Obama touts "Buffett Rule" to stress economic fairness

 　　WASHINGTON, April 10 (Xinhua) -- In a campaign-style speech, U. S. President Barack Obama Tuesday reiterated¹ the "Buffett Rule" to highlight the importance of economic fairness for the nation's prosperity, as Obama has geared up his reelection bid.

　　The rule was named after billionaire investor² Warren Buffett who has famously said that he paid a lower tax rate than his secretary. Democrats³ held that millionaires should share the burden of mounting government fiscal⁴ pressure.

　　Economic fairness is the "defining issue of our times", Obama said in an address at Florida Atlantic University, adding that U.S. people are better off when everybody gets a fair shot and everybody does a fair share.

　　Nearly one-quarter of all U.S. millionaires pay a lower tax rate than millions of middle-income taxpayers⁵ currently, figures from the White House showed.

　　"In this country, prosperity has never trickled⁶ down from the wealthy few. Prosperity has always come from the bottom up, from a strong and growing middle class," Obama told a group of students and faculty⁷.

　　"The rich got much richer. Corporations made big profits. But we also had the slowest job growth in half a century" partly due to the tax cut policies rolled out in the George W. Bush administration which has benefited the wealthy, he contended.

　　Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, former President George W. Bush' s tax cuts, economic stimulus⁸ measures under the Obama administration to tide over the economic downturn, and ballooning entitlements expenses in an aging society all contributed in a major way to the spiking⁹ U.S. national debt surpassing 15 trillion U.S. dollars.

　　The push for the "Buffett Rule" was the White House's latest effort to portray¹⁰ Obama as being more in touch with middle-class voters. The speech came one week before the Senate's scheduled vote on a bill that would require U.S. taxpayers with an annual income of one million dollars or more to pay an income tax rate of at least 30 percent.

1 reiterated   

反复地说，重申( reiterate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• "Well, I want to know about it,'she reiterated. “嗯，我一定要知道你的休假日期，"她重复说。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• Some twenty-two years later President Polk reiterated and elaborated upon these principles. 大约二十二年之后，波尔克总统重申这些原则并且刻意阐释一番。

2 investor   

n.投资者，投资人

参考例句：

• My nephew is a cautious investor.我侄子是个小心谨慎的投资者。
• The investor believes that his investment will pay off handsomely soon.这个投资者相信他的投资不久会有相当大的收益。

3 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 fiscal   

adj.财政的，会计的，国库的，国库岁入的

参考例句：

• The increase of taxation is an important fiscal policy.增税是一项重要的财政政策。
• The government has two basic strategies of fiscal policy available.政府有两个可行的财政政策基本战略。

5 taxpayers   

纳税人，纳税的机构( taxpayer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Finance for education comes from taxpayers. 教育经费来自纳税人。
• She was declaiming against the waste of the taxpayers' money. 她慷慨陈词猛烈抨击对纳税人金钱的浪费。

6 trickled   

v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动

参考例句：

• Blood trickled down his face. 血从他脸上一滴滴流下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The tears trickled down her cheeks. 热泪一滴滴从她脸颊上滚下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 faculty   

n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员

参考例句：

• He has a great faculty for learning foreign languages.他有学习外语的天赋。
• He has the faculty of saying the right thing at the right time.他有在恰当的时候说恰当的话的才智。

8 stimulus   

n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物

参考例句：

• Regard each failure as a stimulus to further efforts.把每次失利看成对进一步努力的激励。
• Light is a stimulus to growth in plants.光是促进植物生长的一个因素。

9 spiking   

n.尖峰形成v.加烈酒于( spike的现在分词 )；偷偷地给某人的饮料加入（更多）酒精（ 或药物）；把尖状物钉入；打乱某人的计划

参考例句：

• High spiking fever with chills is suggestive of a complicating pylephlebitis. 伴有寒战的高热，暗示合并门静脉炎。 来自辞典例句
• We could be spiking our own guns. 我们可能要遭到失败。 来自辞典例句

10 portray   

v.描写，描述；画(人物、景象等)

参考例句：

• It is difficult to portray feelings in words.感情很难用言语来描写。
• Can you portray the best and worst aspects of this job?您能描述一下这份工作最好与最坏的方面吗？