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  3. Goal Trimmer Utopias are supposed to be dreams of the future. But the American Utopia? Lately it’ s a dream that was, a twili

Goal Trimmer Utopias are supposed to be dreams of the future. But the American Utopia? Lately it’ s a dream that was, a twili

admin2010-04-28  49
问题                                Goal Trimmer
   Utopias are supposed to be dreams of the future. But the American Utopia? Lately it’ s a dream that was, a twilit memory of the Golden Age between V-J day and OPEC, when even a blue-collar paycheck bought a place in the middle class. The promise of paradise regained has become a key to the Democratic Party pitch. Mickey Kaus, a senior editor of the New Republic, says the Democrats are wasting their time. As the U. S. enters a world where only the highly skilled and well educated will make a decent living, the gap between rich and poor is going to keep growing. No fiddling with the tax code, retreat to protectionism or job training for jobs that aren’t there is going to stop it. Income equality is a hopeless cause in the U. S. "Liberalism would be less depressing if it had a more attainable end." Kaus writes," a goal short of money equality." Liberal Democrats should embrace an aim he calls civic equality. If government can’ t bring everyone into the middle class, let it expand the areas of life in which everyone, regardless of income, receives the same treatment. National health care, improved public schools, universal national service and government financing of nearly all election campaigns, which would freeze out special-interest money ---there are the unobjectionable components of his enlarged public sphere.
   Kaus is right to fear the hardening of class lines, but wrong to think the stresses can be relieved without a continuing effort to boost income for the bottom half. "No, we can’ t tell them they’ ll be rich," he admits." Or even comfortably well off. But we can offer them at least a material minimum and a good shot at climbing up the ladder. And we can offer them respect." And what might they offer back? The Bronx had a rude cheer for it. A good chunk of the Democratic core constituency would probably peel off. At the center of Kaus’ book is a thoughtful but no less risky proposal to dynamite welfare. He rightly understands how fear and loathing of the chronically unemployed underclass have encouraged middle income Americans to flee from everyone below them on the class scale. The only way to eliminate welfare dependency, Kaus maintains, is by cutting off checks for all able-bodied recipients, including single mothers with children. He would have government provide them instead with jobs that pay slightly less than the minimum wage, earned-income tax credits to nudge them over the poverty line, drug counseling, job training and, if necessary, day care for their children. Kaus doesn’t sell this as social policy on the cheap. He expects it would cost up to $ 59 billion a year more than the $ 23 billion already spent annually on welfare in the U. S. And he knows it would be politically perilous, because he suggests paying for the plan by raiding Social Security funds and trimming benefits for upper- income retirees. Yet he considers if money well spent it would undo the knot of chronic poverty and help foster class rapprochement. And it would be too. But one advantage of being an author is that you only ask people to listen to you, not to vote for you.
The proposal as offered by Kaus ______.
选项 A、will increase the fear and loathing of the unemployed underclass by cutting off checks for all ablebodied recipients
B、will drastically increase the income taxes for taxpayers
C、is supposed to help establish reconciliation between the poor and the rich though the gap may be unbridgeable
D、is too costly to be carried out
答案C
解析 推理题。文章第二段指出Kaus非常清楚失业的下层人民的恐惧与憎恨，这只会使贫富两个阶层人民的矛盾加深(He rightly understands how fear and loathing of the chronically unemployed underclass have encouraged middle-income Americans to flee．)，于是他认为The only way to eliminate welfare dependency is by cutting off checks for all able-bodied recipients。尽管他的建议将花费很大(Kaus doesn’t sell this asocial policy on the cheap)，但他认为这可以帮助消除贫困，加强阶级之间的友善关系，钱是值得花的(yet he considers it money well spent it would undo the knot of chronic poverty and help foster class rapprochement)。因此选项C(帮助建立穷人与富人之间的缓和关系，尽管他们之间的差距是不可弥合的)符合题意，为正确答案。A与文章第二段不符。B的内容文中并未提到。D(花费太大而不能实施)与文章最后一段内容不符，因为文中给出了两种实施途径，即提取社会安全基金和降低高收入收益。
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