奥巴马总统每周电台演讲:新的一年继续推动经济持续增长

Happy New Year! Everybody.

This week, I traveled to Cleveland, Ohio, to talk with folks about the biggest challenge we face as a country – rebuildour economy so that, once again, hard work pays off, responsibility is rewarded, and anyone, regardless of who they are or where they come from, can make it if they try.  That’s the economy America deserves.  That’s the economy I’m fighting every day to build.

Now, to get there, the most important thing we need to do is get more Americans back to work.  And over the past three years, we’ve made steady progress.  We just learned that our economy added 212,000 private sector¹ jobs in December.  After losing more than 8 million jobs in the recession, we’ve added more than 3 million private sector jobs over the past 22 months.  And we’re starting 2012 with manufacturing on the rise and the American auto² industry on the mend.

We’re heading in the rightdirection.  And we’re not going to let up.  On Wednesday the White House will host a forum³ called “Insourcing American Jobs.”  We’ll hear from business leaders who are bringing jobs back home and see how we can help other businesses follow their lead.

Because this is a make or break moment for the middle class and all those working to get there.  We’ve got to keep at it. We’ve got to keep creating jobs.  And we’ve got to keep rebuilding our economy so that everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share – and everyone plays by the same rules.  We can’t go back to the days when the financial system was stacking the deck against ordinary Americans.  To me, that’s not an option. Not after all we’ve been through.

That’s why I appointed Richard Cordray as our nation’s new consumer watchdog this week.  Richard’s job is simple: to look out for you.  Every day, his sole mission is to protect consumers from potential abuses by the financial industry and to make sure that you’ve got all the transparent⁴ information you need to make the important financial decisions in your lives.

I nominated Richard for this job last summer.  And yet, Republicans in the Senate kept blocking his confirmation⁵ – not because they objected to him, but because they wanted to weaken his agency.  That made no sense. Every day we waited was a day you and consumers all across the country were at greater financial risk.

So this year, I’m going to keep doing whatever it takes to move this economy forward and to make sure that middle class families regain⁶ the security they’ve lost over the past decade.  That’s my New Year’s resolution to all of you.  Thank you, and have a great weekend.

1 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

2 auto   

n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车

参考例句：

• Don't park your auto here.别把你的汽车停在这儿。
• The auto industry has brought many people to Detroit.汽车工业把许多人吸引到了底特律。

3 forum   

n.论坛，讨论会

参考例句：

• They're holding a forum on new ways of teaching history.他们正在举行历史教学讨论会。
• The organisation would provide a forum where problems could be discussed.这个组织将提供一个可以讨论问题的平台。

4 transparent   

adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的

参考例句：

• The water is so transparent that we can see the fishes swimming.水清澈透明，可以看到鱼儿游来游去。
• The window glass is transparent.窗玻璃是透明的。

5 confirmation   

n.证实，确认，批准

参考例句：

• We are waiting for confirmation of the news.我们正在等待证实那个消息。
• We need confirmation in writing before we can send your order out.给你们发送订购的货物之前，我们需要书面确认。

6 regain   

vt.重新获得，收复，恢复

参考例句：

• He is making a bid to regain his World No.1 ranking.他正为重登世界排名第一位而努力。
• The government is desperate to regain credibility with the public.政府急于重新获取公众的信任。