标题Title：债务上限是多少？What is the debt ceiling?

Brief introduction：
As America's government hits the debt ceiling, US politics has become a multi-trillion dollar game of chicken. If neither side backs down, America could default on its debts for the first time in history, sparking global economic turmoil. What is the debt ceiling, and how can this crisis be resolved?
简介：

(相关资料图)
随着美国政府达到债务上限，美国政治已经变成了一场价值数万亿美元的小鸡游戏。如果双方都不让步，美国可能会出现历史上首次债务违约，从而引发全球经济动荡。债务上限是多少？如何解决这场危机？

正文：

America's economy is approaching a critical Tipping Point.

美国经济正接近一个关键的转折点。

We do need to raise the debt ceiling to avoid economic Calamity.

我们确实需要提高债务上限以避免经济灾难。

The U.S government has hit its debt ceiling of 31.4 trillion dollars causing a tense standoff.Congress has to vote to raise the debt ceiling ,Republicans who control the House of Representatives are using this power as a bargaining chip to rewrite the budget.

美国政府已达到31.4万亿美元的债务上限，引发紧张对峙。

国会必须投票提高债务上限，控制众议院的共和党人正在利用这一权力作为改写预算的筹码。

Speaker McCarthy offered a very different way forward.he's proposed deep cuts that I believe are going to hurt American families.

麦卡锡议长提出了一个非常不同的前进方向。他提出了大幅削减开支的建议，我认为这将伤害美国家庭。

I would hope that he'd be willing to negotiate for the next two weeks so we could actually solve this problem and not take America on the brink.

我希望他愿意在接下来的两周内进行谈判，这样我们就可以真正解决这个问题，而不是把美国带到边缘。

Neither side wants to back down but if they don't catastrophe looms.

双方都不想让步，但如果不让步，灾难迫在眉睫。

Not lifting the debt ceiling would be a Kamikaze act that would threaten the health and viability of the American economy with disastrous spillover effects from the global economy.

不提高债务上限将是一种敢死队法案，它将威胁美国经济的健康和生存能力，并对全球经济产生灾难性的溢出效应。

So what is the debt ceiling and why does reaching it mean possible economic disaster.

那么，债务上限是什么？为什么达到这个上限意味着可能发生经济灾难。

The debt ceiling which is really uniquely an American thing refers to the total amount of money, uh ,that the government the federal government is allowed to borrow ,it's a political creation uh inevitably government debt goes up over time the size of the economy is getting bigger the government is regularly running deficits，so you would expect that debt would go up over time,but because you have this prescribed debt ceiling from time to time the government's borrowing hits that limit when that happens the thing that has to occur is that the debt ceiling has to be raised.The point is that America has incurred all of these debts because of all of its ongoing obligations whether to paying government salaries or to paying retired pensioners their Social Security payments to pay for health insurance to paying for ongoing government programs,if they don't increase the debt ceiling the government will not be able to make the spending obligations it would only be a matter of time before the government would very likely default on its debts that would send shock waves through Global markets,it would fundamentally undermine the position of the dollar.

债务上限是美国独有的东西，指的是政府允许联邦政府借贷的总金额，这是一种政治创造，随着时间的推移，政府债务不可避免地会增加。经济规模越来越大，政府经常出现赤字，所以你会预计债务会随着时间的流逝而增加，但是，因为你不时有这个规定的债务上限，当这种情况发生时，政府的借贷达到了这个上限，所以必须提高债务上限。关键是，美国之所以承担所有这些债务，是因为它的所有持续义务，无论是支付政府工资还是支付退休养老金领取者的社会保障金从支付医疗保险到支付正在进行的政府项目，如果他们不提高债务上限，政府将无法履行支出义务，政府很可能会拖欠债务，这将在全球市场引发冲击波，这将从根本上破坏美元的地位。

Critics of the debt ceiling have proposed workarounds there's two that you mainly hear about one is the idea that the treasury should mint an absolutely massive coin,uh,not massive in terms of size but massive in terms of value perhaps a trillion dollar platinum coin deposit that at the Federal Reserve and then use that to fund government operations,the other workaround that you'll hear about sometimes is using the 14th Amendment of the Constitution which states that U.S government debts shall not be questioned,so the argument is that the White House can cite that Amendment while the basic solution to the debt ceiling is for Congress to agree that the debt ceiling is damaging is harmful,uh and and just basically agree to suspend it in perpetuity that would be the simplest solution but politically it's just not tenable uh because the party that's not in power does enjoy the leverage that that the debt ceiling confers upon them.

债务上限的批评者提出了解决办法，你主要听到两个，一个是财政部应该铸造一枚绝对巨大的硬币，呃，不是规模巨大，而是价值巨大——也许是一个万亿美元的白金硬币存款，存放在美联储，然后用它来资助政府运作，你有时会听到的另一种变通方法是使用宪法第14修正案，该修正案规定美国政府的债务不应受到质疑，因此，白宫可以引用该修正案，而债务上限的基本解决方案是国会同意债务上限是有害的，呃，基本上同意永久暂停，这将是最简单的解决方案，但在政治上这是站不住脚的，因为没有执政的政党确实享有债务上限赋予他们的影响力。