First, the capacity for fiscal intervention – at least among developed economies – has been underutilized. As former United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Frank Newman argued in a recent book, Freedom from National Debt, a country’s capacity for fiscal intervention is better assessed by examining its aggregate balance sheet than by the traditional method of comparing its debt (a liability) to its GDP (a flow).
首先，财政干预能力——至少在发达经济体——没有得到充分利用。前美国财政部副部长纽曼（Frank Newman）在其新著《摆脱国民债务》（Freedom from National Debt）中指出，一国的财政干预能力更应该通过考察总资产负债表而不是比较债务（负债）和GDP（流量）的传统方法来评估。