来源：《每日电讯报》
日期：2021年1月24日
A high-tax Britain is not the solution to any of our problems, yet that’s what we are sleep-walking towards, thanks to Covid-19. The fact that the Government has rightly spent so much money to fight the pandemic, combined with interest rates still at rock bottom and a shift in working-class identity towards the centre-Right, has encouraged many Tories wrongly to embrace big government conservatism – to say yes, without a second thought, to all spending.
英国的高税收并不能解决我们的任何问题，但由于新冠疫情，它正在变成我们梦游的方向。政府花了大量的钱来抗击新冠肺炎，加之利率仍处于最低水平，工薪阶层政治倾向向中间偏右的转变，这些事实促使许多保守党人士错误地接受了大政府保守主义——毫不犹豫地对所有开支说“是”。
Yet history shows that high taxes kill recovery and are disastrous for long-term economic health, and Brexit demands that the UK becomes more competitive, not less. That’s why the arguments to start increasing corporation tax are completely wrong. Opponents argue that corporate rate cuts should have increased investment and wages by now, and yet capital expenditures have suffered in the past few years. But that was because of Brexit: many big international companies cut back on spending in the UK either because of the uncertainty inherent in the ridiculously drawn-out departure process or because they misunderstood what Brexit meant. They were too bearish on Britain, and this cancelled out any positive effects from the lower corporation tax.
然而，历史表明，高税收扼杀了经济复苏，对长期经济健康是灾难性的，英国脱欧旨在让英国变得更具竞争力，而不是相反。这就是为什么提高公司税的观点是完全错误的。减税反对者认为，企业减税应该已经促使投资和工资提高了，但实际上资本支出在过去几年却受到了影响。但这是因为英国脱欧：许多大型国际公司削减在英国的开支，要么是因为一拖再拖的脱欧过程所固有的不确定性，要么是因为他们误解了英国脱欧的含义。他们过于看跌英国，这抵消了降低公司税带来的任何积极影响。
If you want businesses to invest here, the solution is to make the country more attractive: we should be seeking greater competitiveness, certainly not piling more burdens on business. Many Tories also need to grow up. Spending on everything cannot keep increasing unless economic growth rises significantly or, in the worst case, taxes are also hiked – and the latter would make the former much more difficult to achieve.
如果你想让企业在这里投资，解决办法是让这个国家更具吸引力：我们应该寻求更大的竞争力，而不是给企业增加更多负担。许多保守党人也需要成长。除非经济大幅增长，或者在最坏的情况下，提高税收，否则在所有方面的支出都不可能持续增长——而加税将使经济增长更难实现。
The aftermath of the pandemic will undoubtedly also require permanent higher spending on public health and other related measures. To come even close to restoring fiscal order requires a squeeze on non-Covid, non-capital expenditure and non-military spending. Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, is therefore caught between a rock and a hard place. He mustn’t hike taxes, but Tory MPs must see sense and relearn to love a small state that lives within its means.
新冠大流行带来的恶果无疑将要求在公共卫生和其他相关措施方面长期增加支出。要想接近恢复财政秩序，就必须压缩非新冠肺炎、非资本支出和非军事支出。因此，财政大臣里希苏纳克陷入了两难境地。他不应该增加税收，但保守党议员必须意识到自己的错误，重新学会热爱量入为出的小政府。