华盛顿邮报 美国会两党强硬派都对债务上限协议不满(3)

 

    And for his part, what has Speaker McCarthy said about the deal?

    就麦卡锡议长而言，他对该协议有何看法?

    McCarthy is really proud.

    麦卡锡真的感到很自豪。

    Tonight, we're going to do something we haven't done before. Tonight, we're going to give America hope.

    今晚，我们要做点以前从未做过的事。今晚，我们将给美国带来希望。

    Yesterday, as he was walking back and forth¹ to open up the House floor before the full House voted on the bill, he looked really proud of himself. He had this real beaming smile.

    昨天，当他在众议院全体投票前来回走动、为众议院发言时，他看起来真的为自己感到自豪。他的笑容真的灿烂。

    And that was a different facial expression than we'd seen on him for much of the last couple of weeks when he was really in the thick of these negotiations³.

    这是一种不同于过去几周我们在他谈判最激烈时看到的面部表情。

    He says that it was a fair bill, that it ultimately did succeed in securing certain spending cuts and ultimately getting to a place that averted⁴ this kind of economic doom⁵.

    他表示这是一项公平的法案，最终成功地确保了某些开支削减，并最终避免了这种经济厄运。

    But he's really proud of the negotiations and completely disagrees with the way the House Freedom Caucus⁶ characterizes the agreement.

    不过，他真的为此次谈判感到自豪，完全不同意“众议院自由核心小组”对这项协议的描述。

    Well, I'd love to look a little bit at some of the issues members on the other side of the aisle⁷ had with this deal, and in particular, those were the new work requirements that were added to some federal programs like you had mentioned earlier.

    嗯，我很想看看民主党议员对这项协议的一些看法，特别是，那些你早些时候提到的一些添加到联邦项目上的新工作要求。

    Now, the entire negotiations, this had seemed to be a really sticking issue that particularly progressive members of the Democratic Party did not want to add work requirements to programs like SNAP, also known as food stamps.

    现在，在整个谈判过程中，这似乎是一个非常棘手的问题，特别是民主党的进步派成员不希望增加食品援助项目(SNAP)的工作要求。

    Rachel, before we get into how they feel about the final bill, could you unpack⁸ that a little bit for me?

    雷切尔，在我们讨论他们对最终法案的看法前，你能给我分析下吗?

    Why is the issue of work requirements, as it relates to programs like food stamps, such a sticking issue, particularly for liberal members of the Democratic Party?

    为什么与食品券等项目相关的工作要求问题如此棘手，尤其对民主党的自由派成员来说?

    What I was hearing from some of the more liberal members of the Democratic Party was basically that food stamps or any sort of negotiation² around work requirements just had no place in a debt-ceiling argument.

    我从民主党的一些自由派成员那里听到的基本上是，食品券或任何围绕工作要求的谈判都不应该出现在债务上限的争论中。

    Work requirements were a real source of contention⁹ throughout these negotiations, and the end result was a little bit quirky.

    在整个谈判过程中，工作要求是争论的真正来源，最终的谈判结果有点奇怪。

    So, the agreement does impose new work requirements for SNAP benefits, which used to be called food stamps, basically, by raising the age at which people would still have to work or be in a training program in order to qualify.

    该协议确实对“食品援助项目”(过去称为食品券)福利提出了新的工作要求，基本上是通过提高工作年龄，人们仍然需要工作或参加培训项目才能获得领取资格。

    Veterans, people who are unhoused, and young adults who left foster care would be exempt¹¹ from certain SNAP work requirements, but then there was a little quirk¹⁰, too.

    退伍军人、没有住房的人和离开寄养家庭的年轻人将免除某些“食品援助项目”工作要求，但情况也有点奇怪。

    The Congressional Budget Office, which does a lot of estimates for what this bill would actually look like, actually said that an additional 78,000 people per month would actually qualify for SNAP because of this expanded eligibility¹², which would cost more but still have more people qualifying for the program.

    国会预算办公室对这项法案的实际情况做了很多估计。国会预算办公室实际上表示，由于扩大了资格，每月将多出78,000人获得“食品援助项目”资格，这将会导致支出更多，但仍然有更多的人有资格获得该计划的食品券。

1 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

2 negotiation   

n.谈判，协商

参考例句：

• They closed the deal in sugar after a week of negotiation.经过一星期的谈判，他们的食糖生意成交了。
• The negotiation dragged on until July.谈判一直拖到7月份。

3 negotiations   

协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过

参考例句：

• negotiations for a durable peace 为持久和平而进行的谈判
• Negotiations have failed to establish any middle ground. 谈判未能达成任何妥协。

4 averted   

防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移

参考例句：

• A disaster was narrowly averted. 及时防止了一场灾难。
• Thanks to her skilful handling of the affair, the problem was averted. 多亏她对事情处理得巧妙，才避免了麻烦。

5 doom   

n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定

参考例句：

• The report on our economic situation is full of doom and gloom.这份关于我们经济状况的报告充满了令人绝望和沮丧的调子。
• The dictator met his doom after ten years of rule.独裁者统治了十年终于完蛋了。

6 caucus   

n.秘密会议；干部会议；v.（参加）干部开会议

参考例句：

• This multi-staged caucus takes several months.这个多级会议常常历时好几个月。
• It kept the Democratic caucus from fragmenting.它也使得民主党的核心小组避免了土崩瓦解的危险。

7 aisle   

n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道

参考例句：

• The aisle was crammed with people.过道上挤满了人。
• The girl ushered me along the aisle to my seat.引座小姐带领我沿着通道到我的座位上去。

8 unpack   

vt.打开包裹（或行李），卸货

参考例句：

• I must unpack before dinner.我得在饭前把行李打开。
• She said she would unpack the items later.她说以后再把箱子里的东西拿出来。

9 contention   

n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张

参考例句：

• The pay increase is the key point of contention. 加薪是争论的焦点。
• The real bone of contention,as you know,is money.你知道，争论的真正焦点是钱的问题。

10 quirk   

n.奇事，巧合；古怪的举动

参考例句：

• He had a strange quirk of addressing his wife as Mrs Smith.他很怪，把自己的妻子称作史密斯夫人。
• The most annoying quirk of his is wearing a cap all the time.他最令人感到厌恶的怪癖就是无论何时都戴著帽子。

11 exempt   

adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者

参考例句：

• These goods are exempt from customs duties.这些货物免征关税。
• He is exempt from punishment about this thing.关于此事对他已免于处分。

12 eligibility   

n.合格，资格

参考例句：

• What are the eligibility requirements? 病人被选参加试验的要求是什么？ 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 回顾与展望
• Eligibility for HINARI access is based on gross national income (GNI). 进入HINARI获取计划是依据国民总收入来评定的。