Competitiveness in the United States
By The Economist
From The Economist
Published: March 28, 2013
Mar 16th 2013 |From the print edition
Luckily, dysfunction in Washington is only one side of America's story.
"THE greatest nation on earth—the greatest nation on earth—cannot keep conducting its business by drifting from one manufactured crisis to the next. We can't do it," fulminated Barack Obama last month. The crisis of the moment, the "sequester" (a package of budget cuts designed to be so ghastly that Congress would pass a better version), duly came into effect on March 1st. Unless Congress agrees on an extension to its budget, the government will start to shut down on March 28th. In May the greatest nation will hit its debt ceiling; unless it is raised, Uncle Sam will soon start defaulting on his bills.
This is the America that China's leaders laugh at, and the rest of the democratic world despairs of. Its debt is rising, its population is ageing in a budget-threatening way, its schools are mediocre by international standards, its infrastructure rickety, its regulations dense, its tax code byzantine, its immigration system hare-brained—and it has fallen from first position in the World Economic Forum's competitiveness rankings to seventh in just four years. Last year both Mr Obama and his election opponent, Mitt Romney, complained about the American dream slipping away. Today, the country's main businesses sit on nearly $2 trillion in cash, afraid to invest in part because corporate bosses cannot imagine any of Washington's feuding partisans fixing anything.
Yet there is also another America, where things work. One hint comes from what those bosses like to call the real economy. Recent numbers from the jobs market and the housing sector have been quite healthy. Consumer balance-sheets are being repaired. The stockmarket has just hit a record high. Some of this is cyclical: the private sector is rebounding from the crunch. But it also reflects the fact that, beyond the District of Columbia, the rest of the country is starting to tackle some of its deeper competitive problems. Businesses and politicians are not waiting for the federal government to ride to their rescue. Instead, as our special report this week shows, they are getting to grips with the failings Congress is ignoring.
America the beautiful
One reason for optimism is that America's inventors are as busy as they have ever been, and its entrepreneurs are seizing on their ideas with the same alacrity as always. Investment in research and development as a share of output recently matched the previous record, 2.9% of GDP, set at the height of the space race. America is home to 27 of the 30 universities that put out the most-cited scientific research—and it is still good at developing those ideas. Although many countries possess big reserves of oil and gas trapped in impermeable rocks, American businesses worked out how to free that energy and then commercialised that technology at a rapid pace; the resulting "shale gale" is now billowing the economy's sails.
Some of the money for fracking technology came from the federal government, but the shale revolution has largely happened despite Mr Obama and his tribe of green regulators. It has been driven from the bottom up—by entrepreneurs and by states like North Dakota (see article) competing to lure in investors with notably more fervour than, say, France.
This fits a pattern. Pressed for cash, states are adopting sweeping reforms as they vie to attract investments and migrants. Louisiana and Nebraska want to abolish corporate and personal income taxes. Kansas has created a post called "the Repealer" to get rid of red tape and pays a "bounty" to high schools for every vocational qualification their students earn in certain fields; Ohio has privatised its economic-development agency; Virginia has just reformed its petrol-tax system.
In this second, can-do America, creative policymaking is being applied to the very problems Congress runs away from, like infrastructure spending. While the federal government twiddles its thumbs, states and cities, which are much shorter of cash, are coming up with new ways to raise money for roads, bridges and schools. Chicago has a special trust to drum up private funds to refurbish decrepit city buildings. Indiana has turned to privatisation to raise money for road-building.
Even education is showing some signs of change. The states are giving America's schools their biggest overhaul in living memory. Forty-five of them are developing new curriculums. Tests are becoming more rigorous, and schools and teachers are at last being held accountable for results. Thirty-eight states have reformed teachers' pay, tying it, in many instances, to their students' exam results. Forty-two now allow independently managed, but government-funded, "charter schools". It is too soon to tell what this upheaval will yield, but a long overdue shake-up is finally under way.
Stand aside and deliver
Regulation, innovation, infrastructure, education: each of these is crucial to competitiveness. Put together the small things happening in the states, and they become something rather big. That is the essence of the America that works.
And the federal government? On some occasions, it helps—federal laws were a catalyst for the education reforms—but more often Mr Obama and the squabbling Republicans seem irrelevant or obstructive. A federal law restricts tolls on motorways, for example, cutting states off from one obvious means of financing new roads. The federal tax credit for R&D must be renewed regularly, creating unnecessary uncertainty for those who invest in innovation. Congress stops talented immigrants getting into the country (and makes criminals of many who are there). Far more of America would work if Washington seized on the successful ideas in its various state laboratories: the opportunity cost of not doing so is immense.
And it could get worse. The "manufactured crises" in Washington will possibly undermine the things that work. Better schools and cheaper energy are wonderful, but if Mr Obama and Congress do nothing to curb the unaffordable growth in health and pension spending, America will still be going broke. By 2037 such entitlements will chew up 17% of GDP—an unsustainable amount. Even if the America that fails cannot get its act together to help, Mr Obama and the Republicans could at least aim not to wreck everything.
下一波競爭力 來自地方
2013-03-20 天下雜誌 518期 作者：經濟學人
華府兩黨惡鬥，讓世界看到失能的美國。但另一個美國正從基礎建設、教育等方面，開始改革、提升競爭力。
美國總統歐巴馬在二月底氣急敗壞地說，「我們是世界上最偉大的國家，不能一直在解決自找的危機。」但「自動減赤機制」（sequester）還是在三月一日啟動了。
如果美國國會不同意讓美國政府預算展延，就會迫使許多公部門停擺。美國五月的債務餘額又將觸及上限，除非再提高舉債上限，美國很快就會發生倒債危機。
這就是遭到中國領導訕笑、令其他民主國家感到絕望的失能美國。
美國人口老化的速度，已對財政預算造成威脅。學校教育以國際標準看來十分平庸，基礎建設老舊危殆，法規多如牛毛，稅制落伍僵化，而移民制度愚蠢至極，使得美國在世界經濟論壇（WEF）的競爭力排名，四年內一路從第一掉到第七。
大型企業坐擁兩兆美元現金而不敢投資，一部份的原因是企業大老闆們，不敢期望華府國會殿堂中的袞袞諸公，能幫他們解決任何問題。
但是，美國還有另一面是靈光的。部份企業將這一面稱為「實質經濟」。
近期的就業市場與住房數據相當正面，消費者的收支平衡有改善，而股市續創新高。
這些一部份是在反映景氣循環：民間部門已從底部復甦，但這也反映出，在華盛頓特區之外，美國其他地區正開始要解決一部份的競爭力沉痾。
一個值得樂觀期待的因素，是美國的發明家和創業家一直很忙。美國企業在研發上的投資佔GDP比重，近期平了太空時代創下的二．九％歷史新高。
全球三十個最受科研界尊崇的大學中，美國就佔了二十七個，而且它們還在源源不斷地創造出優秀點子。
雖然許多國家也都有豐富的油頁岩與天然氣礦藏，卻是美國企業想出辦法提煉這些資源，並且快速將這項科技商業化。
雖然美國政府提供了部份的研發經費，但這卻是由創業家及北達科達州為了吸引投資，所達到的成果。
許多州政府正努力改革，以吸引投資與移工。
路易斯安那州和內布拉斯加州想廢除企業和個人所得稅，堪薩斯州則想設立新職位，來去除繁文縟節。俄亥俄州也已將經濟發展部門民營化，而維吉尼亞州剛改革了汽油稅制。（林昭儀譯）
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