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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.
随着罗斯福的改革在共和政体里政府承担起对最不幸的人给予救助的具体责任。罗斯福及随后的几任总统都在很大程度上肩负起责任，采取了一些措施，比如老年医疗保健制度、为失业者提供失业保险、给无法就业者和残疾人直接救济，并给病人提供政府医保健制度等。这的确是一项重大的变革。在这段时间里，人们可以不必再苦苦寻求不为穷人的存在而感到内疚的方案，取而代之的感受是我们确实在为帮助穷人做着一些事。
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，最近几年，很显然我们又在试图寻求不为穷人的存在而内疚的办法，这种尝试并没有结束，而只是曾经中断过一段时间。于是现在我们又一次以高昂的热情投入寻找新的方案的尝试中。这种探求再一次成为哲学家、文学家、演说家们收入不菲的一个重要行业。
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.
在目前的四五种解决方案中，第一种方案源于一个无法逃避的事实，即大多数为帮助穷人而必须采取的措施都必须由政府以某种方式来完成。它接着指出，除了武器的设计和采购以及五角大楼的整体管理之外，政府天生就是无能的。既然政府无能又缺乏有效措施，就无法指望它来帮助穷人，否则它只会无事生非或使事情变得更糟。
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.
在我们这个时代，对政府无能的指责与对官僚的普遍谴责联系在一起—同样与国防有关的人士又不在此列。目前唯一一种被允许的歧视形式——如今美国仍受到官方鼓励的歧视形式是对为联邦政府工作的人，特别是致力于社会福利事业的人的歧视。
