Like Monty Python’s crime-fighter The Bishop, Berkshire Hathaway chief executive Warren Buffett arrived late last week to the congressional argument over the debt crisis. By the time he published his broadside in the New York Times to the effect that billionaires like himself are being “coddled” by US politicians, Republicans had already staved off tax increases until after the next elections. Both parties had passed $1,500bn in deficit reductions to a bipartisan committee unlikely to call for tax increases. And Standard & Poor was sufficiently unimpressed to downgrade the US credit rating.
就像喜劇團體蒙提•派森(Monty Python)塑造的那個總想打擊犯罪的「主教」(The Bishop)那樣，波克夏哈薩威公司(Berkshire Hathaway)執行長華倫•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)上週姍姍來遲，加入國會關於債務危機的爭論中。他在《紐約時報》(New York Times)上發表了一篇炮轟美國政府的文章，大意是像他自己這樣的億萬富翁正在受到美國政客的「嬌慣」。文章發表之前，共和黨已經把增稅推遲到下一次大選之後。民主黨和共和黨向一個兩黨聯合委員會提交了總規模達1.5兆美元的減赤計劃，而該委員會不太可能要求增稅。這一計劃仍不足以說服標準普爾(Standard & Poor’s)，它仍然決定下調美國信用評級。