It was a US vice-president who reportedly said: “Reagan showed that deficits don’t matter.” In 2004 Dick Cheney, one of the more right-leaning Republicans, was making the case for a trillion- dollar tax cut, when the public finances were in far from healthy shape.

据报道，曾有一位美国副总统说过：“里根表明了赤字问题无关紧要。”2004年，较右倾的共和党之一迪克•切尼(Dick Cheney)为了支持一项达1万亿美元的减税计划而说了这句话，而当时的公共财政离健康状态相距甚远。

He was not alone in his view. In the early years of the century debt was not a topic of great political interest. This was before a financial storm hit the global economy, leaving behind damage that will take decades to repair. The storm was fuelled by heedless borrowing — if not by states, then by banks, businesses and households assuming their liabilities would never matter. Soon debt management loomed over every other topic. Across the developed world elections were fought over the pace of fiscal consolidation.

他并非唯一持这种观点的人。在本世纪初的几年中，债务问题并非是引起很大政治兴趣的话题。那是在金融风暴席卷全球经济之前，而其遗留的伤害将需要数十年来修复。毫无节制的举债推动了那场风暴，如此举债的即便不是各州政府，也是自认为负债永远不会成为大问题的银行、企业和家庭。很快，债务管理的阴云笼罩着所有话题。整个发达世界的选举都围绕财务整顿的步伐而争论不休。

Half a decade on, annual borrowing has mostly been brought under control. But years of double-digit deficits left a burden of debt far beyond what most countries would happily bear. The question now is the speed at which they must be reduced.

五年之后，年度举债水平基本上得到控制。但是，数年高达两位数的赤字增长造成了巨大的债务负担，远远超过绝大多数国家可以欣然接受的水平。眼下的问题是，赤字水平必须以何种速度降低。

Staff at the International Monetary Fund have produced an admirably clear answer, and one that might surprise those used to seeing the Washington-based institution as an unbending defender of orthodoxy. A recent paper says that most countries can relax: debt ratios should be allowed to decline “organically” with growth, or through opportunistically pocketing windfalls.

国际货币基金组织(IMF)的工作人员给出了一个明确得令人钦佩的答案，也许会让那些习惯于把这家总部位于华盛顿的机构视为正统学说的坚定维护者的人大跌眼睛。其最近一份报告称，绝大多数国家可以松一口气：应该允许负债比率随着增长、或通过投机性地获取意外之财而“有机”下降。

Regular followers of the IMF can be excused a sense of bewilderment, having heard it advocate cuts in 2010, then sound the alarm about the consequent damage to growth, only in 2014 to admit (in the case of Britain) to having miscued this last piece of advice.

IMF的一般追随者若感到困惑，是情有可原的：2010年他们就听过该组织提倡削减债务，然后听到IMF关于削减债务后损害增长的警告，不料2014年又承认后一条建议（在英国问题上）失误了。

But this latest foray plays into a different debate. In the immediate aftermath of the crisis, controversy swirled around a perceived trade-off between controlling the deficit and the damage to aggregate demand from doing so. It saw rival schools of macroeconomic thought in violent disagreement — Keynesians favouring a fiscal boost versus monetarists and followers of the Austrian school who thought it either ineffective, unnecessary or risky.

但是其最近这番言论进入了一场截然不同的争论。在危机发生后不久，人们便围绕控制赤字及此举损害总需求之间的权衡展开争论。这场争论见证了宏观经济思想对立学派间存在的严重分歧——凯恩斯主义者赞成财政刺激，货币主义者和奥地利学派的追随者则认为财政刺激要么无效、没必要，要么太危险。

As seen by the IMF, the timing of debt reduction is now less about such macroeconomic arcana than a judgment weighing the cost of early tightening against a lower risk of a sovereign debt crisis. Cutting debt requires higher taxes or less public investment, both at the expense of economic efficiency.

在IMF看来，如今削减债务的时机不在于那些深奥的宏观经济理论怎么说，而在于一种判断——即权衡提早紧缩与降低主权债务危机风险的利弊。削减债务需要增加税收或减少公共投资，两者均以经济效率为代价。

The paper argues that most countries have enough fiscal space for a bond market revolt to be a distant possibility, one barely lessened by a slightly lower debt/gross domestic product ratio.

该报告认为，绝大多数国家拥有足够的财政空间让债券市场动荡成为渺小的可能，而债务与国内生产总值(GDP)比率的略微下降几乎无法降低这种可能。

There will never be a definitive guide to how a country should manage its debts; the topic is inherently political. Having brazened out the sceptics and won electoral victory, the UK’s ruling Conservatives may feel confident swatting the IMF aside, and will no doubt argue that the cuts they propose merely trim fat from the British state.

对于一个国家该如何控制其债务的问题，永远都不会有明确的指导；这个话题注定是与政治挂钩的。在硬着头皮对付完怀疑者并赢得了大选胜利后，英国执政党保守党(Conservatives)也许感觉有信心对IMF置之不理，并且无疑会认为该党所建议的债务削减只会减掉英国政府的脂肪。

But the IMF is not alone. The UK’s Institute for Fiscal Studies is ever more critical of how the Tories frame the fiscal challenge, and both the Office for Budget Responsibility and the OECD look askance at the rollercoaster ride of cuts set out by George Osborne, the chancellor. A month after the election, details remain scanty, suggesting the government has little notion of how to complete the task it has set itself.

但是IMF的观点无独有偶。英国财政研究所(Institute for Fiscal Studies)对保守党如何制定财政计划更为指摘，而预算责任办公室(Office of Budget Responsibility,简称OBR)以及经合组织(OECD)则睥睨着由英国财政大臣乔治•奥斯本(George Osborne)制定的一系列过山车似的削减计划。大选已经过去了一个月，而细节尚未公布，这表明英国政府对如何完成自己制定的任务毫无头绪。

Having been vindicated about a decision to act quickly on the deficit does not give the UK government a good argument for being even more aggressive towards debt reduction. The afterglow of its electoral triumph provides a good moment for a course correction.

虽然决定迅速采取行动解决赤字是正确的，但这并不是给了英国政府一个好理由去更加激进地削减债务。保守党选举胜利的光辉为其修正路线提供了一个良好的时机。