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這是有關州預算的演講,這大概是整個早上最枯燥乏味的講題,但我想告訴你們,我認為這是我們必需關心的重要課題。州預算有非常、非常多錢,我等一下會告訴你們有多少錢,而且它們幾乎不受審查。很少人瞭解它,大部分與其相關的人只關注特定或短期的利益,讓他們不會考慮長期趨勢所暗示的警訊,而這些預算卻是我們未來的關鍵,是我們孩子的關鍵。大多數的教育經費,無論是幼稚園到中學,還是大學、社區大學,這些學校大部分的資金都來自州預算。
但我們有個問題,這是美國全部的預算圖。美國的經濟很龐大,(國內生產總值)一兆四千七百億美元,在整個大餅之中,政府支出佔了百分之三十六,其中聯邦預算佔得最多,其餘是州預算與地方預算,如此錯綜複雜,就是你感受到的目前整體狀況。因為裡面有太多複雜的項目,例如健保與研究支出同時在三者之間編列,但我們確實支出百分之三十六。好,我們到底付了多少?基本的商業問題,答案是百分之二十六,中間有百分之十的赤字,是個令人震驚的數字。其中一部分赤字,實際上,是因為我們正處於經濟不景氣,收入減少,某些支出計畫增加,但這不是大多數赤字的原因,大多數赤字來自於負債一直累積,以及趨勢如此,讓我們面臨巨大的挑戰。事實上,這個預測圖裡面有幾個項目,我可以說,我們可以提高收入,或讓醫療創新,使得支出更為增加,讓前景看來日益困難,即使假設經濟景氣不錯,比預期得更好,這是你會看到的全體數字。
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以下為系統擷取之英文原文
Well, this is about state budgets. This is probably the most boring topic of the whole morning. But I want to tell you, I think it's an important topic that we need to care about. State budgets are big, big money -- I'll show you the numbers -- and they get very little scrutiny. The understanding is very low. Many of the people involved have special interests or short-term interests that get them not thinking about what the implications of the trends are. And these budgets are the key for our future; they're the key for our kids. Most education funding -- whether it's K through 12, or the great universities or community colleges -- most of the money for those things is coming out of these state budgets.
But we have a problem. Here's the overall picture. U.S. economy is big -- 14.7 trillion. Now out of that pie, the government spends 36 percent. So this is combining the federal level, which is the largest, the state level and the local level. And it's really in this combined way that you get an overall sense of what's going on, because there's a lot of complex things like Medicaid and research money that flow across those boundaries. But we're spending 36 percent. Well what are we taking in? Simple business question. Answer is 26 percent. Now this leaves 10 percent deficit. Sort of a mind-blowing number. And some of that, in fact, is due to the fact that we've had an economic recession. Receipts go down, some spending programs go up, but most of it is not because of that. Most of it is because of ways that the liabilities are building up and the trends, and that creates a huge challenge. In fact, this is the forecast picture. There are various things in here, I could say we might raise more revenue, or medical innovation will make the spending even higher. It is an increasingly difficult picture, even assuming the economy does quite well -- probably better than it will do. This is what you see at this overall level.
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我們怎麼會變成這樣?我的意思是,怎麼會有這種麻煩?總之,至少在帳面上,有這種概念說,這些州預算經過平衡,只有一個州說他們不必平衡預算,這實際上表示平衡預算都只是藉口,他們根本沒有達成真正的平衡,以某方面來說,他們玩的把戲是隱藏赤字,實際上更加模糊了問題所在,讓別人無法發覺,這就是目前非常直接的挑戰。當傑利.布朗選上(加州州長),這就是他要面對的挑戰,那就是藉由種種的花招與方法,所謂的平衡預算讓加州提出的七百六十億預算支出消失了二百五十億,他總結下來有幾個想法:他會砍掉其中一半,另一半也許藉由十分複雜的手段,以加稅的方法補足。即使如此,當你面對未來幾年各種退休金支出、醫療支出持續增加,但是收入卻沒有追上支出,你就必須大幅壓縮預算。
為什麼我們可以隱藏這些問題?好,有一些十分巧妙的技倆,這些是讓人稍微注意到的。報紙上寫著:「並非全部平衡」、「有財務漏洞」、「延續赤字支出」、「充滿了花招」,當你真正深入調查的時候,會發現Enron的傢伙從來沒做過這種蠢事(Enron:以做假帳等引發醜聞的美國公司)。(各州政府)實在明目張膽、罪大惡極,難道沒有人注意到這些傢伙所做的事情?他們借錢,他們不該借錢,但是他們找到了方法,他們強迫你繳交更多的預扣稅金,只為了讓他們有現金可用,他們出售資產,他們拒絕支付預算,他們提前交換了來自香菸的收益。加州不是特例,事實上,大概有五個州的狀況更惡劣,只有四個州不必面對這麼大的挑戰,所以這是充斥整個美國的現象。它來自於這個事實,相當多的長期債務,科技創新讓健保日益昂貴,提早退休與退休金,人口老化讓問題更加嚴重,正因為寬容,讓這些不正當的會計手段長期持續下去,讓你面對棘手的問題。這是退休人員健保的利益,三百萬人,六百二十億美元的債務,比汽車公司還糟糕,每個看到的人都知道,這會如同滾雪球一般變成巨大的問題,光看醫療方面的預測,將會從百分之二十六的預算增加到百分之四十二。
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Now how did we get here? How could you have a problem like this? After all, at least on paper, there's this notion that these state budgets are balanced. Only one state says they don't have to balance the budget. But what this means actually is that there's a pretense. There's no real, true balancing going on. And in a sense, the games they play to hide that actually obscure the topic so much that people don't see things that are actually pretty straight forward challenges. When Jerry Brown was elected, this was the challenge that was put to him. That is, through various gimmicks and things, a so-called balanced budget had led him to have 25 billion missing out of the 76 billion in proposed spending. Now he's put together some thoughts: About half of that he'll cut, another half, perhaps in a very complex set of steps, taxes will be approved. But even so, as you go out into those future years, various pension costs, health costs go up enough, and the revenue does not go up enough. So you get a big squeeze.
What were those things that allowed us to hide this? Well, some really nice little tricks. And these were somewhat noticed. The paper said, "It's not really balanced." "It's got holes." "It perpetuates deficit spending." "It's riddled with gimmicks." And really when you get down to it, the guys at Enron never would have done this. This is so blatant, so extreme. Is anyone paying attention to some of the things these guys do? They borrow money. They're not supposed to, but they figure out a way. They make you pay more in withholding just to help their cash flow out. They sell off the assets. They defer the payments. They sell off the revenues from tobacco. And California's not unique. In fact, there's about five states that are worse and only really four states that don't face this big challenge. So it's systemic across the entire country. It really comes from the fact that certain long-term obligations -- health care where innovation makes it more expensive, early retirement and pension where the age structure gets worse for you, and just generosity -- that these mis-accounting things allow to develop over time, that you've got a problem. This is the retiree health care benefits. Three million set aside, 62 billion dollar liability -- much worse than the car companies. And everybody looked at that and knew that that was headed toward a huge problem. The forecast for the medical piece alone is to go from 26 percent of the budget to 42 percent.
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誰來付錢?為了應付這些債務,你必須削減一半的教育支出,以某種程度來說,這真的是年輕人與老人的戰爭。如果你的收入不變,如果你無法解決健保問題,你就會剝奪對年輕人的投資。加州優秀的大學系統,一直以來相當優良的制度,以後不會再持續。目前是裁減師資,增加每班學生人數,在教育圈子裡面討論的是:「我們應該裁掉年輕的老師,還是表現較差的老師?」裡面也有討論:「如果增加班級人數,要增加在哪裡?會有什麼影響?」不幸的是,當你掉進陷阱,就會困惑,然後想:「好吧,我想我可以接受。」實際上不可以,絕對不能削減教育支出,有些方法,如果只是暫時的,可以降低影響,但它確實是個大問題,也是掌握我們未來方向的問題。科技在其中扮演重要的角色,我們需要資金實驗,以研發可用的教育工具,有人想依據教師教學的成效給薪,量化教學成效、給予教師回饋、在教室拍攝影片,我覺得這些事情非常、非常重要,你必須規劃預算到這系統上,才能給付獎勵性的薪水,經濟成長的狀況下,你可以把多的收入花費在這裡,即使經濟持平,你也可以挪一些錢過去。但現在是我們之前所講的惡劣情況,就會變得非常、非常困難,難以撥出這些獎勵金給優秀教師,或是難以改變方式,運用科技提昇教育。
所以,現在到底是什麼狀況?智囊團到底在哪裡呢?好吧,根本沒有智囊團。(笑聲)這算是投票者的義務,也算是我們該挺身而出的時候。看看這些支出,加州支出超過一千億美元;微軟,三百八十億;Google,大約一百九十億;這些是 Google 與微軟裡面擅長數學分析的智商總和,出了這兩家公司,有一堆分析師與各式各樣意見的人。他們該花那筆錢嗎?不,他們在浪費錢。這個如何?這真是了不起,每個人都有意見,有大量的回饋意見,我們用數字來作出決策,如果你查看教育支出與健保支出,尤其是長期趨勢,你不需要瞭解這些數字,就知道公平與學習才是最重要的事。
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Well what's going to give? Well in order to accommodate that, you would have to cut education spending in half. It really is this young versus the old to some degree. If you don't change that revenue picture, if you don't solve what you're doing in health care, you're going to be deinvesting in the young. The great University of California university system, the great things that have gone on, won't happen. So far it's meant layoffs, increased class sizes. Within the education community there's this discussion of, "Should it just be the young teachers who get laid off, or the less good teachers who get laid off?" And there's a discussion: if you're going to increase class sizes, where do you do that? How much affect does that have? And unfortunately, as you get into that, people get confused and think, "Well maybe you think that's okay." In fact, no, education spending should not be cut. There's ways, if it's temporary, to minimize the impact, but it's a problem. It's also really a problem for where we need to go. Technology has a role to play. Well we need money to experiment with that, to get those tools in there. There's the idea of paying teachers for effectiveness, measuring them, giving them feedback, taking videos in the classroom. That's something I think is very, very important. Well you have to allocate dollars for that system and for that incentive pay. In a situation where you have growth, you put the new money into this -- or even if you're flat, you might shift money into it. But with the type of cuts we're talking about, it will be far, far harder to get these incentives for excellence, or to move over to use technology in the new way.
So what's going on? Where's the brain trust that's in error here. Well there really is no brain trust. (Laughter) It's sort of the voters, it's sort of us showing up. Just look at this spending. California will spend over 100 billion, Microsoft, 38, Google, about 19. The amount of IQ in good numeric analysis, both inside Google and Microsoft and outside, with analysts and people of various opinions -- should they have spent on that? No, they wasted their money on this. What about this thing? -- it really is quite phenomenal. Everybody has an opinion. There's great feedback. And the numbers are used to make decisions. If you go over the education spending and the health care spending -- particularly these long-term trends -- you don't have that type of involvement on a number that's more important in terms of equity, in terms of learning.
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所以我們需要做什麼?我們需要更好的工具(提醒大眾),我們可以靠網際網路做到一些,我會運用我的網站發布一些資料,讓人瞭解一些基本概念。我們還需要更多,有幾本好書,有一本關於學校支出與財源收支如何隨時間變化,以及面臨的挑戰,我們需要更好的會計方法,我們需要承認事實,現在的員工製造未來的債務,都是從現在的預算中支付,我們需要瞭解為什麼他們對退休金的會計數字做了這些手腳,政府會計應該要如同私人會計,有著嚴格的標準。最後,我們需要以實際行動獎勵政治家,當他們說有長期的問題存在,我們不能回答,「喔,所以你只是個烏鴉嘴?去死吧!」事實上,有些人就是那樣子,Erskine Bowles、Alan Simpson與其他人,他們進行調查並提出方案,處理全聯邦普遍存在的健保支出於州層級問題,但實際上,他們的方案被延後,事實上,方案提出之後幾個星期,通過了一些減稅法案,導致情況比他們預想的更加惡化。所以,我們需要之前提過的東西。
目前,我認為這是可以解決的問題。美國是人口眾多的大國,但我們必須同心協力,因為這是有關教育的問題,只要看看加州大學學費的問題,向後推測三、四、五年之後上漲的學費,年輕人將會讀不起大學。教育是一種對年輕人的投資,使我們偉大,讓我們貢獻心力,它讓我們成就藝術、發展生物科技、研發軟體,做出許多神奇的事物。所以重點是,我們必須關心州預算,因為它是我們孩子與我們未來的關鍵。
謝謝各位。
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So what do we need to do? We need better tools. We can get some things out on the Internet. I'm going to use my website to put up some things that will give the basic picture. We need lots more. There's a few good books, one about school spending and where the money comes from -- how that's changed over time, and the challenge. We need better accounting. We need to take the fact that current employees, the future liabilities they create, that should come out of the current budget. We need to understand why they've done the pension accounting the way they have. It should be more like private accounting. It's the gold standard. And finally, we need to really reward politicians. Whenever they say there's these long term problems, we can't say, "Oh, you're the messenger with bad news? We just shot you." In fact, there are some like these: Erskine Bowles, Alan Simpson and others, who have gone through and given proposals for this overall federal health spending state-level problem. But in fact, their work was sort of pushed off. In fact, the week afterwards, some tax cuts were done that made the situation even worse than their assumptions. So we need these pieces.
Now I think this is a solvable problem. It's a great country with lots of people. But we have to draw those people in, because this is about education. And just look at what happened with the tuitions with the University of California and project that out for another three, four, five years. It's unaffordable. And that's the kind of thing -- the investment in the young -- that makes us great, allows us to contribute. It allows us to do the art, the biotechnology, the software and all those magic things. And so the bottom line is we need to care about state budgets because they're critical for our kids and our future.
Thank you.