1、听力课堂,开放式外语学习平台！TingC声明：本资料由听力课堂网站收集整理，仅供英语爱好者学习使用，资料版权属于原作者。 - 1 -美国债务上限是否提高To North America, Washington, D.C.: the U.S. Congress just finished up one round of financial debate. There are several more of those to go, and one of the big ones coming up soon is about the U.S. debt ceiling. Now, that is
2、 the legal limit for how much money the U.S. can borrow. Congress has about a month to work on this. But with a two-week spring break coming up, that doesnt leave a whole lot of time. So, what is the current debt ceiling? How close are we to it? And what are the options facing Congress? Ali Velshi i
3、s here to help break it all down.The real fight, the one thats getting started, is over the countrys debt limit. By law, the amount that the U.S. can carry, the amount of debt that the U.S. can carry, is $14.294 trillion. Its a credit limit that Congress sets. Now, thats what they can borrow.Heres w
4、here we stand right now. The actual current debt of the United States: $14.208 trillion. The difference between the two is $86 billion. Now, the U.S. is going to exceed this limit by May the 16th, based on current spending. The government can pull a few tricks and get away with being over the limit
5、until about July 8th. But not increasing this credit limit is going to create some problems.Now, there are two scenarios for what could happen if Congress doesnt raise that debt limit by May 16th. Neither of them are good. The government can cut spending or it can raise taxes. They need to raise $73
6、8 billion to keep the country running until the end of the fiscal year, which is September 30th.But Democrats oppose cuts and oppose increasing taxes, so if they dont do that, the U.S. could default on its loans. That could create a big problem. That could send the dollar plummeting. It could send oil prices higher. It could hobble an already delicate 听力课堂,开放式外语学习平台！TingC声明：本资料由听力课堂网站收集整理，仅供英语爱好者学习使用，资料版权属于原作者。 - 2 -economy, which is why this, this debt ceiling, is going to become the focus of our attentions for the next month.
