The American people don’t expect government to solve every problem. They don’t expect those of us in this chamber to agree on every issue. But they do expect us to put the nation’s interests before party. (Applause.) They do expect us to forge reasonable compromise where we can. For they know that America moves forward only when we do so together, and that the responsibility of improving this union remains the task of us all.
美国人并不期望政府解决所有的问题。他们不期望在这个议事厅里的我们在所有的事务上有一致的看法。但是他们期望我们把国家利益放在党派前面。(掌声)他们期望我们在我们能走做到的议题上形成合理的妥协。因为他们知道只有当我们一起做这些事的时候，美国才会前进。改善这个国家的责任是我们所共有的。
Our work must begin by making some basic decisions about our budget -- decisions that will have a huge impact on the strength of our recovery.
我们的工作必须从如何决定我们的预算开始——这些决定将对我们复苏的势头有巨大影响。
Over the last few years, both parties have worked together to reduce the deficit by more than $2.5 trillion -- mostly through spending cuts, but also by raising tax rates on the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. As a result, we are more than halfway towards the goal of $4 trillion in deficit reduction that economists say we need to stabilize our finances.
过去几年，两党共同努力，削减了2.5万亿美元的赤字——大部分是通过削减支出进行的，当然我们也对最富有的1%的美国人提高了税率。结果就是，我们已经完成了经济学家认为的足以稳定财政的削减赤字4万亿美元任务的一半还要多。
Now we need to finish the job. And the question is, how?
现在我们需要完成这项任务。问题是，怎样完成?
In 2011, Congress passed a law saying that if both parties couldn’t agree on a plan to reach our deficit goal, about a trillion dollars’ worth of budget cuts would automatically go into effect this year. These sudden, harsh, arbitrary cuts would jeopardize our military readiness. They’d devastate priorities like education, and energy, and medical research. They would certainly slow our recovery, and cost us hundreds of thousands of jobs. That’s why Democrats, Republicans, business leaders, and economists have already said that these cuts, known here in Washington as the sequester, are a really bad idea.
2011年，国会通过了一个议案。议案称如果两党不能对削减赤字达成一致，那么价值约1万亿美元的预算削减将会自动生效。这些突然的、残酷的、武断的削减，将会使我们的军事准备陷入危险。这也将会使教育、能源及医疗科研等优先问题恶化。这将会毫无疑问地减缓我们的经济复苏，并且还会让我们付出成百上千个就业岗位的代价。这就是为什么民主党员们、共和党员们、商业领袖们以及经济学家们已经说过，在华盛顿被认为是一种扣押行为的这些削减措施，是一个确实无误的坏主意。
Now, some in Congress have proposed preventing only the defense cuts by making even bigger cuts to things like education and job training, Medicare and Social Security benefits. That idea is even worse. (Applause.)
现在，国会中的某些人已经开始提议防止通过更大幅度的削减教育、职业培训、老年保健医疗体系和社会保险津贴的经费以削减国防经费。(掌声)
