美国有线新闻 CNN 2012-11-13

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号：tingroom，领取免费英语资料大礼包。

 

That organization, CIA will be getting a new director, because the previous one resigned. On Friday, Director David Petraeus turned in his resignation and admitted to cheating on his wife. This all started with a FBI investigation¹ in the emails being sent by the woman who wrote Petraeus's biography. The investigation turned up other emails that revealed the CIA director's affair.

Some congressional leaders both Democrats² and Republicans have raised questions about why they weren't told about the investigations³ sooner. Since it could have had an impact on national security.

 

The name David Petraeus might be familiar to you, at different times, he was the commander of the U.S forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He became CIA director in September last year after he officially left the military.

I'm Jonathan Mann with another political Jargon⁴ Buster. What is the fiscal⁵ cliff? In short term for the potential economic disaster, that's facing Washington. In real terms, it's the seven trillion dollars in spending cuts and tax increases, scheduled to go into effect at the begining of the January.

 

President and members of the Congress set the deadline themselves last year after they failed to agree on how to reduce the U.S debt. Now time is almost up, Democrats and Republicans remain fall apart on a deal that would reduce the deficit⁶, reform the tax system and U.S entitlement programs like social security, medicare and medicate. Analysts⁷ warn if there is no agreement, it could cripple the U.S economy and drive up unemployment. Will the political stand off turn into an economic disaster. U.S politicians hope to avoid running off, now, fiscal cliff.

 

As they work to avoid running off that cliff, one of the other things that politicians will focus on is how much money Americans pay in tax. For anyone making less than 250,000 dollars a year, Republicans and Democrats want the tax rate to stay the same, to stay where they are. When it comes to those who make more than 250,000 dollars, president Obama says they should pay more in taxes. Republican leaders like House speaker John Bayner say they don't want anyone's taxes to go up.

 

"Education is a fundamental social man right. It is a pathway to development, tolerance⁸, and grow by citizenship⁹. Join us in our campaign to put education first, for Malala and girls and boys throughout the world."

分享到：