美国基建有多落后？

Last summer India had the largest power outage in human history affecting 600m people. So it stung when my visiting Indian mother-in-law pointed out that America’s east coast, including Washington, was “as bad as India. Then it was a so-called derecho storm, which left 6m US homes without power for days in the searing heat. Last month it was Superstorm Sandy, which left 10m homes shivering. In late December forecasters project a heavy cold snap that is bound to cause blackouts. People are resigned to the prospect.

去年夏天，印度发生了人类历史上最大规模的停电事故，受影响的人有6亿之多。所以，当我前来探亲的印度籍岳母表示包括华盛顿在内的美国东海岸地区“像印度一样糟的时候，这一评价听起来着实刺耳。当时，风暴德雷科(Derecho)正席卷美国东海岸，600万美国家庭因此断电数天，在酷热天气中饱受煎熬。上个月，超强风暴桑迪(Sandy)又让1000万美国家庭陷入恐慌的境地。天气预报机构预期，12月底会有一股很强的寒流，肯定会导致断电。对此，人们只能“听天由命了。

It is hard to pinpoint the date at which Americans developed an Indian – or perhaps British – fatalism about the declining quality of their infrastructure. When my British mother spent several months in the US in the 1950s, it was dazzlingly futuristic. There was air-conditioning, an icebox in every fridge, ubiquitous neon lights and an open road on which even the working class could afford to drive. But bit by bit over the past 30 years, the world’s first truly modern infrastructure has shown its age. It has been starved by a generation of under-investment. And Americans have adapted around it.

面对本国基础设施质量的不断下降，美国人到底是什么时候养成了一种像印度人（或许还包括英国人）那样的听天由命心态？这个问题很难回答。上世纪五十年代，我的英国籍母亲曾在美国住了几个月。那时候，美国到处是令人眩目的未来派景象。在这里你能看到空调，每个冰箱里都有冷藏室，霓虹灯无处不在，就连工人阶级也买得起车、开上宽敞的道路行驶。但在过去三十年里，世界上第一批真正意义上的现代基础设施一天天老化。经历了二十余年的投资不足之后，这些基础设施已破败不堪，而美国人也已适应了这种现实。

At some point in the next 12 months, we will discover whether the US has the will to bring its infrastructure into the 21st century. If all goes well, Congress will take steps to avert a fiscal cliff before January 1. As part of that deal lawmakers will schedule another ticking time bomb for late 2013 before which they will have to strike a larger bargain or hit another fiscal cliff. The likelihood is that Congress will shrink the already meagre federal investment budget. The hope, as the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Center puts it, is that Congress will “cut to invest rather than doing so crudely across the board.

未来12个月的某一刻，我们将能看出，美国是否有意愿让其基础设施也步入21世纪。如果一切顺利，美国国会将在明年1月1日前采取措施，避免到时跌落“财政悬崖。作为相关协议的一部分，议员们将设定另一颗“定时炸弹，“爆炸时间定在2013年年底——在“爆炸之前他们必须达成一项更大的妥协，否则就会面临另一个“财政悬崖。美国国会可能会缩减已然捉襟见肘的联邦投资预算。而如布鲁金斯学会都市研究中心(Brookings Institution Metropolitan Center)所言，人们希望的是，美国国会能削减其他预算以支撑投资，而不是从整体上大幅削减预算。

There are three reasons to worry. First, there is remarkably little public outrage over the dilapidation in the power grid, public roads, domestic airports and waterways. This means that lawmakers will be feeling stronger pressures in other directions (such as defending the existing low level of capital gains tax, for example, or maintaining job-creating defence budgets). It is hard to fly domestically in the US and not at regular intervals experience heavy delays, cancellations, or being bumped off your flight. It is also hard not to miss the impressively stoical reaction of most passengers.

有三个方面值得担忧。第一，美国电网、公路、国内机场和水道的破败，引起的公愤少得出奇。这意味着，议员们目前在其他方面感受到更大的压力（比如捍卫现有的处于低位的资本所得税，或维持可创造就业的国防预算）。搭乘美国国内航班时，你很难不每隔一段时间就遭遇航班严重延误、取消或超订，也很难忘记大多数乘客面对这一切时那超强的忍受力。

A big chunk of America’s domestic flying woes could be solved by building NextGen, which would switch the US from its second world war radar network to a satellite-based flight-tracking system. The existing arrangement is built on a hub and spoke model, whereby airlines route all traffic via a regional headquarters. Any seize-up in the hub can have a knock-on effect on the entire schedule. NextGen would make flying safer and hub and spokes unnecessary. But Congress has little stomach for the bill, which would come to at least $25bn.

美国国内航班的很大一部分难题可通过建设“下一代航空运输系统(NextGen)来解决，它将使美国从二战时所用的雷达网络切换到基于卫星的航班追踪系统。现有的安排建立在“轴辐模式(hub and spoke model)基础上，航空公司的每条航线都要经过某个地区性枢纽。枢纽如果停转，会对整个网络造成连锁影响。NextGen会让飞行变得更安全，让轴辐模式变得可有可无。但美国国会对批准这项耗资至少250亿美元的投资案兴趣不大。

Second, most Americans are unaware of how far behind the rest of the world their country has fallen. According to the World Economic Forum’s competitiveness report, US infrastructure ranks below 20th in most of the nine categories, and below 30 for quality of air transport and electricity supply. The US gave birth to the internet – the kind of decentralised network that the US power grid desperately needs. Yet according to the OECD, average US internet speeds are barely a 10th of those in countries such as South Korea and Germany. In an age where the global IT superhighway is no longer a slogan, this is no joke. The budding US entrepreneur can survive gridlocked traffic. But a slow internet can be crippling.

第二，大多数美国人都没有意识到，美国落后世界其他国家有多远。世界经济论坛(WEF)的竞争力报告显示，在9个类别的排名中，美国的基础设施大多排在20名开外；而在航空运输质量和电力供应质量分类排名中，更是排在30名开外。互联网是在美国诞生的——这类“去中心化网络同时也是美国电网迫切需要的。但经合组织(OECD)数据显示，美国的平均网速只勉强达到韩国和德国等国的十分之一。在一个“全球IT超级高速路已不再停留在口号的时代，这种差距可不是闹着玩儿的。拥堵的交通不会扼杀萌芽中的美国创业者，但缓慢的网速却可能是致命的。

Third, it may be asking too much of Washington in its current state of polarisation to give the green light to an ambitious infrastructure plan. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the US needs to spend $2,200bn in the next decade simply to maintain the existing quality of infrastructure. Under the current budget, Washington will spend less than half that amount. It requires a leap of faith to assume that it will double, say, rather than fall sharply, when the bipartisan fiscal bargain is struck next year – if indeed it is.

第三，华盛顿目前处于两党对立的状态，此时要求它向一项宏伟的基础设施建设计划大开绿灯，可能不太现实。美国土木工程师学会(American Society of Civil Engineers)的数据显示，仅仅是为了使基础设施的质量维持在现有水平，未来十年美国就需要投入2.2万亿美元。根据目前的预算安排，美国政府在这方面的支出连这个数字的一半都达不到。我们基本上只能靠信念才会相信，明年两党财政协议达成（如果真的能够达成的话）之时，这方面的支出将会翻番、而不是大幅降低。

In a departure from their party’s traditions, many Republicans are now ideologically opposed to any serious federal role in infrastructure and want to decentralise it to the states. It is thus also a stretch to imagine Congress setting up a public infrastructure bank, as Barack Obama has requested. The bank would use $10bn in seed money to leverage a multiple of that in private money for cross-state projects – much like the European Investment Bank. The chances are that it will stay on the drawing board.

与共和党传统相悖的是，许多共和党人如今在意识形态上反对联邦在基础设施建设上履行任何重要职能，而是希望将这一职能下放到各州。因此，设想美国国会会按巴拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)的要求建立一家公共基础设施银行恐怕也不现实。该银行可用100亿美元作为种子基金，撬动大量私人部门资金，用于跨州项目投资——这在很大程度上与欧洲投资银行(European Investment Bank)类似。这家银行可能仍将停留在规划中。

Building bridges, occasionally to nowhere, was once a bipartisan pursuit. As the US heads towards a consequential reckoning with its fiscal future, it is worth stressing that Washington will be aiming to set the federal budgetary parameters for many years ahead. Before lawmakers do so, they should take a trip to east Asia – say from JFK to Changi, or Chek Lap Kok, or any number of airports – and feel the difference. Though they would have to ignore the medieval conditions around it, they could even go via New Delhi’s new airport and travel on the city’s air-conditioned new metro system. My mother-in-law would be delighted to welcome them with a cup of chai masala and some gentle finger-wagging about the US power grid.

修建桥梁（偶尔修座不通向任何地方的桥）曾是美国两党的共同追求。在美国即将就其财政未来做出重要抉择之际，值得强调的是，华盛顿需着眼于今后若干年设定相应的联邦预算参数。在议员们采取行动之前，他们应该先去东亚转转，比如说从肯尼迪国际机场(JFK)到新加坡樟宜机场(Changi)、或香港赤鱲角机场(Chek Lap Kok)、或若干其他机场，感受一下美国机场与东亚机场的差异。他们甚至可以在新德里的新机场转机，搭乘一下这座城市带空调的新地铁（尽管他们可能需要忽略新机场周边的中世纪环境）。我的岳母肯定乐于用印度香料奶茶(chai masala)来款待他们，然后轻轻摇摇食指，表达一下对美国电网的不屑。