專四晨讀美文：President Obama Celebrates Independence Day

President Obama Celebrates Independence Day
That is the spirit we are called to show once more.
We are facing an array of challenges
on a scale unseen in our time.
We are waging two wars. We are battling a deep recession.
And our economy-and our nation itself-
are endangered by festering problems
we have kicked down the road for far too long:
spiraling health care costs, inadequate schools,
and a dependence on foreign oil.
Now is the time to lay a new foundation
for growth and prosperity.
Now is the time to revamp our education system,
demand more from teachers, parents, and students alike,
and build schools that prepare every child in America
to outcompete any worker in the world.
Now is the time to reform an unsustainable health care system
that is imposing crushing costs on families,
businesses, large and small, and state and federal budgets.
We need to protect what works, fix what's broken,
and bring down costs for all Americans.
No more talk. No more delay.
Health care reform must happen this year.
And now, is the time to meet our energy challenge-
one of the greatest challenges
we have ever confronted as a people or as a planet.
For the sake of our economy and our children,
we must build on the historic bill
passed by the House of Representatives,
and make clean energy the profitable kind of energy
so that we can end our dependence on foreign oil
and reclaim America's future.
These are some of the challenges
that our generation has been called to meet.
And yet, there are those
who would have us try what has already failed;
who would defend the status quo.
They argue that our health care system is fine the way it is
and that a clean energy economy can wait.
They say we are trying to do too much,
that we are moving too quickly,
and that we all ought to just take a deep breath
and scale back our goals.
These naysayers have short memories.
They forget that we, as a people,
did not get here by standing pat in a time of change.
We did not get here by doing what was easy.
That is not how a cluster of 13 colonies
became the United States of America.