悬崖勒马 迷途未返
美国虽然避开了财政悬崖，但是还有更深远的问题未解决。
Hints:
Stephanie Flanders
Bush
主持：shenyubin
校对：cryforwhat
翻译&注解：cjsfight
答疑：赤_月
口语点评：Mornight
口语节目链接：http://bulo.hujiang.com/menu/2120/item/716622/http://t1.g.hjfile.cn/listen/201301/201301060725006092119.mp3Stock markets around the world have soared in the wake of the last-minute deal in Washington that swerved the country away from the edge of the so-called fiscal cliff. But the celebrations won't last long because already a new and bigger confrontation is looming. This one is over how much money the American government can borrow. By the end of February, Congress has to agree to raise the federal government's debt ceiling to meet the nation's spending commitments. No agreements means no more cash. The US government will begin to grind to a halt and America will start to default on its debts. And even if the politicians resolve that one, they're unlikely to have begun to address the country's deeper problems - its long-term structural debt problem. So how are these battles likely to shape up and how long can America continue racking up vast debts? That's what I asked the BBC's economics editor Stephanie Flanders.
"They have agreed to carry on with a lot of the spending and lower tax rates that were already in place. Er, so in that sense they prevented the fiscal cliff. But they've done very little at all to address either the sort of long-term hole in the US budget or the sort of long-term differences between the two parties because in a sense the Democrats have agreed to sign up to most of the Bush tax cuts, Republicans have just about agreed through gritted teeth to raise taxes on just 1% of Americans. But this issue about how to cut spending even in the short term has been put off another couple of months. And the Republicans were not willing to allow President Obama to raise the debt ceiling."华盛顿最后关头的政策将美国从所谓的“财政悬崖”边拉了回来，随后全球股市大幅上扬。但留给人们庆祝的时间不多，因为接下来美国要面临更大的一个新问题——美国政府到底能够借到多少钱。二月底，美国国会为了兑现足够的政府开支花费，不得不提高联邦政府的债务额度。如果美国政府在此之前没有达成协议，就不能获得更多现金。美国政府将会难以运转，而美国也会出现债务违约。即使美国政客们解决了这个问题，他们也不太可能处理美国所面临的更深层次的问题——一种长期的结构性债务问题。那么这些战役将如何开展，美国又将继续承担多久大量负债？我向BBC的经济学编辑斯蒂芬妮·弗兰德斯咨询了这些问题。
“他们已经达成统一，继续现在的政策，即大规模花销和较低的税率。如此，他们避免了财政悬崖。但对于美国长期预算亏空或者两党长期的分歧都没有得到解决。因为某种意义上讲，民主党已经同意签署大部分前布什政府的减税政策，而共和党也基本上下定决心增加美国百分之一民众的税率。但是短期内如何削减开支这一问题已经又被拖延了好几个月。共和党仍不会允许美国总统奥巴马提高债务额度。”
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