You could pin the US’s staggering(惊人的，令人震惊的) $40tn in government debt to Donald Trump’s Keystone Cops(启斯东警察，指无能混乱的执法者)-style governance. Tariffs he sold as a new source of revenue were struck down by the supreme court, forcing the government to return tens of billions of dollars to importers. Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge), ostensibly(表面上，貌似) created to stop wasteful government spending, decimated(大量摧毁，严重削弱) federal programs and probably killed millions of children, but did nothing to close the budget deficit(缩小预算赤字). The burst of inflation following Trump’s misguided(被误导的，错误的) adventure in Iran sharply raised the cost of serving the government’s obligations(偿还政府债务).
你可以将美国惊人的40万亿美元政府债务归咎于唐纳德·特朗普那种“启斯东警察”式的治理。他作为新收入来源推销的关税被最高法院推翻，迫使政府向进口商返还数百亿美元。埃隆·马斯克的“政府效率部”（Doge），表面上是为阻止浪费性政府支出而设，却摧毁了联邦项目，可能害死了数百万儿童，但对缩小预算赤字毫无作为。特朗普在伊朗的误导性冒险之后爆发的通货膨胀，急剧提高了政府偿债成本。
Yet as the federal debt hits an all-time high, up from about $35tn when Trump took office less than two years ago, it is worth noting that the US’s gargantuan indebtedness is in fact the product of a longstanding Republican strategy that took shape well before Trump could even dream about gold-plating the White House.(然而，随着联邦债务创下历史新高，从特朗普就职时的35万亿上升，值得注意的是，美国庞大的债务实际上是共和党长期战略的产物，该战略在特朗普做梦之前就已形成。) It was called “starve the beast”.
然而，随着联邦债务创下历史新高，从特朗普不到两年前就职时的约35万亿美元攀升至此，值得注意的是，美国庞大的债务实际上是共和党长期战略的产物，这一战略在特朗普甚至做梦都想不到给白宫镀金之前就已形成。它被称为“饿死野兽”。
One might recall Ronald Reagan’s address(演讲，讲话) to the nation on 5 February 1981, just two weeks after he had taken office, when he delivered the sad news that “we’re in the worst economic mess since the Great Depression”. Government spending was out of control(失控), he said. The budget deficit the year before had hit 2.6% of the nation’s gross domestic product(国内生产总值). Federal debt added up to a mind-boggling(令人难以置信的) trillion dollars, a third of gross domestic product (GDP) – the broadest measure of the national economy.
人们或许会想起罗纳德·里根1981年2月5日向全国发表的讲话，那是在他就职仅两周后，当时他传达了令人沮丧的消息：“我们正处于自大萧条以来最严重的经济困境”。他说，政府支出已失控。前一年的预算赤字已达到国民生产总值的2.6%。联邦债务累计达到令人难以置信的1万亿美元，占国内生产总值（GDP）的三分之一——GDP是衡量国民经济的最广泛指标。