【美国总统电台演说】2007-12-29

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. New Year's Day will soon be upon us, and with it will come New Year's resolutions. This weekend is a good time to give thanks for our blessings¹ -- and to resolve to do better in the coming year.

One of our greatest blessings as Americans is that we live in a country with a growing economy -- where people can pursue their dreams, turn ideas into enterprises, and provide for their families. It is a measure of our economy's resilience that even with high oil prices and softness in the housing market, we're still growing. In November, our economy added jobs for the 51st straight month, making this the longest period of uninterrupted job growth on record. Unemployment is a low 4.7 percent. Exports are up. And the fundamentals of our economy are strong.

Economic statistics are important indicators². Yet it is more important to remember that behind all these numbers are real people. These people include the entrepreneurs who live their dreams by starting up new businesses. These people include small business owners who create most of the new jobs in our economy. And most of all, these people include the tens of millions of working moms and dads whose jobs provide for their families.
I know that even in this growing economy some of you have real concerns. Some of you worry about your ability to afford healthcare coverage³ for your families. Some of you are concerned about meeting your monthly mortgage payments. Some of you worry about the impact of rising energy costs on fueling your cars and heating your homes. You expect your elected leaders in Washington to address these pressures on our economy and give you more options to help you deal with them. And I have put forth⁴ several proposals to do so.

In the last month, Congress has responded to some of my initiatives. They passed a good energy bill, they passed a temporary patch to protect middle class families from the burden of the Alternative Minimum Tax, and they passed a law that will help protect families from higher taxes when their lenders reduce their mortgage debt. But this is only a start. Congress needs to do more to decrease America's dependence⁵ on oil. Congress needs to pass legislation that will help make health care coverage more affordable⁶ for small businesses and workers who buy their own policies. And Congress needs to act quickly on the rest of my proposals to help families struggling with rising mortgage payments keep their homes.

Most of all, we need to set a good example in Washington by being careful with your money. I'm disappointed that leaders in Congress sent me a massive spending bill that includes about 9,800 earmarks. Earmarks are special interest items that are slipped into big spending bills like this one -- often at the last hour, without discussion or debate. Among the earmarks Congress approved was one for a prison museum and another for a sailing school. In the last election, congressional leaders ran on a promise that they would reform earmarks. They made some progress, but not nearly enough. So my Administration is reviewing options to address wasteful⁷ earmark spending.

As we address earmarks, we also must restrain spending, keep taxes low, and continue on a path towards a balanced budget. And that is what the budget I submit in February will do. You work hard for your money and to live within your means. As you provide for your families, the last thing you need is wasteful spending that will lead to a tax hike. My resolution for the New Year is this: to work with Congress to keep our economy growing, to keep your tax burden low, and to ensure that the money you send to Washington is spent wisely -- or not at all.

Thank you for listening, and Happy New Year.

END

1 blessings   

n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福

参考例句：

• Afflictions are sometimes blessings in disguise. 塞翁失马，焉知非福。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We don't rely on blessings from Heaven. 我们不靠老天保佑。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

2 indicators   

（仪器上显示温度、压力、耗油量等的）指针( indicator的名词复数 )； 指示物； （车辆上的）转弯指示灯； 指示信号

参考例句：

• The economic indicators are better than expected. 经济指标比预期的好。
• It is still difficult to develop indicators for many concepts used in social science. 为社会科学领域的许多概念确立一个指标仍然很难。

3 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。

4 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。

5 dependence   

n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属

参考例句：

• Doctors keep trying to break her dependence of the drug.医生们尽力使她戒除毒瘾。
• He was freed from financial dependence on his parents.他在经济上摆脱了对父母的依赖。

6 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。

7 wasteful   

adj.（造成）浪费的，挥霍的

参考例句：

• It is a shame to be so wasteful.这样浪费太可惜了。
• Duties have been reassigned to avoid wasteful duplication of work.为避免重复劳动浪费资源，任务已经重新分派。