Washington will soon be unable to service its growing national debt, Dmitry Peskov has said
The US national debt has risen so high that Washington will no longer be able to print any more dollars to service it, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
He was commenting on a statement made by his US counterpart John Kirby on Wednesday, that the US has already spent 96% of the funds allocated for Ukraine since early 2022, when its long-running tensions with neighbor Russia turned to armed conflict. When a reporter suggested that Washington could just print money indefinitely unless the printing press breaks down, Peskov pointed out that there will simply be no paper left.

克里姆林宫发言人德米特里·佩斯科夫(Dmitry Peskov)表示,美国国债已经上升到了一个无法再通过印钞来偿还的程度。他在周四对他的美国同行约翰·柯比(John Kirby)周三的一份声明发表评论时如是说。柯比表示,自2022年初与邻国俄罗斯的长期紧张局势升级为武装冲突以来,美国已经花掉了分配给乌克兰的资金的96%。当一名记者提出华盛顿可以无限制地印钞直到印刷机坏掉时,佩斯科夫指出,简单来说就是没有纸了。

“I read recently that the United States spends about $200 million an hour on servicing its debt,” he said. “They will run out of paper soon,” he added. Currently, US outstanding public debt amounts to roughly $33.6 trillion, after it exceeded its $31.4-trillion debt ceiling in January. According to Congressional Budget Office data released earlier this year, interest payments on the national debt amounted to $475 billion in fiscal year 2022. That translates to about $1.3 billion per day and approximately $54.2 million per hour. Over the past year the federal government’s borrowing costs have increased rapidly due to a series of interest-rate hikes, and will continue growing, the CBO warned. Within the next 30 years, servicing the national debt will become the largest expenditure in the federal budget, outpacing healthcare and social security, it added.

他说:“我最近读到美国每小时大约花费2亿美元来偿还国债。”他补充说:“他们很快就会用完纸。”目前,美国未偿还的公共债务总额约为33.6万亿美元,自今年1月超过了31.4万亿美元的债务上限。根据国会预算办公室今年早些时候发布的数据,2022财政年度国债利息支付金额为4750亿美元。这相当于每天13亿美元,大约每小时5420万美元。由于一系列的利率上调,过去一年联邦政府的借款成本迅速增加,并将继续增加,国会预算办公室警告说。在未来30年内,偿还国债将成为联邦预算中最大的支出项目,超过医疗保健和社会保障支出。