Q: Good morning, Mr. President [sic]. And I’m a -- student from the medical school of Sichuan University. But my question is about economy first. And as you know that the China holds about $1 trillion U.S. bonds of treasury bonds. And that much money -- actually the value is uncertain because of the downgrade of U.S. credit rating. You seem to have instilled the confidence of the U.S. financial well-being into young people today because I heard you say that the U.S. economy is really resilient. And -- but words alone cannot ease the mounting concern over the safety of China’s assets. So we would like to hear more about what measures you’re going to implement to reduce those deficits and redeem the financial strength of America.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It’s a very good question. One of the multiple rating agencies reduced our rating from AAA to -- plus -- come down one notch. And that was very disturbing and bothersome to us, and we have to deal with is.
副總統：這個問題提得很好。多家評級機構中有一家把我們的信貸評級從AAA下調了一級。這件事造成了一些困擾，對我們來說是個麻煩，我們不得不應對。

We do have a deficit that I was asked by the President to head up a commission to try to deal with that deficit. And we made some significant progress, but not the progress we could have made and will make. The bottom line is we have to deal with two elements of our economy. One is what we call entitlement programs -- long-term commitments to our people in the area of particularly Medicare. That is the safety net we have for people once they reach the age of 65 to be able to be assured that they have health care.
我們的財政確實有赤字，奧巴馬總統請我主持一個委員會來努力管理這項赤字。我們取得了一些重大進展，但還沒有取得我們本應取得和即將取得的進展。最根本的是，我們必須調整我國經濟中的兩個要素。一個是我們所說的“福利計劃”，特別是在聯邦老年醫保計劃方面向美國人民作出的長期承諾。該計劃是我們為老年人提供的醫療保障，也就是年滿65歲即可享受的醫療保險。

And it is not sustainable without some changes in large part because we had what we call a baby boom, which doesn’t sound like much to Chinese -- 40 million people is not a big deal, I know. (Laughter.) But adding 40 million people to those who will benefit from the Medicare -- Medicaid payment -- Medicare payments has put the program in a position where changes have to be made.
如果不進行某些改變，該計劃將無法持續，主要原因是我們曾經有過一個所謂的“嬰兒潮”，這一時期出生的人有4,000萬，我知道對中國人來說這不算多，沒什么大不了。（笑聲）但是，如果聯邦老年醫保計劃的受益者再增加4,000萬人，就會入不敷出，因此必須對該計劃作出改變。

It’s easy to make those changes, and we had a tentative agreement to do that between the major political leaders of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party and the administration. But there is a group within the Republican Party that is a very strong voice now that did -- wanted different changes, and so that deal fell through at the very end.
要實現這些變革并不難，共和黨和民主黨的主要領導人以及奧巴馬政府之間曾經達成一個初步協議。但共和黨內部現在有一群嗓門很大的人，他們要求作出另外的改變，因此這項交易在最后關頭夭折了。

What we ended up doing is setting up a system whereby we did cut by $1.2 trillion upfront, the deficit over the next 10 years. And we set up a group of senators that have to come up with another $1.2 to $1.7 trillion in savings or automatically there will be cuts that go into effect in January to get those savings. So the savings will be accomplished. But as I was talking to some of your leaders, you share a similar concern here in China. You have no safety net. Your policy has been one which I fully understand -- I’m not second-guessing -- of one child per family. The result being that you’re in a position where one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people. Not sustainable.
我們最后做到的是建立了一個框架，在這個框架內我們決定把今后10年的赤字初步削減1.2萬億美元。我們還成立了一個參議員小組，該小組必須提出另外削減1.2萬億至1.7萬億美元的計劃，否則明年一月削減自動生效，以省下這筆錢。因此，縮減開支的目的一定會達到。但正如我通過與你們的一些領導人談話所了解到的，你們在中國也有類似的擔憂。你們缺乏社會保障網。你們一直實行一個家庭只生一個孩子的政策——我完全理解這一政策，也不會在這里指手劃腳。但這種政策的結果是，一個賺取工薪的人將要照料四個退休的老人。這也是一種不可持續的狀況。