美国国家公共电台 NPR Rural Trump Voters Embrace The Sacrifices That Come With Support

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The proposed budget that the White House has sent to Congress calls for cuts across a number of agencies, and it would also eliminate some programs that benefit many of President Trump¹'s supporters in rural communities across America. In Washington, some members of Congress are pushing back. But as Frank Morris from member station KCUR reports, the proposed cuts do appeal to some residents of Strong City, a tiny town in the flint hills of Kansas.

FRANK MORRIS, BYLINE²: Strong City is a former railroad town, surrounded by majestic³, rolling prairie. With about 460 people, it's less than half the size it was in 1890. Shari DeWitt, the city clerk here, says a couple of years ago, even the water treatment plant was dying.

SHARI DEWITT: That's the old water plant over there.

MORRIS: Oh, that looks like a school building.

DEWITT: Yes, it was a old high school building.

MORRIS: DeWitt says they built the old plant 40 years ago inside the town's abandoned high school. But the plant kept breaking down.

DEWITT: Water's very important. And a lot of people don't realize it until they don't have it (laughter).

MORRIS: Strong City banded together with the town next door to build a $6 million water treatment system, $6 million for a plant that serves only about 500 customers. Larry Sigler, who works at the water plant, says nearly $3 million in federal grants made it possible.

LARRY SIGLER: Oh, it would have been inconceivable. We couldn't have done it. People couldn't afford for us to do it.

MORRIS: Now the proposed budget aims to kill the program that threw a lifeline to this town's water system.

JOHNATHAN HLADIK: Bewildering might be the best way to describe it.

MORRIS: Jonathan Hladik heads the Center for Rural Affairs in Nebraska and says many of the proposed cuts would hit places where Donald Trump got lots of votes, isolated⁴, rural communities.

HLADIK: The more remote you are and the more rural you are, the worse you're going to have it as a result.

MORRIS: If passed as is, the budget would kill programs that train workers, back small-towns start-ups and help pay for roads, sewers⁵ and broadband in some of the nation's poorest counties. Tom Vilsack, Obama's secretary of agriculture, says the Trump administration is packed with urban political operatives and needs an advocate for rural communities.

TOM VILSACK: So that someone is pounding the table, as I had to when I was secretary of agriculture, to make sure that people understood how things would impact and affect rural Americans.

MORRIS: Some governors are indeed pounding the table pretty hard. And Al Cross, who runs the Institute of Rural Journalism⁶ at the University of Kentucky, says congressmen and powerful farm-state senators are also fighting for key programs, like the 50-year-old Appalachian Regional Commission.

AL CROSS: We've already seen Mitch McConnell lay down the law that not only is the Appalachian Regional Commission not going to be eliminated, its budget is not going to be cut.

MORRIS: But for all the anger and anxiety over possible budget cuts in policy circles, in Strong City, Kan., quite a few people actually embrace those cuts.

MORRIS: Clark's Farm and Home Store (ph) is crammed⁷ with hardware, tools and mechanical parts. Jim Fritch - big, powerful-looking guy - is standing⁸ by the counter.

JIM FRITCH: They've got to make cuts somewhere. Somebody's going to get cut. Somebody's going to bleed a little bit. That's just the facts of life - but to get things back into balance.

MORRIS: Jim Fink runs this store, and he agrees.

JIM FINK: If you asked me would I rather see the money go for our water plant or to possibly try to control our borders and the security of our nation, the security of our nation is more important to me.

MORRIS: Rural communities do have their own pressing needs. Wages tend to be lower; health care, harder to find. Opioid addiction⁹ and suicide are much more common. Federal programs address rural ills but quietly enough that they can be overlooked by people historically leery of anything coming from Washington, D.C.

For NPR News, I'm Frank Morris.

(SOUNDBITE OF AARON PARKS' "NEMESIS")

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 majestic   

adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的

参考例句：

• In the distance rose the majestic Alps.远处耸立着雄伟的阿尔卑斯山。
• He looks majestic in uniform.他穿上军装显得很威风。

4 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

5 sewers   

n.阴沟，污水管，下水道( sewer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sewers discharge out at sea. 下水道的污水排入海里。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Another municipal waste problem is street runoff into storm sewers. 有关都市废水的另外一个问题是进入雨水沟的街道雨水。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

6 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

7 crammed   

adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式)

参考例句：

• He crammed eight people into his car. 他往他的车里硬塞进八个人。
• All the shelves were crammed with books. 所有的架子上都堆满了书。

8 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

9 addiction   

n.上瘾入迷，嗜好

参考例句：

• He stole money from his parents to feed his addiction.他从父母那儿偷钱以满足自己的嗜好。
• Areas of drug dealing are hellholes of addiction,poverty and murder.贩卖毒品的地区往往是吸毒上瘾、贫困和发生谋杀的地方。