Of course, whether America can implement the available solutions is uncertain; several commissions have proposed feasible plans to change America’s debt trajectory by raising taxes and cutting expenditures, but feasibility is no guarantee that they will be adopted. Still, Lee Kuan Yew is probably right to say that China “will give the US a run for its money,” but not surpass it in overall power in the first half of this century.
把这些问题与那些基本无法解决的问题区分开来是很有必要的。当然，美国是否能实施这些可行方案也是未知之数；有几个委员会已经提交了利用增税和削减开支来改变美国债务上升轨迹的可行方案，但可行性不能保证这些方案就一定能被采用。也正如李光耀说的那样，中国“将会与美国比肩”，但在总体实力上依然无法在本世纪上半叶超越美国。