Infrastructure Privatization托福聽力原文翻譯及問題答案

Infrastructure Privatization托福聽力原文翻譯及問題答案

一、Infrastructure Privatization 托福聽力原文：

NARRATOR: Listen to part of a lecture in a United States government class.

FEMALE PROFESSOR: We've been talking about the basic services and facilities that an economy needs to function—roads, bridges, rail systems, water supplies, power grids, and so forth. What we call infrastructure.

Now, traditionally, much of a society’s infrastructure—particularly the transportation infrastructure—has been owned and operated by states, by governments. But lately, local and state governments have started to consider, and sometimes actually enter into various deals to privatize parts of their infrastructure, particularly in the transportation sector.

And why is this privatization happening?

Well, as you may know, in the 1950s and sixties, there was a tremendous highway-building boom. Governments created a huge interlocking network of highways with associated bridges and tunnels. But these facilities are getting old now, and they're becoming more and more expensive to maintain, very expensive, actually. Tolls and tax revenues don't often cover all the needed repairs.

MALE STUDENT: So, why don't the governments just raise tolls and taxes?

FEMALE PROFESSOR: Well, that’s not so simple. Government officials are elected by voters, and voters get upset when their taxes go up. And, as for highway tolls, commuters, especially, don’t like paying higher tolls. Merely proposing increases can damage political careers.

So there’s tremendous pressure on governments to find other ways to maintain infrastructure assets. One solution is to sell or lease a part of the infrastructure—a toll bridge, a tunnel, something like that—to a private company, usually a company that specializes in this sorta thing. The idea is that the company that buys or leases a bridge or a highway, or whatever, will find it easier to keep it in good repair.

MALE STUDENT: That would make commuters happy.

FEMALE PROFESSOR: Right. There could be better service. Since they're not government entities, private companies face less political resistance, say, to raising tolls in order to provide that better service. But besides that, there’s another reason governments like these deals. States often have trouble paying their bills, and they can use money they get from selling or leasing a piece of infrastructure to balance their budgets.

MALE STUDENT: That all sounds good to me.

FEMALE PROFESSOR: It does sound good, but a lotta people are very wary of privatizing pieces of infrastructure, and rightly so. For instance, in almost every case thus far, the first thing private companies do is drastically raise user fees because, they say: “Oh, we must do critical maintenance that's gone undone for years and years! And, because we're a private company, we can’t use tax money to do it; our only option is raising tolls.”

But what’s the impact on people who use a toll road to get to work? What if a private owner doubles or triples the toll overnight?

FEMALE STUDENT: Uh…users would hafta spend a higher percentage of their income on commuting.

FEMALE PROFESSOR: And depending on their income, that percentage could be significant.

FEMALE STUDENT: But if tolls went up…me, I'd just avoid the toll road and take smaller back roads where there aren’t any tolls.

FEMALE PROFESSOR: That’s a good point. Secondary roads would become attractive to lots of other people, too. And private companies know this. They also know that dramatic reductions in traffic would hurt their bottom line. So market forces do play a role in keeping private companies from raising their tolls too much. But the mere prospect of astronomical toll hikes is still alarming to governments when they think about selling or leasing parts of an infrastructure.

Now, from a business standpoint, infrastructure purchases can be great investments. If a company buys or gets a long-term lease on a toll bridge from the government, it's got an almost guaranteed steady source of revenue for years and years. Which means that if the company decides it wants to sell the bridge to another company, say, ten years from now, it'll have no problem finding a buyer.

FEMALE STUDENT: But, what if that buyer, this new owner continues to charge a high toll but doesn't do the same amount of maintenance because they wanna squeeze more money out of the asset?

FEMALE PROFESSOR: In that case, could the government buy the asset back? Well, to do that, it would have to raise money either by raising taxes or by selling bonds, both of which are politically sensitive. So it's unclear, in a practical sense, whether these deals are truly reversible.

二、Infrastructure Privatization 托福聽力中文翻譯：

旁白：在美國政府課堂上聽一部分演講。

女教授：我們一直在討論一個經(jīng)濟體需要的基本服務和設(shè)施，以實現(xiàn)道路、橋梁、鐵路系統(tǒng)、供水、電網(wǎng)等功能。我們稱之為基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施。

現(xiàn)在，傳統(tǒng)上，一個社會的大部分基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施，尤其是交通基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施，都是由國家和政府擁有和運營的。但最近，地方和州政府開始考慮，有時甚至實際達成各種協(xié)議，將其部分基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施私有化，特別是在運輸部門。

為什么要進行私有化？

你可能知道，在20世紀五六十年代，公路建設(shè)出現(xiàn)了巨大的熱潮。各國政府建立了一個龐大的高速公路聯(lián)鎖網(wǎng)絡(luò)，并修建了相關(guān)橋梁和隧道。但這些設(shè)施現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)很舊了，維護費用也越來越高，實際上非常昂貴。通行費和稅收通常不能覆蓋所有需要的維修。

男學生：那么，為什么政府不提高通行費和稅收呢？

女教授：嗯，這可不是那么簡單。政府官員是由選民選舉產(chǎn)生的，當他們的稅收增加時，選民會感到不安。而且，對于高速公路通行費，通勤者尤其不喜歡支付更高的通行費。僅僅提出加薪可能會損害政治生涯。

因此，政府面臨著巨大的壓力，需要找到其他方式來維護基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施資產(chǎn)。一種解決方案是將基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施的一部分——收費橋、隧道等——出售或租賃給私人公司，通常是專門從事這類業(yè)務的公司。這樣做的目的是，購買或租賃橋梁或高速公路或其他任何東西的公司會發(fā)現(xiàn)更容易保持良好的維修狀態(tài)。

男學生：那會讓通勤者高興的。

女教授：對?？赡軙懈玫姆?。由于它們不是政府實體，私營公司面臨的政治阻力較小，比如，為了提供更好的服務而提高通行費。但除此之外，政府喜歡這些交易還有另一個原因。各州經(jīng)常難以支付賬單，他們可以利用出售或租賃基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施所獲得的資金來平衡預算。

男學生：聽起來不錯。

女教授：聽起來不錯，但很多人對基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施的私有化非常謹慎，這是正確的。例如，到目前為止，在幾乎所有情況下，私營公司做的第一件事就是大幅提高用戶費用，因為他們說：“哦，我們必須做多年來一直沒有完成的關(guān)鍵維護！而且，因為我們是私營公司，我們不能用稅收來做這件事；我們唯一的選擇是提高通行費?！?/p>

但對使用收費公路上班的人有什么影響？如果一個私人業(yè)主一夜之間將通行費增加一倍或三倍呢？

女學生：嗯……用戶會花更多的收入用于通勤。

女教授：根據(jù)他們的收入，這個比例可能會很大。

女學生：但是如果通行費上漲了……我，我會避開收費公路，走沒有通行費的小徑。

女教授：這是一個很好的觀點。二級公路也會吸引很多其他人。私營公司也知道這一點。他們也知道，流量的大幅減少會損害他們的底線。因此，市場力量確實在阻止私營公司過度加價方面發(fā)揮了作用。但是，當政府考慮出售或租賃部分基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施時，僅僅是大幅提高收費的前景仍然讓他們感到擔憂。

現(xiàn)在，從商業(yè)角度來看，購買基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施可能是一項巨大的投資。如果一家公司從政府那里購買或獲得一座收費橋的長期租賃，那么多年來它幾乎可以保證穩(wěn)定的收入來源。這意味著，如果該公司決定將橋梁出售給另一家公司，比如說，十年后，它將很容易找到買家。

女學生：但是，如果買主，這個新主人繼續(xù)收取高額費用，但不做同樣數(shù)量的維護，因為他們想從資產(chǎn)中榨取更多的錢，那該怎么辦？

女教授：那樣的話，政府能買回資產(chǎn)嗎？要做到這一點，它必須通過增稅或出售債券來籌集資金，這兩種方式都是政治敏感的。因此，從實際意義上講，尚不清楚這些交易是否真的是可逆的。

三、Infrastructure Privatization 托福聽力問題：

Q1:1.What issue does the professor mainly discuss?

A. Government purchases of private property to expand transportation routes

B. The rising cost of public transportation in the United States

C. The transfer of certain public assets to for-profit companies

D. Whether voters can be persuaded to approve toll increases

Q2:2.Why does the professor mention highway construction that took place during the 1950s and 1960s?

A. To point out changes in voter attitudes toward toll and tax increases

B. To suggest that mistakes were made when the highway system was built

C. To explain why traffic congestion is not as bad as it used to be

D. To make a point about the current need for infrastructure repairs

Q3:3.According to the professor, why do governments consider selling or leasing pieces of infrastructure? [Click on 2 answers.]

A. Governments often have difficulty balancing their general budgets.

B. The money that governments receive from user fees has gone down in recent years.

C. Political considerations limit governments' ability to raise money for maintenance.

D. Private companies are better able to estimate the cost of infrastructure repairs.

Q4:4.What does the professor imply about some people' s concerns over privatizing parts of an infrastructure?

A. Their concerns are likely to diminish in the future.

B. Their concerns are completely justified.

C. Their concerns suggest that voters need better information.

D. Their concerns have mostly been disregarded by governments.

Q5:5.What does the professor imply about secondary roads?

A. Their availability tends to limit toll increases on major highways.

B. They can be more expensive to repair than major highways are.

C. Increasing numbers of them are becoming toll roads.

D. Commuters are attracted to them for their scenic qualities.

Q6:6.According to the professor, what is likely to happen when a bridge provides steady revenue for a private company?

A. The bridge will be well maintained in the long term.

B. The company will not raise tolls.

C. Other companies will be interested in buying the bridge.

D. Voters will pressure the government to buy back the bridge.

四、Infrastructure Privatization 托福聽力答案：

A1:正確答案：C

A2:正確答案：D

A3:正確答案：AC

A4:正確答案：B

A5:正確答案：A

A6:正確答案：C

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