美国债务上限协议初步成形！能否最终通过，国会表决仍存变数？（附视频&解说稿）

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当地时间5月27日晚，美国总统拜登和众议院共和党籍议长麦卡锡分别宣布，已就联邦政府债务上限和预算达成初步一致，预计很快将有关协议文本提交国会投票。

美国总统拜登当天晚上发表声明说，这是向前迈出的重要一步，代表了双方的妥协。双方谈判团队将在28日完成立法文本讨论，然后提交给美国国会两院。议长麦卡锡表示，国会议员将在28日获得有关协议文本，众议院将在5月31日进行投票。

该协议的主要内容包括限制2024年和2025年联邦政府的支出，以换取至2025年年初的债务上限问题解决方案。其中，非国防预算支出在从2023年10月1日开始的2024财年基本不变，2025财年获准增加1%。此外，该协议提高了申领联邦政府救济的门槛，同意小幅增加军费和退伍军人福利等开支。

但目前而言，5月27日的协议是“口头”性质的，是驴象两党激烈谈判数周的产物，但它仍需“分裂的美国国会”批准。这意味着，两党需在短时间内就多个问题进一步磋商。因为还要考虑众议院，特别是共和党内极右翼的、比较激进的共和党人能否就这个妥协方案达成共识。同时也需要美国民主和共和两党最终一致认可，才能让协议真正落实。

据美联社报道，在债务上限的“拉锯战”中，两党的矛盾焦点在于，是否将削减开支与提高债务上限挂钩。目前，美国的支出已大大超过税收，政府通过借贷维持周转。

美国的债务上限协议

为什么可能在国会遇到麻烦？

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- [Narrator] President Joe Biden and Republican House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, have reached an agreement to raise the debt ceiling.

- We still have a lot of work to do, but I believe this is an agreement in principle that's worthy of the American people.

- [Narrator] The agreement still needs to be approved by Congress before June 5th when the government could run short of money to pay its debts and fund government programs.

David Harrison covers the US economy and the Federal Reserve for The Journal.

He explains what's in the deal and whether Democrats or Republicans, if anyone, came out ahead.

- The two big parts of this deal, first of all, obviously, that it raises the debt ceiling for a couple years, basically pushes it off to after the election.

The Republicans really got an agreement to curb spending for next year and to cap it for the subsequent year.

- This deal is good news I believe you'll see (coughs) for the American people.

The agreement prevents the worst possible crisis, a default for the first time in our nation's history.

- There are a lot of other smaller things.

There's new requirements that people on food stamps either are employed or are enrolled in some kind of program and some provisions to streamline or make it easier to get energy projects approved.

- President Biden has delivered a result that avoids a catastrophic default that prevents us from our economy crashing.

- Democrats got spending cuts that were not nearly as deep as the Republicans had initially put forward.

Now comes the next phase, which is Speaker McCarthy has to sell this deal to his members, to the House Republicans.

- We did a conference call with our conference, and over 95% were overwhelmingly excited about what they see.

- A number of the more conservative members of the House GOP caucus have come out in opposition to it, calling it a disaster, some calling it appalling, basically saying that McCarthy gave up too much to Democrats to raise the debt ceiling.

Likewise, on the Democratic side, some of the sort of more progressive Democrats are very concerned about things like the work requirements for aid programs, some of the spending cuts.

- Terrible policy, absolutely terrible policy.

Does not reduce spending, actually, by some estimates, creates a burden on administrative spending that is actually worse, you know, for the overall cost of a program like that.

- This bill's gonna have a rough ride on Capitol Hill.

We've already heard from some folks on the right and on the left who oppose it.

And so now the question is whether there'll be enough in the middle to carry it through.

- We know, at any time when you sit and negotiate within two parties, that you gotta work with both sides of the aisle, so it's not 100% what everybody wants, but when you look, the country is gonna be stronger.

- [David] We have a June 5th deadline to raise the debt ceiling according to the Treasury Department.

If Congress does not raise the the debt ceiling by then, our government could quite literally run out of money to pay its bills.

- I strongly urge both chambers to pass that agreement.

Let's keep moving forward on meeting our obligations and building the strongest economy in the history of the world.