国会预算办公室（CBO）主任菲利普·斯瓦格尔警告称，将加快经济增长视为控制美国联邦债务的解决方案——这一观点由美国财政部长斯科特·贝森特大力倡导——很可能行不通。
Budget Office Director Phillip Swagel warned the idea of embracing faster economic growth as the solution for reining in the US federal debt — one being championed by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — is unlikely to work.
“增长会有帮助，但仅靠增长来稳定我们的财政轨迹，恐怕并不现实，”斯瓦格尔周四在明尼阿波利斯的一场活动上表示。
“Growth will help, but it’s probably not plausible that growth alone will stabilize our fiscal trajectory,” Swagel said at a Minneapolis event Thursday.
斯瓦格尔曾在乔治·W·布什政府期间担任美国财政部官员。他表示，CBO计划在今年1月或2月发布的下一轮预测中上调经济增长预期，以纳入人工智能繁荣带来的影响。但他指出：“赤字规模实在太大了，仅靠这一点还无法解决问题。”他指的是更强劲国内生产总值（GDP）的增长。
Swagel, a US Treasury official during the George W. Bush administration, said the CBO is set to upgrade its growth forecast in its next set of projections, in January or February, incorporating effects from the artificial intelligence boom. But “the deficit is so wide that that alone won’t take care of it,” he said of stronger gross domestic product gains.
他表示，假设利率水平为4%，美国每年至少需要增长5%才能稳定联邦债务水平。如果利率达到5%，则经通胀调整后，GDP需增长6%。目前，美国五年期国债收益率略高于5%。
The US would need to grow at least 5% annually to stabilize the levels of federal debt, he said, assuming an interest-rate level of 4%. A 5% level of rates would need 6% GDP gains, after adjusting for inflation, he said. Currently, five-year US Treasury yields are just over 5%.
斯瓦格尔说，未经通胀调整的名义GDP需要持续以7%至8%的速度增长，“才能维持债务比率稳定”。“这相当具有挑战性。”彭博社调查的经济学家预计，2026年美国经通胀调整后的经济增长率将在2.1%左右。
Nominal GDP, which is unadjusted for inflation, would need to have sustained increases of 7% to 8% “to keep the debt ratio stable,” Swagel said. “It’s pretty challenging.”Economists surveyed by Bloomberg estimate the US to be on track for a 2.1% growth rate, adjusted for inflation, for 2026.
本周早些时候，贝森特表示，如果美国能维持超过3%的增长，就能扭转债务与GDP比率上升的趋势。目前该比率约为100%，公众持有的债务规模达32.4万亿美元。
Earlier in the week, Bessent said that if the US sustained over 3% growth, the US would be able to bend the debt-to-GDP curve. That ratio is currently roughly 100%, with debt held by the public at $32.4 trillion.
CBO今年2月预测，到2030年，该债务比率将超过1946年创下的106%的历史纪录。
The CBO in February this year projected the debt ratio will exceed its 1946 record of 106% in 2030.
斯瓦格尔在周四于明尼阿波利斯联邦储备银行举行的活动上表示，美国目前正面临“相当于GDP 6%的结构性赤字”。今年的赤字比率预计也将接近这一水平——在失业率较低、经济稳健增长的情况下，这一数字已处于历史高位。
Swagel, at Thursday’s event at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said the US is now running “a structural deficit of 6% of GDP.”This year’s ratio is forecast at roughly that rate — a historically high figure for a period of low unemployment and solid economic growth.
利率上升推高了政府的债务偿还成本，但贝森特认为，一旦伊朗冲突平息且能源价格回落，借贷成本将会下降。
An increase in interest rates has propelled the government’s debt-servicing costs, but Bessent has argued that borrowing costs will drop once the Iran conflict subsides and energy prices tumble.
斯瓦格尔表示，借贷规模给利率带来了一些压力，尽管这种影响“很小”。他在谈到高企的借贷水平时说：“无论如何，我们都在设法应对，即使利率在上升。”但他警告称，如果出现导致利率进一步走高的“负面冲击”，可能会引发更广泛的挑战。
Swagel said the scale of borrowing is putting some pressure on interest rates, though the impact is “small.”“Somehow we’re managing, even with interest rates going up,” he said of the elevated borrowing levels. But he did warn that if there was a “negative shock” leading to even higher rates, there could be a broader challenge.
他在谈到这种情景时说：“这几乎就像是一个涡轮增压器。”更高利率带来的冲击“会传导至赤字，传导至债务，并反过来传导至经济的利率之中”。
“It’s almost like a like a turbocharger,” he said of that scenario. The shock of higher rates “feeds into the deficit, feeds into the debt, feeds back into interest rates to the economy.”