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Chicagos budget 芝加哥财政预算 AT ABOUT 8.30am on Saturday October 15th, closeto the citys former meatpacking district, one ofChicagos ancient water mains burst. As the road buckled and water gushed down alleyways, itwas a timely reminder that the modern city is built on crumbling, century-old infrastructure.Fixing the problem is not easy, as the city is awash in debt as well as water. 10月15日周六上午8:30左右，位于芝加哥前肉类加工厂附近一个老化的自来水总管道破裂，水漫金山。这适时地提醒了人们，这座现代化城市下已建成百年之久的基础设施如今正日渐破损。要解决这一问题并不容易，因为眼下芝加哥被债务淹没，就像被泡在这次大水中一样。 Only three days earlier the citys energetic new mayor, Rahm Emanuel, had presented his firstbudget. The city had looked set to produce a $640m deficit on its operating budget of $3billion. Worse still, for a decade Chicago has had significant and growing shortfalls which haveonly been plugged using creative, but one-off, fixes dreamed up by the previous mayor.These include, for example, leasing all its metered street parking for 75 yearssomething thatstill annoys the locals. 就在3天前，精力充沛的芝加哥新任市长拉姆?伊曼纽尔递交了他的首轮财政预算计划。在这份30亿美元的经营预算中，似乎肯定会产生6.4亿美元的赤字。更糟糕的是，10年来芝加哥财政赤字巨大，并且一直不断增长，上任市长曾想出一些颇具创意却治标不治本的政策填补过这一空缺，将设有收费表的路边泊车位出租长达75年之久就是一例，此补救措施直到现在都令当地居民甚为恼火。 | 
