拜登总统与国会领导人讨论债务违约问题

President Joe Biden and the top four congressional leaders finally sat down together to talk about raising the debt ceiling.

乔·拜登总统与国会四大领导人终于坐下来讨论提高债务上限的问题。

After the meeting, both the president and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said they were far apart.

会议结束后，拜登总统与众议院议长凯文·麦卡锡都表示，他们的分歧很大。

We really don't know what a U.S. default would do to the global economy, although experts expect it to be devastating.

我们真的不知道美国债务违约会对全球经济造成什么影响，尽管专家们预计这将是毁灭性的影响。

So the leaders agreed to meet again on Friday to keep talking.

领导人同意周五再次会面，继续谈判。

NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith is with us now with the latest. Good morning, Tam.

NPR新闻白宫记者塔玛拉·基思将带来最新消息。早上好，塔玛。

Good morning.

早上好。

Other than agreeing to meet again, did you see signs of any movement?

除了同意再会面，你有没有看到其他什么动静?

Well, White House and congressional staff are now set to work through possibilities for the next couple of days, and that's a sign that there's more urgency at least than there has been for the last couple of months.

好吧，白宫和国会工作人员现在开始研究未来几天的可能性，这是一个迹象，至少比过去几个月更加紧迫。

But there is still a fundamental disagreement.

但仍有一个根本性的分歧。

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says Republicans won't agree to raise the debt limit unless the president and Democrats agree to significant spending cuts.

众议院议长凯文·麦卡锡表示，共和党人不会同意提高债务上限，除非总统和民主党人同意大幅削减开支。

And President Biden says he won't allow the full faith and credit of the United States to be held hostage and says that the conversation about spending cuts needs to be separated from the debt ceiling.

拜登总统表示，他不会让美国的全部诚信与信用受到威胁，并表示削减开支的讨论需要与债务上限分开。

There's a lot of politics, posturing and gamesmanship, and it's going to continue for a while. But I am squarely focused on what matters. And we're getting to work.

有很多政治活动、装腔作势与小动作，而且还会持续一段时间。但我只专注于重要的事情。我们要开始工作。

So is defaulting on the debt still on the table?

债务违约还在讨论之中吗?

Well, coming out of the meeting, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, said that the U.S. won't default - never has, never will.

会议结束后，参议院共和党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔表示，美国不会违约，过去不会，将来也不会。

The two Democratic congressional leaders said the same.

两位民主党国会领袖也说了同样的话。

And McCarthy said he didn't want it to happen, but he didn't, strictly speaking, take it off the table because, I mean, that is the leverage in this fight.

麦卡锡表示他不希望发生违约，但严格来说，他并没有放弃谈论这件事，因为这是这场斗争的筹码。

I'm hoping that the next two weeks are different.

我希望接下来的两周会有所不同。

I'm hoping this president understands, as the leader of this nation, that you can't sit back and hold the country hostage. You can't be so extreme in your views that you're not going to negotiate.

我希望这位总统明白，作为这个国家的领导人，不能坐以待毙，以国家为要挟。你不能观点太极端而不打算谈判。

So they are in the accusing-each-other-of-taking-hostages phase of this negotiation.

因此，他们在这次谈判中处于互相指责对方以国家为要挟的阶段

The president's position remains that he is happy to talk separately about ideas for cutting the deficit by raising taxes and cutting spending.

总统的立场仍然是，他很乐意分开讨论通过提高税收和削减开支来削减赤字的想法。

One of the spending cuts that McCarthy has suggested is clawing back some unspent COVID relief dollars, and Biden said yesterday that they could look at that, which is not a no.

麦卡锡建议的削减开支的方法之一是，追回一些未花掉的新冠救济金，拜登昨天表示，他们可以考虑这个建议，这没有被否决。

So there have been some other ideas tossed around about avoiding default without making a deal and raising the debt ceiling.

也在反复讨论一些其他的不达成协议与提高债务上限就能避免债务违约的想法。