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With the Roosevelt revolution, a specific respon sibility was assumed by the government for the least fortunate people in the republic. Roosevelt and the presidents who followed him accepted a substantial measure of responsibility for the old through Social Security, for the unemployed through unemployment insurance, for the unem ployable and the handicapped through direct relief, and for the sick throu Medicare and Medicaid. This was truly great change, and for a time, the age-old tendency to avoid thinking about the poor gave way to the feeling that we didn't need to try-that we were, indeed, doing something about them.
隨著羅斯福的改革在共和政體里政府承擔起對最不幸的人給予救助的具體責任。羅斯福及隨后的幾任總統都在很大程度上肩負起責任，采取了一些措施，比如老年醫療保健制度、為失業者提供失業保險、給無法就業者和殘疾人直接救濟，并給病人提供政府醫保健制度等。這的確是一項重大的變革。在這段時間里，人們可以不必再苦苦尋求不為窮人的存在而感到內疚的方案，取而代之的感受是我們確實在為幫助窮人做著一些事。
In recent years, however, it has become clear that the search for a way of getting the poor off our conscience was not at an end; it was only suspended. And so we are now again engaged in this search in a highly energetic way. It has again become a major philosophical, literary, and rhetorical preoccupation, and an economically not unrewarding enterprise.
然而，最近幾年，很顯然我們又在試圖尋求不為窮人的存在而內疚的辦法，這種嘗試并沒有結束，而只是曾經中斷過一段時間。于是現在我們又一次以高昂的熱情投入尋找新的方案的嘗試中。這種探求再一次成為哲學家、文學家、演說家們收入不菲的一個重要行業。
Of the four, maybe five, current designs we have to get the poor off our conscience, the first proceeds from the inescapable fact that most of the things that must be done on behalf of the poor must be done in one way or another by the government. It is then argued that the government is inherently incompetent, except as regards weapons design and procurement and the overall management of the Pentagon. Being incompetent and ineffective, it must not be asked to succor the poor; it will only louse things up or make things worse.
在目前的四五種解決方案中，第一種方案源于一個無法逃避的事實，即大多數為幫助窮人而必須采取的措施都必須由政府以某種方式來完成。它接著指出，除了武器的設計和采購以及五角大樓的整體管理之外，政府天生就是無能的。既然政府無能又缺乏有效措施，就無法指望它來幫助窮人，否則它只會無事生非或使事情變得更糟。
The allegation of government incompetence is associated in our time with the general condemnation of the bureaucrat-again excluding those associated with national defense. The only form of discrimination that is still permissible-that is, still officially encouraged in the United States today-is discrimination against people who work for the federal government, especially on social welfare activities.
在我們這個時代，對政府無能的指責與對官僚的普遍譴責聯系在一起—同樣與國防有關的人士又不在此列。目前唯一一種被允許的歧視形式——如今美國仍受到官方鼓勵的歧視形式是對為聯邦政府工作的人，特別是致力于社會福利事業的人的歧視。
