What Worries Me About the 'Big Beautiful Bill' Isn't the Price Tag. It's Everything Else.

Republicans have delivered on the One Big, Beautiful Bill (OBBB).

共和党人已经兑现了一项又大又美丽的法案（OBBB）。

I didn’t expect it to get it done by the aspirational 4th of July “deadline,” but President Trump signed the bill into law on Independence Day.

我没想到它会在 7 月 4 日“最后期限”之前完成，但特朗普总统在独立日签署了该法案成为法律。

He basically got everything he wanted.

他基本上得到了他想要的一切。

Back in January, when the broad contours of the GOP’s tax and spending ambitions were just coming into focus, I talked about the prospects for its passage with Bloomberg’s Scarlet Fu.

早在一月份，当共和党税收和支出雄心的总体轮廓刚刚成为人们关注的焦点时，我与彭博社的斯嘉丽·傅谈论了该法案通过的前景。

I summarized our conversation here :

我在这里总结了我们的谈话：

While it’s true that republicans will have a trifecta come Monday morning, it could still prove difficult to get a package that does tax, border, deportation, and deregulation in one big reconciliation bill across the finish line.

虽然共和党确实将在周一早上获得三连胜，但要在一项大型和解法案中获得一项涉及税收、边境、驱逐和放松管制的一揽子计划仍然很困难。

As Biden discovered when democrats had their own trifecta, having enough seats to pass legislation isn’t the same thing as having enough votes (think Sen.

正如拜登在民主党拥有自己的三连胜时发现的那样，拥有足够的席位来通过立法并不等同于拥有足够的选票（想想参议员拜登）。

Manchin (D-WV) and Sen.

曼钦 (D-WV) 和参议员。

Sinema (D-AZ).

西内马 (D-AZ)。

Could a handful of republicans thwart parts of Trump’s agenda?

少数共和党人能否阻止特朗普的部分议程？

Sure.

当然。

In fact, there are already reports of frustration brewing in the House.

事实上，已经有报道称众议院正在酝酿不满。

But as I told Scarlet, I would be surprised if they don’t end up passing something that does most of what President-elect Trump has called for.

但正如我告诉斯嘉丽的那样，如果他们最终没有通过一些能够满足当选总统特朗普所呼吁的大部分内容的法案，我会感到惊讶。

Scarlet asked whether I could envision republicans “embracing the idea of Modern Monetary Theory and just printing the money needed to finance the deficits.” I knew we were reaching the end of the segment, so there was no time to walk through the mechanics of government finance (to explain that all government spending is already financed by keystroking new money into existence), but I did explain how the MMT lens could be applied to evaluate the GOP’s tax and spending ambitions.

斯嘉丽问我是否可以设想共和党人“接受现代货币理论的理念，只印制赤字所需的资金”。我知道我们已经到了这个部分的结尾，所以没有时间详细介绍政府财政的机制（解释所有政府支出已经通过敲击新资金来融资），但我确实解释了如何应用 MMT 镜头来评估共和党的税收和支出野心。

I had a chance to elaborate on that point in a series of recent interviews: The Lever podcast with David Sirota, NPR’s On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti, and Bloomberg’s The Close with Romaine Bostick.

我有机会在最近的一系列采访中详细阐述这一点：大卫·西罗塔 (David Sirota) 的《Lever》播客、梅格纳·查克拉巴蒂 (Meghna Chakrabarti) 的 NPR 节目《On Point》、以及罗曼·博斯蒂克 (Romaine Bostick) 的彭博社《The Close》。

Looking at the OBBB through the MMT lens, I explained that I was less unnerved by the bill’s “price tag” and more concerned with its human, environmental, and inflationary impacts.

我解释说，通过 MMT 的视角看待 OBBB，我对该法案的“价格标签”不太感到不安，而更关心其对人类、环境和通货膨胀的影响。

Let me say a few words about each of these concerns.

让我对这些问题逐一说几句话。

When it comes to the human toll, the bill will have devastating effects on the most vulnerable people in America.

当涉及到人员伤亡时，该法案将对美国最脆弱的人群产生毁灭性影响。

Unlike the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which was more-or-less a straight up tax bill that sprinkled relief across the entire income distribution (though tilting the windfall heavily in favor of those at the top), the OBBB combines regressive tax cuts with regressive spending cuts.

与 2017 年的《减税和就业法案》(TCJA) 不同，该法案或多或少是一项直接的税收法案，为整个收入分配带来了一定的救济（尽管意外之财严重偏向于顶层人士），OBBB 将累退减税与累退支出削减结合在一起。

The spending cuts are so large that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has shown that they will more than erase the benefits that the tax cuts themselves would have delivered to low-income households.

支出削减幅度如此之大，以至于国会预算办公室（CBO）已经表明，它们不仅会消除减税本身本可以给低收入家庭带来的好处。

Taken as a whole, the OBBB provides tax relief and new financial perks for millions of Americans and businesses while clawing back support that millions of these same people receive from programs like Medicaid and food assistance (SNAP).

总体而言，OBBB 为数百万美国人和企业提供税收减免和新的财务福利，同时收回数以百万计的人从医疗补助和食品援助 (SNAP) 等计划中获得的支持。

According to many experts, this will result in the largest cuts to the social safety net in US history.

许多专家认为，这将导致美国历史上最大规模的社会保障网络削减。

It will clobber low-income Americans, who will end up— on balance— worse off in the coming decade.

它将打击低收入美国人，总的来说，他们在未来十年的境况将变得更糟。

Two million tipped workers are among those at risk of losing health coverage because of the cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.

由于医疗补助计划和平价医疗法案的削减，有 200 万领取小费的工人面临失去医疗保险的风险。

When all is said and done, as many as 17 million Americans could lose their health insurance coverage, kids and families will go hungry , hospitals in rural communities will shutter (taking decent-paying jobs down with them), and we could see more than 51,000 preventable deaths each year.

归根结底，多达 1700 万美国人可能会失去医疗保险，儿童和家庭将挨饿，农村社区的医院将关闭（高薪工作也随之消失），每年我们可能会看到超过 51,000 例可预防的死亡。

As I wrote here , the OBBB is an egregious piece of legislation that strips resources from those at the bottom of the income distribution while showering even more wealth onto people who already enjoy substantial economic security.

正如我在这里所写的，OBBB 是一项令人震惊的立法，它剥夺了收入分配底层人群的资源，同时将更多的财富倾注到已经享有实质性经济保障的人们身上。

That’s a feature (not a bug) of the OBBB that democrats have been highlighting for some time and something they’re hoping voters will focus on when they head to the polls next year.

这是 OBBB 的一个功能（不是错误），民主党人已经强调了一段时间，他们希望选民在明年投票时能够关注这一点。

Here’s Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer:

以下是参议院民主党领袖查克·舒默的讲话：

We're going to be in their states in every way.

我们将在各方面处于他们的状态。

We are going to organize.

我们要组织一下。

We are going to have all the people who are hurt organized.

我们将把所有受伤的人组织起来。

You're going to see a constant, constant battle in those states, reminding people day in and day out of what happened.

你会在这些州看到一场持续不断的战斗，日复一日地提醒人们所发生的事情。

And that's going to be Democrats in the Senate.

那将是参议院的民主党人。

It's going to be all of the groups who were hurt so badly.

这将是所有受到如此严重伤害的群体。

It's going to be just average folks.

这将只是普通人。

You saw how many people marched last month.

你看到上个月有多少人游行了。

There'll be many more marches, many more protests against this “Big, Ugly Betrayal.”

将会有更多的游行、更多的抗议活动来反对这种“巨大而丑陋的背叛”。

Republicans admit they’re vulnerable here, which is why they’ve structured the bill so that the tax cuts hit right away while many of the harshest cuts to the safety net don’t ramp until 2027/28.

共和党人承认他们在这方面很脆弱，这就是为什么他们制定了该法案，以便减税立即生效，而对安全网的许多最严厉的削减要到2027/28年才会开始实施。

President Trump and his allies want families to feel the perks of the legislation before they feel its pain.

特朗普总统和他的盟友希望家庭在感受到立法的痛苦之前先感受到立法的好处。

(I’ll come back to this as it’s crucial to the way I think about the bill’s potential inflation risk.) It also means that democrats will have their work cut out for them when it comes to persuading voters, including tens of millions of MAGA voters , that republicans should be punished for throwing them to the wolves.

（我会回到这一点，因为这对于我思考该法案的潜在通胀风险的方式至关重要。）这也意味着，民主党人在说服选民（包括数千万 MAGA 选民）时将面临巨大的困难，因为共和党人应该因为将他们扔进狼群而受到惩罚。

When it comes to the environment, the OBBB eliminates $543 billion worth of tax incentives aimed at boosting the development and adoption of clean energy by businesses and American consumers.

在环境方面，OBBB 取消了价值 5,430 亿美元的税收优惠政策，旨在促进企业和美国消费者开发和采用清洁能源。

Climate experts warn that it “destroys thousands of clean energy jobs, and puts us all at greater risk from climate disasters.”

气候专家警告说，它“摧毁了数以千计的清洁能源工作岗位，并使我们所有人面临气候灾难的更大风险。”

Because of the substantial rollback in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Patrick Drupp, director of climate policy for the Sierra Club., has dubbed the OBBB “the most anti-environment bill in history.” Removing those tax breaks means that it will be more expensive to bring wind and solar—generation that can be added relatively quickly—onto the grid at a time when energy demand is rising at a historic rate.

由于《减少通货膨胀法案》(IRA) 的大幅倒退，塞拉俱乐部气候政策主管帕特里克·德鲁普 (Patrick Drupp) 将 OBBB 称为“历史上最反环境的法案”。取消这些税收减免意味着，在能源需求以历史速度增长的情况下，将风能和太阳能（可以相对较快地增加）并入电网的成本将会更高。

Here’s an excellent summary of the IRA provisions that get rolled back.

以下是对 IRA 条款被撤销的精彩总结。

Meanwhile, Dana Drugmand writes that the bill “extends a tax credit to production of metallurgical coal , ….cripples a program intended to crack down on methane emissions, …

与此同时，达纳·德鲁格曼德 (Dana Drugmand) 写道，该法案“将税收抵免范围扩大到冶金煤生产……削弱了旨在打击甲烷排放的计划……

and raises the tax credit level for carbon capture and storage projects that involve enhanced oil recovery—a type of drilling using carbon dioxide to stimulate oil production.”

并提高涉及提高石油采收率的碳捕获和封存项目的税收抵免水平——这是一种利用二氧化碳刺激石油生产的钻探活动。”

I could write for days about the OBBB’s environmental toll, but I would just be referencing and summarizing the work of experts in the climate space.

我可以写几天关于 OBBB 的环境损失，但我只是参考和总结气候领域专家的工作。

You can read more here here here here here and here .

您可以在这里、这里、这里、这里阅读更多内容。

As you might imagine, there are externalities associated with the environmental harms that spill over into other areas of concern, like human health and inflation.

正如您可能想象的那样，与环境危害相关的外部性会蔓延到其他令人担忧的领域，例如人类健康和通货膨胀。

There are various opinions—and some heated disputes—about the extent to which the OBBB will juice domestic production and employment.

关于 OBBB 将在多大程度上促进国内生产和就业，存在着各种不同的观点，并且存在一些激烈的争论。

Champions of the bill would have us believe that we’re about to witness a bonafide, trickle-down miracle that will push real GDP growth as high as 4.9% in the near term.

该法案的支持者会让我们相信，我们即将见证一个真正的、涓滴效应的奇迹，它将在短期内推动实际 GDP 增长率高达 4.9%。

That’s what the White House Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) is touting .

这就是白宫经济顾问委员会（CEA）所鼓吹的。

Critics are mocking the CEA’s rosy outlook, accusing White House economists of basing their projections on “fantasy” assumptions that look nothing like what’s being predicted by more credible forecasters.

批评者嘲笑 CEA 的乐观前景，指责白宫经济学家的预测基于“幻想”假设，这些假设与更可信的预测者的预测完全不同。

One of the reasons the Trump administration is touting these eye-popping growth projections is that republicans are being pressed on the budgetary effects—i.e. debt and deficit—of their “massive” bill.

特朗普政府宣扬这些令人瞠目结舌的增长预测的原因之一是，共和党人正面临预算效应的压力，即预算效应。债务和赤字——他们的“巨额”账单。

By assuming explosive growth, they hope to sell financial markets (and voters) on the notion that what they’re doing isn’t fiscally irresponsible.

通过假设爆炸性增长，他们希望让金融市场（和选民）相信他们所做的事情在财政上并不是不负责任的。

As I’ve been saying in various interviews, I’m not unnerved by what the Congressional Budget Office ( CBO ), the Yale Budget Lab ( YBL ), the Penn Wharton Budget Model ( PWBM ), or the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget ( CRFB ) have to say about the budgetary effects of the OBBB.

正如我在各种采访中所说，国会预算办公室 (CBO)、耶鲁大学预算实验室 (YBL)、宾大沃顿商学院预算模型 (PWBM) 或负责任的联邦预算中心 (CRFB) 对于 OBBB 的预算影响的说法并不令我感到不安。

I look at things through an MMT lens, so the “fiscal cost” of the tax and spending bill doesn’t give me a lot of insight into the things I really care about.

我通过现代货币理论的视角来看待事物，因此税收和支出法案的“财政成本”并不能让我深入了解我真正关心的事情。

What I’m most concerned about are the bill’s human, distributional, environmental, and inflationary impacts.

我最关心的是该法案对人类、分配、环境和通货膨胀的影响。

A point I have been making for decades is that when it comes to inflation risk, it’s not enough to know whether Congress is “paying for” its spending vs. adding to the deficit.

几十年来我一直在强调的一个观点是，当谈到通胀风险时，仅仅了解国会是在“支付”其支出还是增加赤字是不够的。

The reason is that it would be pretty easy to assemble a tax and spending bill that is deficit neutral but highly inflationary and therefore fiscally irresponsible—e.g. a generous Universal Basic Income (UBI) “paid for” by raising taxes only on those in the top 1% of the income distribution.

原因是，制定一项赤字中性但通货膨胀率很高、因此在财政上不负责任的税收和支出法案是相当容易的。通过只对收入分配最顶层 1% 的人增税来“支付”慷慨的全民基本收入 (UBI)。

That would punch up spending by almost every American while doing relatively little to curb demand at the very top.

这将增加几乎所有美国人的支出，同时对抑制顶层需求的作用相对较小。

Conversely, I could draft legislation that substantially increases the fiscal deficit while dragging inflation lower —e.g. single-payer health care such as Medicare for All .

相反，我可以起草大幅增加财政赤字、同时拉低通胀的立法——例如单一付款人医疗保健，例如全民医疗保险。

Total (public + private sector) spending on healthcare as a share of GDP might fall from around 18% to something like 15% (depending on which version of Medicare for All we’re considering), freeing up substantial real resources (including labor).

医疗保健总支出（公共+私营部门）占 GDP 的比例可能会从 18% 左右下降到 15% 左右（取决于我们正在考虑的全民医疗保险版本），从而释放大量实际资源（包括劳动力）。

Hence, it would be a mistake to assume that any generic increase in the deficit will necessarily lead to higher inflation or that Congress can avoid inflation by keeping everything deficit neutral.

因此，认为赤字的任何普遍增加都必然导致通胀上升，或者国会可以通过保持一切赤字中性来避免通胀，都是错误的。

From an MMT perspective, understanding the sector financial balances means understanding that on the other side of every government deficit lies a matching (financial) surplus that accumulates in some other part of the economy.

从现代货币理论的角度来看，了解部门财务平衡意味着了解每个政府赤字的另一面都存在着在经济其他部分积累的相匹配的（财务）盈余。

Who receives those payments, and whether and how that money goes on to enter the veins of commerce—chasing after existing goods and services or spurring new investment—can spell the difference between a benign increase in the deficit (like we had following the 2009 American Rescue and Recovery Act or the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act) and one that makes a mess of inflation.

谁收到这些付款，以及这些钱是否以及如何继续进入商业脉络——追逐现有的商品和服务或刺激新的投资——可能会决定赤字的良性增长（就像我们在 2009 年美国救援和复苏法案或 2017 年减税和就业法案之后所做的那样）和造成通货膨胀的混乱。

It’s worth noting that none of the headline macro forecasts referenced above (CBO, PWBM, YBL, CFRFB) predict that the OBBB will lead to ruinous inflation.

值得注意的是，上面提到的宏观宏观预测（CBO、PWBM、YBL、CFRFB）都没有预测 OBBB 将导致毁灭性的通胀。

In part, that’s because they view the package as only modestly expansionary in the short-run.

部分原因是他们认为该计划在短期内只是适度扩张。

Most of what happens on the tax side is just an extension of the 2017 tax cuts, so there’s no new fiscal impulse to worry about on that front, and a lot of the new stuff (no tax on tips/overtime/auto loan interest/etc.) expires after a few years.

税收方面发生的大部分事情只是2017年减税政策的延伸，因此在这方面没有新的财政冲动值得担心，而且很多新政策（小费/加班费/汽车贷款利息/等不征税）几年后就到期了。

When you couple the new tax stuff with higher near-term spending on defense and immigration, all of the headline models project modest inflationary pressures, which the Fed counters by raising interest rates.

当你将新的税收政策与近期国防和移民支出增加结合起来时，所有主要模型都预测了温和的通胀压力，美联储通过加息来应对这一压力。

As interest rates move higher, all of the models assume there will be enough crowding out of private sector spending to push inflation down to the Fed’s 2 percent target in a reasonably short period of time.

随着利率走高，所有模型都假设私人部门支出将受到足够的挤压，从而在相当短的时间内将通胀率降至美联储 2% 的目标。

So the problem with the OBBB, according to all of these models, isn’t that it provides so much fiscal stimulus that it requires the Fed to aggressively tighten monetary policy.

因此，根据所有这些模型，OBBB 的问题并不在于它提供了太多的财政刺激，以至于需要美联储大幅收紧货币政策。

It takes only a modest rise in interest rates to hold inflation in check.

只需要小幅提高利率就可以控制通货膨胀。

The problem, according to CBO (and the others ), is that you end up with a worse performing economy relative to a baseline case where the 2017 tax cuts were allowed to expire, shrinking the fiscal deficit over time.

根据国会预算办公室（和其他机构）的说法，问题在于，与 2017 年减税政策到期、财政赤字随着时间推移而缩小的基线情况相比，最终经济表现会更差。

In all of these stories, the deficit is the culprit, and a slower-growing—not inflationary—economy is the punishment.

在所有这些故事中，赤字都是罪魁祸首，而增长缓慢（而非通胀）的经济才是惩罚。

The White House disputes all of this.

白宫对所有这些都提出异议。

President Trump wants—and expects—interest rates to be lower, not higher, in the coming months and years.

特朗普总统希望并预计未来几个月和几年的利率会更低，而不是更高。

His administration sees more rapid, not slower, economic growth as a result of the OBBB.

他的政府认为 OBBB 会带来更快而不是更慢的经济增长。

And the Trump team believes that inflation will trend down, not up, as manufacturing capacity expands and advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) deliver a productivity miracle.

特朗普团队认为，随着制造能力的扩大和人工智能（AI）的进步带来生产力奇迹，通胀将呈下降趋势，而不是上升。

That’s what Kevin Hassett (director of the White House National Economic Council), Stephen Miran (chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers), and Scott Bessent (U.S. Treasury Secretary) are all promising.

这就是凯文·哈塞特（白宫国家经济委员会主任）、斯蒂芬·米兰（白宫经济顾问委员会主席）和斯科特·贝森特（美国财政部长）都做出的承诺。

In July 7 interview on CNBC, Secretary Bessent said , “We’re going to have economic growth in a non-inflationary manner.” In a joint op-ed a week earlier, Hasset and Miran wrote :

7 月 7 日，国务卿贝森特在接受 CNBC 采访时表示，“我们将以非通胀的方式实现经济增长。”哈塞特和米兰在一周前的联合专栏中写道：

Another argument raised is that the bill will cause inflation to pick up as growth takes off.

提出的另一个论点是，随着经济增长的起飞，该法案将导致通货膨胀加剧。

Those with this view, of course, fail to account for the fact that a factory spending boom that increases U.S. production drives down inflation by increasing supply.

当然，持有这种观点的人没有考虑到这样一个事实：工厂支出的繁荣增加了美国的产量，从而通过增加供应来压低通货膨胀。

The Biden administration threw fire on inflation with government spending and used skyrocketing regulations to impede supply.

拜登政府通过政府支出来抑制通货膨胀，并利用飙升的法规来阻碍供应。

To see the effect of today’s proposed policies, look no further than the 2017-19 acceleration in growth that was accompanied by low, stable inflation.

要了解今天提出的政策的效果，只要看看 2017-19 年经济增长加速以及低而稳定的通胀就可以了。

It would be nice if we could jump directly from the tax incentives that are designed to spur new investment to the shiny new factories themselves, but that’s not how things work.

如果我们能够直接摆脱旨在刺激新投资的税收优惠政策，转向闪亮的新工厂本身，那就太好了，但事情并非如此。

Before a build-up in new manufacturing capacity can help drive down prices, all of those new factories have to be built.

在新制造能力的增强能够帮助降低价格之前，所有这些新工厂都必须建成。

And that requires labor (with the requisite skills), capital equipment, lumber, steel, concrete, copper, etc. How is all of this supposed to happen in a non-inflationary way with high (and rising) tariffs on key inputs, a shrinking labor force via mass deportation, and a budget bill that will significantly drive up health care , energy , and other costs ?

这需要劳动力（具有必要的技能）、资本设备、木材、钢铁、混凝土、铜等。在对关键投入品征收高额（且不断上升的）关税、大规模驱逐导致劳动力萎缩以及将大幅推高医疗保健、能源和其他成本的预算法案的情况下，这一切如何以非通货膨胀的方式发生？

Long before “Liberation Day,” Secretary Bessent defended the use of tariffs, arguing that “tariffs can’t be inflationary because if the price of one thing goes up—unless you give people more money—then they have less money to spend on the other thing, so there is no inflation."

早在“解放日”之前，贝森特部长就为关税的使用进行了辩护，他认为“关税不可能导致通货膨胀，因为如果一种东西的价格上涨——除非你给人们更多的钱——那么他们花在另一种东西上的钱就会减少，所以就不存在通货膨胀。”

Well, republicans just passed a bill that gives pretty much everyone more money (while setting the stage for higher energy, health care, and other costs that feed directly into inflation).

嗯，共和党人刚刚通过了一项法案，几乎给每个人更多的钱（同时为更高的能源、医疗保健和其他直接导致通货膨胀的成本奠定了基础）。

So am I worried?

那我担心吗？

You bet.

你打赌。