拜登政府号称“相信科学”。 但是涉及数学的时候，就不那么重要了。存在一个模糊的概念，即各种大笔资金，似乎都只是“亿万”级别。所以这里使用漂亮整数做些，即使是政府和国会里的进步派(progressives)，也能看得懂的小算术。美国现在大概3.3亿人。假设平均每个家庭3.3口人（妈妈、爸爸、一两个孩子），那么就是大约有1亿个家庭。因此，平均而言，每万亿美元政府花费，相当于每个家庭要为此支出10,000美元。最终，是由他们缴纳这大笔的税款。乔·拜登总统不久前签署了一项“基础设施”法案，该法案将耗资约1.2万亿美元。这意味着平均到每个家庭，就是要支付12,000美元。算一下，如果一个人拿着联邦最低工资（每小时7.25美元）全职工作一年（约1,800小时），那么他的年收入约为13,050美元。好消息来了，也就是说（支付掉1,2000美元）还有1,050美元用于吃饭、房租、能源和其他“奢侈品”。不过不止这些，民主党人想要一项“人性化基础设施(human infrastructure)”法案，他们最初提出，该法案将耗资3.5万亿美元，也就是将平均成本提高到45,000美元每个家庭。对不起，水管工老李、图书管理员老刘，今年就别想加勒比游轮旅游这档子事了。但还不止！我们仍然需要支付社会保险金、医疗保险金、国防、福利、失业保险、现有债务的利息，以及电动汽车补贴和艺术及人文基金会等一些杂项。这些加起来大约又是一个3.5万亿美元。所以，在之前基础上，要再加个35,000美元。就暂时不要去想买特斯拉的事了。等于变相没收普通美国人的资产，以满足（进步主义政客代表）伯尼·桑德斯(Bernie Sanders)、伊丽莎白·沃伦(Elizabeth Warren)和亚历山大·奥卡西奥·科尔特斯(Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC)等人的愿望和心血来潮——好的、坏的或无关紧要的——产生体现财富与健康之间相关性的，“收入效应”。我们知道，富裕社区的人口死亡率低于贫困社区，这也并非巧合。在地方层面尤为明显：位于旧金山北部的加州马林县，在健康和人均收入方面均排名第一，而该州较贫困的地区，例如中央山谷，在健康指标方面得分就很低。因此，通过税收或监管调控，带来社区财富减少，实际会导致增加贫困社区人群的健康风险。因为更富有的人，能够购买更好的医疗保健，享受更营养的饮食，并通常过着更轻松舒适的生活。而减少财富，会对健康产生不利影响——例如，与压力相关的问题的发生率增加，包括溃疡、高血压、心脏病、抑郁和自杀。油价就是一个例子：为了减少空气污染，加州的法规要求，炼油厂只能根据州里的规定生产指定的一些混合物，导致该州的油价高于美国其他地区。短时间内，拜登政府的政策已经导致减少石油供应，推高油价。这不成比例地影响了穷人。尽管很难准确量化死亡率与收入减少之间的关系，但有学术研究表明，即使保守估计，大约政府每增加500万至1000万美元的监管成本，就会通过这种间接的“收入效应”，造成1人的额外死亡。因此，保守地说，每万亿美元的政府预算增加，相当于会造成100,000人的死亡。这些死亡原本可以避免，其实是监管机构“在安全方面犯错”，应该计算成政府浪费性开支的实际成本，因此可以把此类政府行为称为，“统计谋杀”。人们应该有尽量多的自由做出个人决定的选择权，自主决定自己的饮食、购买什么样的汽车最安全性、是否安装太阳能电池板、选择什么社区居住、是否支付托儿费用以及咨询药物和酒精的安全问题。政府拿走越来越多的本应交给个人自由支配的资金，等于挤占了人们可以私人决定的，用于解决对他们来说最重要的问题的生活支出。这种政府篡夺的现象，对穷人的影响比对富人的影响更大。因为低收入消费者，本来拥有的可自由支配的收入就少。归根结底，越不富裕的人安全性越是下降。总而言之，在前面提到的这些新政府预算支出之前，我们的国债已经接近30万亿美元。平摊到每个家庭，等于是每户300,000美元。这些还是在支付房贷、车贷和学贷之外。用已故的伊利诺伊州共和党参议员埃弗雷特·德克森(Everett Dirksen)的话来说，这里撒一万亿，那里撒一万亿，“很快你就会谈论真缺钱的问题”。
【作者简介】汤姆·翰佛(Tom Hafer)，是设计拦截导弹、无人机系统的专家。亨利·I·米勒(Henry I. Miller)，医生和分子生物学家，太平洋研究所高级研究员；为FDA生物技术办公室的创始主任。他们本科都毕业于麻省理工学院。文章经作者授权“陌上美国”独家翻译并转发原文。
首发issuesinsights，经作者授权独家翻译并发布全文：https://issuesinsights.com/2021/12/20/math-for-demmies/The Biden administration “Believes in Science.” But math – not so much. It seems to have a fuzzy concept of large sums of money as all being just “bazillions.” So here is a little arithmetic using nice round numbers that even the administration and congressional progressives can follow.There are about 330 million people in the United States. So, if we say that the average family is 3.3 people (mom, dad, one or two kids), then we have about 100 million families. So, on average, each trillion dollars costs each family $10,000. And ultimately, it’s they who pay the lion’s share of taxes.President Joe Biden recently signed into law an “infrastructure” bill that will cost about $1.2 trillion. That means that each family will pay, on average, $12,000. A person working full time for a year (about 1,800 hours) at the federal minimum wage ($7.25 per hour) makes about $13,050. So good news! You get to keep $1,050 of that for food, rent, energy, and other “luxuries.”But now the Democrats want a “human infrastructure” bill, which, as they first proposed, would have cost $3.5 trillion, which boosts per-family costs to $45,000. Sorry, Josephine the Plumber and Lewis the Librarian, no Caribbean cruise for you this year.But there’s more! We still have to pay for Social Security, Medicare, national defense, welfare, unemployment, interest on the existing debt, and a few sundries such as electric vehicle subsidies and endowments for the arts and humanities. Those add up to about another $3.5 trillion. So, add another $35,000 to the above. Don’t go out and buy that Tesla just yet.The confiscation of resources from ordinary Americans to satisfy the aspirations and whims – good, bad, or indifferent – of the likes of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez exerts an “income effect” that reflects the correlation between wealth and health. It is no coincidence that richer societies or segments of the population have lower mortality rates than poorer ones. This is demonstrable at the local level as well: California’s Marin County, just north of San Francisco, ranks No. 1 in both health and per capita income while the poorer parts of the state, such as the Central Valley, score poorly on measures of health.Depriving communities of wealth via taxation or regulation, therefore, increases their health risks because wealthier individuals are able to purchase better health care, enjoy more nutritious diets, and lead generally less stressful lives. Thus, reducing wealth has adverse health effects – for example, an increased incidence of stress-related problems, including ulcers, hypertension, heart attacks, depression, and suicides. Gasoline is an example: To reduce air pollution, California’s regulations require that refiners produce custom blends for the state, so prices are higher there than in the rest of the continental United States. And shorter-term, the Biden administration’s actions have diminished the supply of oil, raising gas prices. This disproportionately affects the poor. Although it is difficult to quantify precisely the relationship between mortality and the deprivation of income, academic studies suggest as a conservative estimate that approximately every $5 million to $10 million of regulatory costs, for example, will induce one additional fatality through this indirect “income effect.” Therefore, each trillion dollars equates to, conservatively, 100,000 additional deaths. Because avoidable deaths are the real costs of regulators’ “erring on the side of safety” and superfluous, wasteful government programs, such government actions have been dubbed “statistical murder.”People should be as free as possible to make private decisions determining their diets, how safe of a car to buy, whether to install solar panels, the type of neighborhood in which to live, whether to pay for child care, and counseling for drug and alcohol problems. The government’s usurping more and more of what should be discretionary spending crowds out expenditures people would make in their private lives that address issues that are most important to them.This crowding-out phenomenon affects the poor more than the wealthy because lower-income consumers have less discretionary income to begin with. The bottom line is that the less wealthy become less safe.To sum up, we already have nearly $30 trillion in debt before all the new spending described above. That comes out to $300,000 per family. That’s before paying your mortgage, car payments, and college loans. A trillion here, a trillion there, and “pretty soon you’re talking real money,” in the words of the late Illinois Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen.
Let’s hope nobody tells Joe what comes after a trillion.
Tom Hafer developed systems for neutralizing rockets and drones. He currently coaches teenage robotics teams. Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, is a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute; he was the founding director of the FDA’s Office of Biotechnology. They were undergraduates together at MIT.
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