美國債務危機或影響全球經濟

　　7月5日VOA聽力：美國債務危急或影響環球經濟

　　With an economy about one fourth the size of theworld's GDP (gross domestic product), any threatto the U.S. economy is a potential threat to othercountries that do business with it. Jason Peuquet, apolicy analyst at the New America Foundation says itdoes not take a large economy to see howinterconnected the world has become. One smallercountry in the EU, Greece, could really almost bring down Europe and threaten the globaleconomy. So if we can see that in just one smaller country, imagine what would happen in theworld's largest single economy, the United States. Some say U.S. debt - now edging close to$15 trillion - is growing too fast. That's why economists say the congressional committeetasked with trimming the nation's deficit must act decisively. Unless politicians deal with theproblem now, Diane Lim Rogers, chief economist at the Concorde Coalition, says worries aboutthe nation's ability to repay its debts will make the U.S. less attractive to investors. The scarypart from an economic perspective is we're not going to know we've reached that point wherewe've borrowed so much that we're not looking like a safe investment. We're not going to knowthat until it happens - very rapidly. It's sort of like you don't known you're near the edge of thecliff until you're already off the cliff. Like Greece and Italy, experts say if that happens, interestrates on U.S. securities will spike, making it costlier for the country to repay its debts. LimRogers says it's a burden the next generation would be forced to carry. That's why NewAmerica Foundation's Peuquet says the supercommittee can not afford to fail. Extending thedeadline would be much better than failure, because it keeps the conversation going. We'vegot the focus of the world, the markets, businesses, the American public. And this is a realopportunity, so we hope the supercommittee recognizes that. Failure to reach a deal byNovember 23 would trigger automatic spending cuts worth more than one trillion dollars. Thosecuts would come primarily from defense and domestic spending programs - without thebenefit of new revenue. So it's a spending side only approach, it leaves us with a veryspending heavy strategy for deficit reduction at a time when we're still struggling to come outof our recession. Such "brute force" spending cuts could hurt social programs for unemployedand lower income Americans and hamper the country's military readiness. Some economistswarn a political deadlock could also lead to another downgrade of U.S. debt, sending marketsinto a tailspin that would further weaken the world's economy.

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