President Barack Obama on Sunday said that leaders of both parties have reached an agreement to lift the U.S. debt ceiling, reduce the federal deficit and avoid a U.S. credit default, an announcement welcomed in early trading on the Asia financial markets.
Both the U.S. House and Senate were expected to meet Monday to discuss the details of the plan, which calls for increasing the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion through the end of 2012 along with $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction.
文中的“debt ceiling”就是“債務(wù)上限”的意思，還有一種類似說法是“debt limit”?！?strong>ceiling”這個單詞本意是“天花板”，可以引申為“upper limit”（上限），我們常見的一個詞組“glass ceiling”是指“玻璃天花板”，即通常指女性在工作晉升時遇到的一種無形的障礙。“hit the ceiling”是“勃然大怒”的意思，如：My father hit the ceiling when I damaged the car.（我把車弄壞，可把我爸爸氣壞了。）
