Weekly Address: Protecting Working Americans' Paychecks(March 28, 2015)

奧巴馬每周電視講話：總統呼吁保住工薪階層的工資

Hi, everybody. Five years ago, after the worst financial crisis in decades, we passed historic Wall Street reform to end the era of bailouts and too big to fail.

大家好！五年前，在經歷幾十年來最為嚴重的金融危機之后，我們破天荒地通過了《華爾街改革法》，結束了對那些太大而不能倒下的公司提供援助的時代。

As part that reform, we created an independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with one mission: to protect American consumers from some of the worst practices of the financial industry.

作為該改革法的一部分，我們成立了獨立的消費者金融保護局，該局的使命只有一個：保護美國的消費者免受金融行業某些嚴重惡行的侵害。

They've already put 5 billion back in the pockets of more than 15 million families. And this week, they took an important first step towards cracking down on some of the most abusive practices involving payday loans.

幾年來，該局幫助1500多萬個家庭挽回了50多億元的損失。本周，他們又采取了一項新的舉措，打擊包括發薪日貸款注在內的對部分金融工具的濫用。

Millions of Americans take out these loans every year. In Alabama, where I visited this week, there are four times as many payday lending stores as there are McDonald's. But while payday loans might seem like easy money, folks often end up trapped in a cycle of debt. If you take out a 500 loan, it's easy to wind up paying more than 1,000 in interest and fees.

每年，有數百萬美國人借貸此類貸款。在我本周到訪的阿拉巴馬州，這種發薪日貸款店的數量是麥當勞的四倍。盡管發薪日貸款看起來可以緩解現金壓力，但人們通常會因此而陷入債務陷阱。如果你借出500塊，最后很可能需要償還1000多塊的利息和各種費用。

The step the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced this week is designed to change that. The idea is pretty common sense: if you're a payday lender preparing to give a loan, you should make sure that the borrower can afford to pay it back first.

消費者金融保護局本周采取的措施就是要改變這一狀況。該措施的想法很簡單：如果你是發薪日放貸人，準備發放一筆貸款，你首先應該確認這個借款人有能力償還這筆貸款。

As Americans, we believe there's nothing wrong with making a profit. But there is something wrong with making that profit by trapping hard-working men and women in a vicious cycle of debt.

作為美國人，我們都堅信謀取利潤是天經地義的事情。但是采用讓辛勤勞動的人們陷入惡性的債務循環的方式攫取利潤就不對了。

Protecting working Americans' paychecks shouldn't be a partisan issue. But the budget Republicans unveiled last week would make it harder, not easier, to crack down on financial fraud and abuse. And this week, when Republicans rolled out their next economic idea, it had nothing to do with the middle class. It was a new, more-than-250 billion tax cut for the top one-tenth of the top one percent of Americans. That would mean handing out an average tax cut of 4 million a year to just 4,000 Americans per year, and leaving the rest of the country to pay for it.

保護工薪人士的工資不應該成為一個黨派爭論的話題。但共和黨上周提出的預算方案會使打擊金融欺詐和剝削變得更加困難，而不是更容易。本周，共和黨推出的另一個經濟發展方案，跟中產階級一毛錢關系也沒有。而是一項新的，為百分之一的富有的美國人中的十分之一的人提供2500億美元的稅收減免。這意味著平均每年要向4000個美國人提供4百萬的稅收減免，讓剩下的所有人為此買單。

I don't think our top economic priority should be helping a tiny number of Americans who are already doing extraordinarily well, and asking everybody else to foot the bill. I think our top priority should be helping everybody who works hard get ahead. This country does best when everyone gets their fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.

我從不認為我們最重要的頭等經濟政策應該是幫助極少部分已經極為富有的美國人，而讓剩下的每個人為此買單。我認為我們的頭等大事應該是幫助每一位辛勤付出的人取得進步，獲得成功。只有當每個人都得到公平的機會，承擔共同的責任，遵守共同的規則的時候，這個國家才能發展的更好。

That's what middle-class economics is all about, and as long as I'm your President, that's what I'll keep on fighting to do.

這才是有利于中產階級的經濟政策需要做的，只要我還是總統，我就將為此而不懈奮斗。

Thanks, and have a great weekend.

謝謝大家，祝你們周末愉快。

更多 英語演講小短文、英文演講稿、英語演講稿 相關文章和資料，請繼續關注 英語作文大全