Hello alunos e admiradores do Estratégia,
Antes
de falar sobre o artigo de hoje, gostaria de informá-los que o curso de Língua
Inglesa para a CAPES Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível
Superior, cuja banca será o CESPE, já começou e está com duas aulas
disponíveis, quem já vem estudando pra concurso aproveite a onda.
No
artigo de hoje trouxe um texto voltado para o legislativo, para quem vai
fazer Câmara ou TCE esse fim de semana, será uma revisão.
In Virginia beach a few weeks ago, at the
start of my recent road trip, I was staggered by an unexpected blast
of political sanity. It came in the person of Scott Rigell, a freshman House
Republican. Rigell had signed the ghastly Grover Norquist no–tax pledge
when he ran for office in 2010. Once elected, Rigell began to wonder about his vow
never to vote for a tax increase. He did some research into the past 50 years
of taxing and spending–and then he publicly reneged on the pledge, receiving a
squalid earful from Norquist in the process. Rigell’s calculations form the
basis of what should be a new slogan for the sane center: 20/20 FORESIGHT.
stagger = vacilar
emocionalmente, cambalear
blast = explosão
no-tax pledge = pacto não-fiscal
vow = voto
foresight = previsão
In his Virginia
Beach office, Rigell, 52, pulled out an easel and magic marker and showed me
how he’d come to his conclusion: “You have to see it in context,” he
said, writing “‘Bush’ tax cuts” on the board. He
put Bush in quotation marks because he didn’t like using a President’s name
pejoratively to describe a program. He insisted on calling Obamacare by its
proper name: the Affordable Care Act. Anyhow, he wrote “16.9%” on his
pad. “That’s our average revenues as a percentage of gross domestic
product over the past 11 years, and it’s a good firm figure. It includes
good years and bad ones.” Revenue was up to 18.2% of GDP at the end
of the housing bubble in 2006 and down to 15.1% after the Wall Street bust.
“Now can you tell me the last time we ran a government with 16.9%
revenues? 1959. Before Medicare and Medicaid.”
Bush tax cut
= plano de redução de impostos do governo Bush
GDP gross domestic product
= PIB Produto Interno Bruto
Cuidado para não confundir os dois planos
abaixo:
Medicare
= plano de seguro de saúde americano subsidiado pelo
governo federal para idosos do país, que são pelo menos 65 anos de idade, bem
como indivíduos abaixo dos 65 com uma qualificação médica de deficiência ou
doença.
Medicaid = plano de
saúde americano que beneficia certas pessoas ou famílias de baixa renda e
escassos recursos.
He flipped
another sheet of paper on the easel and wrote two big numbers, the historical
averages for revenue and spending for the past 50 years: 17.9% revenue, 20.5%
spending. “Our current rate of spending is
24%, which is very high, given the historical context.” Rigell
acknowledged that revenue may increase when the economy begins to grow and that
current spending levels may be slightly bloated both by the Obama
stimulus and a range of benefits for the unemployed. Indeed, he
seemed to make it a matter of personal honor that he included every nuance. Our
meeting lasted more than an hour as he laid it out.
Current rate of
spending = atual taxa de gastos
Bloat = excesso
Range = variedade,
série
Indeed = na verdade,
de fato
When Rigell
realized these facts, he began to talk to economists, businesspeople and policy
experts. “I talked to Warren Buffett,” he said–and that, in today’s
Republican Party, is about as taboo as acknowledging the need to raise
revenue. Another sheet of paper on the easel. Two staggered rows of numbers:
acknowledge = reconhecer,
confirmar
The top line
was the range of spending numbers. The second line was the revenue numbers.
Rigell ran on 18% spending, he said, would hope for a balance of 19% spending
and revenue, but could be dragged kicking and screaming to 20%. (Buffett was in
the 19%-to-20% range for revenue and 21% for spending; I’d be a bit higher.)
Now, obviously, this was a broad-brush calculation–and it elided a major
philosophical difference between liberals and conservatives: whether government
should increase spending to goose a dormant economy during a recession.
But 20/20 did seem to be the basis for a reasonable discussion of a long-term
deficit deal. The trouble, of course, is that there is a yawning void of
reasonable discussers in the House of Representatives.
goose injetar, cutucar
House of Representatives
Câmara dos Deputados
Rigel has
launched his own sanity effortthe Fix Congress Now Caucuswhich Representative
Jim Cooper of Tennessee, a famously moderate Democrat, has joined. The first
item on the agenda is a bill to stop paying members until they actually
pass a budget. Cooper would like that budget to resemble the report
issued by the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission (which favored a 21% revenue
solution). “So far we’ve had a press conference,” Cooper told me with
disgust. “It’s easy to hold a press conference but hard to vote right.
I’ve been very impressed with the willingness of Republicans like Rigell and
Reid Ribble of Wisconsin to say the right things. The question is, Will they be
willing to vote against their party’s leadership when it counts
or are they just trying to look moderate in their districts in an election
year?”
Bill projeto de
lei
Actually na verdade,
na realidade
Budget – orçamento
Partys leadership
liderança do partido
For Cooper, the
bright-line test was the up-or-down vote the House took on Simpson-Bowles a few
months ago: only 38 members, a mix of Democrats and Republicans, voted for the
measure. Rigell and Ribble voted against. “I didn’t think that proposal addressed
health-care inflation,” Rigell told me. “I’m taking this one step at
a time. My Republican colleagues say, Let’s do the cuts first. The Democrats
say, Let’s do spending first. I’d like to do both simultaneously.”
Actually, that’s not quite accurate: Republicans have opposed any revenue
increases; Democrats have proposed some cuts, but not in the crucial entitlement
areas. Still, Rigell’s courage should be applauded: 20/20 foresight is a rare
commodity in our disgracefully contentious politics these days.
The original version of this story indicated that
Rep. Jim Cooper launched Fix Congress Now. The caucus was created by Rep. Scott
Rigell.
entitlement subvenção, direito a subsídio
Fonte: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2118303,00.html#ixzz21fFCKh1N
See you,
Ena Smith