. There appear to be some investors who are afraid that, sometime around September 29th, there might be a delay in getting their interest payments. So there’s almost a little bit of a fire sale—nobody wants to be stuck holding the securities that have interest payments due on that date. They want to have something due before or after. We know that, from the past, when there were these controversies over the debt ceiling, that it was expensive for the U.S Treasury and taxpayers. They had to pay a little more money to borrow because people got a little nervous. And that’s just for something that never actually jumped over the ledge, so I think it would be pretty disruptive.

Now one thing we know from evidence from the Federal Reserve about discussions they had back in 2011, that have since been made public, is they’ve thought about how they could pay interest on the bonds and hold off on paying other bills for a while if this is like a two-day event. But [prioritizing those interest payments] would have political ramifications. Imagine if the government said to all the people who get Social Security, “Your check’s going to arrive a week late because Congress is screwing around.”

Speaking of prioritizing payments, there’s an idea floating around, backed primarily by the Freedom Caucus, that it wouldn’t be such a big deal if the U.S. hit its borrowing limits, because the Department of the Treasury could, in fact, just prioritize which bills to pay. They could prevent an actual default by prioritizing debt servicing payments, for example. What do you think of that line of argument?

The good thing, or the bad thing, is that, because we’ve had a couple of these scares, people are beginning to figure out, if the worst comes to pass, how would we manage?

But we don’t really know what would happen—it’s a lot harder than it sounds. And the mere fact of the U.S. Treasury being unable to meet some of its obligations, whether they were obligations to bond holders or to social security recipients or to defense contractors or federal employees … are we really in need of more reasons to distrust the federal government? I think it would have long-lasting effects. And I don’t really care very much about a fifth of a percentage point on some Treasury bonds that may go away, but I think it’ll raise the question forever of whether people can trust the U.S. government, both investors and our own citizens.

You want to have a plan in case your house burns down, but that doesn’t mean it’d be OK for you to burn down your house. And I think the people who are saying it’ll be OK are taking a big risk.

Freedom Caucus aside, most everyone actually does agree that the debt ceiling needs to be raised. Why is this even a controversial issue? Shouldn’t this be an easy vote?

Part of it is the dysfunction in D.C. right now. Things that once upon a time we thought were kind of automatic are no longer automatic.

It’s become a symbol for people who want to control government spending. In the past, things were often attached to the debt ceiling in order to use it as a lever to get something you wanted. Some of the past deficit reduction mechanisms, for example, were attached to the debt ceiling. So the Democrats say: “Wait a minute, you want us to vote to raise the debt ceiling on Monday, and then on Thursday you’re going to pass some budget resolution that gives big tax cuts to rich people, which means we have to borrow more? Why would we enable that policy that we don’t like?”

And a number of the Republicans are saying: “Look, unless we have some kind of crisis, some kind of action-forcing event, we’ll never agree to cut spending. So I will vote to raise the debt ceiling only if it’s packaged with some kind of promise that I can brag about to cut spending.” It becomes a lever for people to pursue their fiscal objectives.

There’s nothing new about that, it just seems to be a little bit more intense now, and a lot more unpredictable.

Do you think Congress will manage to get it done in time?

Yeah, at the last minute. My prediction is they’ll manage to raise it before we get to the point of default. They’ll find some way to do it. Either they’ll attach it to something that gets them enough conservative Republican votes, or they’ll make it clean enough that they can get the Democrats.

This is reminding a lot of people that this is really a stupid thing. Congress has already voted to spend the money. This is like spending the money on your VISA card, and then the bill comes, and you say, “Eh, I’m just not going to pay it.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

This story originally appeared as “Here’s What You Need to Know About the Debt Ceiling” on Pacific Standard, an editorial partner site. Subscribe to the magazine’s newsletter and follow Pacific Standard on Twitter to support journalism in the public interest.