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American parties now function like European parliamentary ones, ideologically pure and with tight discipline. But we don’t have a European system. In parliamentary systems, power is united so that when, for example, the British Prime Minister’s coalition takes office, it controls the legislative branch as well as the executive. The Prime Minister is, in effect, chief legislator as well as chief executive. The ruling party gets a chance to implement its agenda, and then the public can either re-elect it or throw the bums out. The U.S. system is one of shared and overlapping powers. No one person or party is fully in control; everyone is checked and balanced. People have to cooperate for anything to get done. That is why the Tea Party’s insistence on holding the debt ceiling hostage in order to force its policies on the country—the first time the debt ceiling has been used this way—was so deeply un-American.
美国的政党现在正向欧洲议会政党演变，要求党员思想忠诚，严守纪律。但美国不同于欧洲，后者在议会制度下政治权力是统一的。比如在英国，政党一旦组阁成功就可以同时节制立法机关和行政机关，内阁首相兼为立法领袖和行政领袖。执政党执政之后，公众既可以支持也可以反对。而在美国的政治制度下，权力互相分割并牵制，每个人都被制约和平衡，没有任何个人或政党能掌控全局。要做出任何决定，都必须寻求合作。现在茶党坚决拒绝提高债务上限，以此迫使国家接受其政策。这样滥用债务上限的规定，这在历史上是第一次，而这种做法也远远背离了美国制度的精神。
The strength of the Tea Party is part of a broader phenomenon: the rise of small, intensely motivated groups that have been able to capture American politics. The causes are by now familiar. The redistricting of Congress creates safe seats, so the incentive is to pander to the extremes to fend off primary challenges, rather than to work toward the center. Narrow cast media amplify strong voices at the ends of the spectrum and make politicians pay a price for any deviation from dogma. A more open and transparent Congress has meant a Congress more easily pressured by small interest groups and lobbyists. Ironically, during this period, more and more Americans identify as independents. Registered independents are at an all-time high. But that doesn’t matter. The system in Congress reflects not rule by the majority but rule by the minority— fanatical, organized minorities.
茶党的兴起意味深远，暗示着新兴的、高度活跃的小团体已开始绑架美国政治。其原因也并不神秘，国会选区重新划定后，许多地区都已决定归属，因此议员们倾向于向极端派让步而非正面迎击，以免引火烧身。视野狭隘的媒体倾向于关注极端派的声音，从而放大了后者的影响，政治家稍有出格就会遭受压力。国会越是开放透明，就越是容易受到利益小团体和游说者的压力。讽刺的是，在这过程中，越来越多的美国人以无党派人士自居，其登记数量创下了记录，但这丝毫无补于事。当前的国会制度反映的不是多数人的意愿，而是狂热的、组织严密的少数人的意图。
These dysfunctions have reached crisis levels at the very time the U.S. faces intense pressures from an aging population, technological change and globalization. We need smart policies in every field. We need to pare spending in areas like health care and pensions but invest in others like research and development, infrastructure and education in order to grow. In an age of budgetary limits, money needs to be spent wisely and only on projects that are effective. But in area after area—energy, immigration, infrastructure—government policy is sub optimal, a sad mixture of political payoffs and ideological positioning. Countries from Canada to Australia to Singapore implement smart policies and copy best practices from around the world. We bicker and remain paralyzed.
美国正面临老龄化、技术更新和全球化的诸多挑战，而这个国家的制度瘫痪日渐加剧。美国必须在各个领域灵活行动，应该削减医保和退休金，并增加研究、发展、基础设施和教育领域的投资，以促进经济增长。在预算有限的情况下，经费必须用在刀刃上。但在能源、移民和基础设施建设上，政府还停留在政治呼吁和表态上，实际举措远未到位。加拿大、澳大利亚和新加坡等国，正从世界各地大力搜求经验，以促进本国发展。而我们还在喋喋不休，一事无成。
Some of those best practices used to be American. The world once looked at America with awe as we built the interstate highway system, created the best public education in the world, put a man on the moon and invested in the frontiers of knowledge. That is not how the world sees America today. People watched what happened over the past month and could not comprehend it. We have taken something that the world never doubted—the credibility of the U.S.—and put it into question. From now on, every time the debt ceiling has to be debated, the world will wonder, Will America honor its commitments? Will it keep its word? Will the system break down? We have taken our most precious resource, the trust of the world, and gambled with it. If, as a result of these congressional antics, interest rates on America’s debt rise by 1% —in other words, if the world asks for just a little bit more interest to lend us money—the budget deficit will rise by $1.3 trillion over 10 years. That would more than wipe out the entire 10 years of cuts proposed in the debt deal. That’s the American system at work these days.
美国此前一直是世界先进经验的开创者。美国建造了州际高速公路，创建了世界上最好的公共教育体系，将人类送上月球，引领科技发展，全世界因此对美国怀着敬畏之心。但今天世界对美国的观感已经改变。过去一个月里，全世界对美国的债务危机倍感惊讶。美国的信用此前从未被怀疑，而在这一个月里也开始动摇。今后美国每次就债务上限谈判时，人们就不免惴惴不安，怀疑美国是否会信守诺言，美国的制度是否会崩溃?美国最宝贵的资产是来自全世界的信任，现在却丝毫不被珍惜。如果这次国会的政治闹剧导致美国国债利率上升1%，换而言之，世界各国在借款时稍稍提高要价，未来十年间财政赤字将因此增加1.3万亿美元。这足以让债务协议在未来十年安排的削减前功尽弃，而这正是当前美国政治制度的现实。(作者法里德•扎卡里亚见维基百科，译者魏迪英著有《帝国往事》，观察者网)
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