美国总统克林顿告别演说
President Bill Clinton: My fellow citizens, tonight is my last opportunity to speak to you from the Oval Office as your president. I am profoundly grateful to you for twice giving me the honor to serve, to work for you and with you to prepare our nation for the 21st century. And I'm grateful to Vice President Gore, to my Cabinet secretaries, and to all those who have served with me for the last eight years. 同胞们,今晚是我最后一次作为你们的总统,在白宫椭圆形办公室向你们做最后一次演讲。 我从心底深处感谢你们给了我两次机会和荣誉,为你们服务,为你们工作,和你们一起为我们的国家进入21世纪做准备。这里,我要感谢戈尔副总统,我的内阁部长们以及所有伴我度过过去8年的同事们。 This has been a time of dramatic transformation, and you have risen to every new challenge. You have made our social fabric stronger, our families healthier and safer, our people more prosperous. In all the work I have done as president, every decision I have made, every executive action I have taken, every bill I have proposed and signed, I've tried to give all Americans the tools and conditions to build the future of our dreams, in a good society, with a strong economy, a cleaner environment, and a freer, safer, more prosperous world. I have steered my course by our enduring values. Opportunity for all. Responsibility from all. A community of all Americans. I have sought to give America a new kind of government, smaller, more modern, more effective, full of ideas and policies appropriate to this new time, always putting people first, always focusing on the future. Working together, America has done well. Our economy is breaking records, with more than 22 million new jobs, the lowest unemployment in 30 years, the highest home ownership ever, the longest expansion in history. Our families and communities are stronger. Thirty-five million Americans have used the family leave law. Eight million have moved off welfare. Crime is at a 25-year low. Over 10 million Americans receive more college aid, and more people than ever are going to college. Our schools are better - higher standards, greater accountability and larger investments have brought higher test scores, and higher graduation rates. 我们的家庭、我们的社会变得更加强大。3500万美国人曾经享受联邦休假,800万人重新获得社会保障,犯罪率是25年来最低的,1000多万美国人享受更多的入学贷款,更多的人接受大学教育。我们的学校也在改善。更高的办学水平、更大的责任感和更多的投资使得我们的学生取得更高的考试分数和毕业成绩。 America has been a force for peace and prosperity in every corner of the globe. Tonight, I want to leave you with three thoughts about our future. First, America must maintain our record of fiscal responsibility. Through our last four budgets, we've turned record deficits to record surpluses, and we've been able to pay down $600 billion of our national debt, on track to be debt free by the end of the decade for the first time since 1835. Staying on that course will bring lower interest rates, greater prosperity and the opportunity to meet our big challenges. If we choose wisely, we can pay down the debt, deal with the retirement of the baby boomers, invest more in our future and provide tax relief. But the forces of integration that have created these good opportunities also make us more subject to global forces of destruction, to terrorism, organized crime and narco-trafficking, the spread of deadly weapons and disease, the degradation of the global environment. The expansion of trade hasn't fully closed the gap between those of us who live on the cutting edge of the global economy and the billions around the world who live on the knife's edge of survival. This global gap requires more than compassion. It requires action. Global poverty is a powder keg that could be ignited by our indifference. If the wars of the 20th century, especially the recent ones in Kosovo and Bosnia, have taught us anything, it is that we achieve our aims by defending our values and leading the forces of freedom and peace. We must embrace boldly and resolutely that duty to lead, to stand with our allies in word and deed, and to put a human face on the global economy so that expanded trade benefits all people in all nations, lifting lives and hopes all across the world. Third, we must remember that America cannot lead in the world unless here at home we weave the threads of our coat of many colors into the fabric of one America. As we become ever more diverse, we must work harder to unite around our common values and our common humanity. We must work harder to overcome our differences. In our hearts and in our laws, we must treat all our people with fairness and dignity, regardless of their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation and regardless of when they arrived in our country, always moving toward the more perfect union of our founders' dreams. Hillary, Chelsea and I join all Americans in wishing our very best to the next president, George W. Bush, to his family and his administration in meeting these challenges and in leading freedom's march in this new century. As for me, I'll leave the presidency more idealistic, more full of hope than the day I arrived and more confident than ever that America's best days lie ahead. My days in this office are nearly through, but my days of service, I hope, are not. In the years ahead, I will never hold a position higher or a covenant more sacred than that of president of the United States. But there is no title I will wear more proudly than that of citizen. |