奧巴馬8年前才還清助學貸款：我不是高帥富

　　President Barack Obama, courting young voters crucial to his reelection, told a rowdy college-age crowd at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Tuesday that he knows first-hand about the burden of student loans because he only managed to pay his back a scant eight years ago。

　　美國總統巴拉克·奧巴馬星期二造訪北卡羅來納大學教堂山分校， 向年輕選民示意他們對于他的連任大選來說很重要。奧巴馬坦言，他自己也親身體驗過助學貸款的負擔，因為他自己是在8年前菜還清助學貸款。

　　"Michelle and I, we've been in your shoes," Obama, who turns 51 in August, told a cheering, capacity crowd of 8,000 at Carmichael Arena。

　　“米歇爾和我也經歷過你們正在經歷的壓力。” 他在可容納8,000人的卡米高競技場向大家坦言道，今天8月奧巴馬將迎來50歲生日。

　　"Check this out, all right. I'm the president of the United States. We only finished paying off our student loans off about eight years ago. That wasn't that long ago. And that wasn't easy--especially because when we had Malia and Sasha, we're supposed to be saving up for their college educations, and we're still paying off our college educations," he said。

　　“你們可能不太相信。雖然現在我是美國總統，但我們也是8年前才還清了助學貸款，并沒有太久。還款這件事真是不容易，尤其是當我們有了女兒馬莉亞和薩沙以后，我們本來應該為她們存出大學經費，而我們仍要償還著我們讀大學時的費用。”他說。

　　The president's emphasis on his modest upbringing seemed designed to invite comparisons to presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney. The White House has denied specifically targeting the multi-millionaire financier with such attacks even as the Obama campaign has pointedly attacked Romney's personal finances。

　　總統著重突出了他的平民出身，與共和黨的總統候選人米特·羅姆尼劃清界限。白宮已經明確否定了這些言論是針對這位身價億萬的金融家，不過羅姆尼的個人財務狀況的確是奧巴馬的競選團隊的攻擊目標。

　　Obama's stop in North Carolina was the first on a two-day, campaign-style swing through battleground states to reengage young voters who powered his historic 2008 campaign but seem less enthused about the 2012 election. His chief policy message was an appeal for Congress to pass legislation to stop interest rates on a popular student loan from doubling July 1 from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent。

　　在奧巴馬這次為期兩天的競選活動中，北卡羅來納大學是首站，意在重新留住年輕選民。這批年輕選民曾在奧巴馬具有歷史意義的2008年總統大選中發揮了重要作用，但他們對2012年大選的熱情似乎減弱了很多。美國教育部將從7月1日起將直接助學貸款的利率提高到6.8%，奧巴馬的競選主張之一就是呼吁利息維持在3.4%的低水平。

　　"We didn't come from wealthy families. When we graduated from college and law school we had a mountain of debt. When we married, we got poor together. We added up our assets and there were no assets. And we added up our liabilities and there were lot of liabilities—basically in the form of student loans," Obama said of himself and Michelle Obama。

　　“我們的家庭并不富裕。當我們從大學和法學院畢業的時候，我們債臺高筑。當我們結婚后，我們倆一起成窮人了。我們估算資產，發現一無所剩；但當我們清算債務時，卻發現在哦看哦欠了很多很多債--基本上是助學貸款。”奧巴馬說的是他自己和他夫人米歇爾。

　　The president said he and his wife paid more on their student loans than they did on the mortgage on their condo during their first eight years of marriage。

　　總統說，在他們結婚后的八年時間里，比起支付在按揭貸款上的費用，他們的錢更多地用來償還助學貸款。

　　The Republican National Committee and the Romney campaign had struck preemptively at Obama's message even before he had left the Beltway, holding conference calls to underscore young workers' struggles in the three years since he took office。

　　不過早在奧巴馬離開華盛頓前，共和黨全國委員會和米特·羅姆尼競選團隊已經先發制人地抨擊了奧巴馬的言論，共和黨強調在奧巴馬就職以來的三年多里，青年工人過得十分艱辛。

　　"He forgot to mention that he failed to address student loans the past three and a half years and skipped a vote in the Senate on the very same issue. In his speech he said, 'it requires not just words but deeds.' We tend to agree," RNC spokeswoman Kristen Kukowski said after the president's speech。

　　“他忘了提在過去的三年半時間里，他未能解決助學貸款問題，而且跳過了一個助學貸款議題的投票表決。他在演講中說‘這不只只是說說而已，更要有行動。’ 我們也同意。”共和黨全國委員會女發言人克莉絲汀·庫考斯基在總統發表演講后說。