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）

- [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.