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.
就像喜剧团体蒙提•派森(Monty Python)塑造的那个总想打击犯罪的“主教”(The Bishop)那样，伯克希尔哈撒韦公司(Berkshire Hathaway)首席执行官沃伦•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)上周姗姗来迟，加入国会关于债务危机的争论中。他在《纽约时报》(New York Times)上发表了一篇炮轰美国政府的文章，大意是像他自己这样的亿万富翁正在受到美国政客的“娇惯”。文章发表之前，共和党已经把增税推迟到下一次大选之后。民主党和共和党向一个两党联合委员会提交了总规模达1.5万亿美元的减赤计划，而该委员会不太可能要求增税。这一计划仍不足以说服标准普尔(Standard & Poor’s)，它仍然决定下调美国信用评级。