VOA标准英语2013--Senior Citizens Express Anxiety About US Budget Cuts

 

Senior Citizens Express Anxiety About US Budget Cuts

The volunteers and staff at Meals on Wheels in Takoma Park, Maryland feed two meals a day to between 30 to 40 home-bound senior citizens and disabled clients.

Many of the volunteers are seniors themselves. They use their own cars and pay for the gasoline to make deliveries.

Joan Debrule is a Meals on Wheels client. She looks depends on her meals and looks forward to her favorites. "If I did not have the Meals on Wheels, I have a problem with my knee and I can't stand for long hours cooking, and I don't know, I may be institutionalized," she said. "I don't know what would happen to me."

Katherine Yowell feels the same way. "I enjoy the volunteers very much and the thoughtfulness of the manager. They do nice little things for our special holidays and everything," she added.

There are Meals on Wheels groups across the country. Most are public-private partnerships¹. Ellie Hollander heads the Meals on Wheels Association. "The majority of our programs are reliant, in some fashion, on federal funding," Hollander explained. "So the impact of a reduction of 5.1 percent to those programs that are receiving funding through the Older Americans Act translates to $41 million nationwide, in terms of reduction, and that is significant."

Hollander says this could mean as many as 19 million meals for seniors might be reduced or eliminated. For some, she says, that would cut their lifeline to the outside world. "One of the most important things about providing meals is they are nutritious² and they also are that social connection, which is so important to people's independence and basically their empowerment and how they feel about themselves," she stated.

President Obama has called on Congress to act to avert³ the spending cuts, warning they will hurt the most vulnerable. Republican leaders are blaming the president for not doing enough to stop the cuts.

Joan Debrule says some seniors feel powerless at the hands of Congress. "We're at the mercy of them, and they are not in our shoes," she noted⁴. "They are up there, they have a job, which Americans are paying for." 

Back at the Meals on Wheels kitchen, everyone is hoping the president and Congress will find a way to replace the automatic spending cuts with more targeted measures. 

1 partnerships   

n.伙伴关系( partnership的名词复数 )；合伙人身份；合作关系

参考例句：

• Partnerships suffer another major disadvantage: decision-making is shared. 合伙企业的另一主要缺点是决定要由大家来作。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• It involved selling off limited partnerships. 它涉及到售出有限的合伙权。 来自辞典例句

2 nutritious   

adj.有营养的，营养价值高的

参考例句：

• Fresh vegetables are very nutritious.新鲜蔬菜富于营养。
• Hummingbirds have discovered that nectar and pollen are very nutritious.蜂鸟发现花蜜和花粉是很有营养的。

3 avert   

v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等)

参考例句：

• He managed to avert suspicion.他设法避嫌。
• I would do what I could to avert it.我会尽力去避免发生这种情况。

4 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。