里根第一任总统就职演说

First Inaugural Address of Ronald ReaganTUESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1981 Senator Hatfield, Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. President, Vice President Bush, Vice President Mondale, Senator Baker, Speaker O'Neill, Reverend Moomaw, and my fellow citizens: To a few of us here today, this is a solemn and most momentous occasion; and yet, in the history of our Nation, it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place as it has for almost two centuries and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every-4-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle. Mr. President, I want our fellow citizens to know how much you did to carry on this tradition. By your gracious cooperation in the transition process, you have shown a watching world that we are a united people pledged to maintaining a political system which guarantees individual liberty to a greater degree than any other, and I thank you and your people for all your help in maintaining the continuity which is the bulwark of our Republic. The business of our nation goes forward. These United States are confronted with an economic affliction of great proportions. We suffer from the longest and one of the worst sustained inflations in our national history. It distorts our economic decisions, penalizes thrift, and crushes the struggling young and the fixed- income elderly alike. It threatens to shatter the lives of millions of our people. Idle industries have cast workers into unemployment, causing human misery and personal indignity. Those who do work are denied a fair return for their labor by a tax system which penalizes successful achievement and keeps us from maintaining full productivity. But great as our tax burden is, it has not kept pace with public spending. For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's 里根第一任总统就职演说罗纳德-里根 第一次就职演说第 40 任总统(1981 年-1989 年)议员海特菲尔德先生、法官先生、总统先 生、副总统布什、蒙代尔先生、议员贝克先生、 发言人奥尼尔先生、尊敬的摩麦先生，以及广 大支持我的美国同胞们：今天对于我们中间的 一些人来说，是一个非常庄严隆重的时刻。当 然，对于这个国家的历史来说，却是一件普通 的事情。按照宪法要求，政府权利正在有序地 移交，我们已经如此“例行公事”了两个世纪， 很少有人觉得这有什么特别的。但在世界上更 多人看来，这个我们已经习以为常的四年一次 的仪式，却实在是一个奇迹。 总统先生，我希望我们的同胞们都能知道 你为了这个传承而付出的努力。通过移交程序 中的通力合作，你向观察者展示了这么一个事 实：我们是发誓要团结起来维护这样一个政治 体制的团体，这样的体制保证了我们能够得到 比其他政体更为广泛的个人自由。同时我也要 感谢你和你的伙伴们的帮助，因为你们坚持了 这样的传承，而这恰恰是我们共和国的根基。我们国家的事业在继续前进。合众国正面 临巨大的经济困难。我们遭遇到我国历史上历 时最长、最严重之一的通货膨胀，它扰乱着我 们的经济决策，打击着节俭的风气，压迫着正 在挣扎谋生的青年人和收入固定的中年人，威 胁着要摧毁我国千百万人民的生计。 停滞的工业使工人失业、蒙受痛苦并失去 了个人尊严。即使那些有工作的人，也因税收 制度的缘故而得不到公正的劳动报酬，因为这 种税收制度使我们无法在事业上取得成就，使 我们无法保持充分的生产力。 尽管我们的纳税负担相当沉重，但还是跟 不上公共开支的增长。数十年来，我们的赤字 额屡屡上升，我们为图目前暂时的方便，把自future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals. You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation? We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow. And let there be no misunderstanding-we are going to begin to act, beginning today. The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away. They will go away because we, as Americans, have the capacity now, as we have had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom. In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. government is the problem.From time to time, we have been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price. We hear much of special interest groups. Our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines. It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and our factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we are sick- professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truckdrivers. They are, in short, “We the people,“ this breed called Americans. 己的前途和子孙的前途抵押出去了。这一趋势 如果长此以往，必然引起社会、文化、政治和 经济等方面的大动荡。 作为个人，你们和我可以靠借贷过一种人 不敷出的生活，然而只能维持一段有限的时期， 我们怎么可以认为，作为一个国家整体，我们 就不应受到同样的约束呢？为了保住明天，我 们今天就必须行动起来。大家都要明白无误地 懂得-我们从今天起就要采取行动。 我们深受其害的经济弊病，几十年来一直袭 击着我们。这些弊病不会在几天、几星期或几 个月内消失，但它们终将消失。它们之所以终 将消失，是因为我们作为现在的美国人，一如 既往地有能力去完成需要完成的事情，以保存 这个最后而又最伟大的自由堡垒。 在当前这场危机中，政府的管理不能解决 我们面临的问题。政府的管理就是问题所在。