Detroit Aid Gets Tepid Support in Poll
美国人对动用联邦资金救助底特律汽车厂商的计划没有踊跃支持；这种温吞吞的态度也反映在国会中，紧急贷款议案在国会虽有赞同者但也鲜有力挺者。
The idea of providing federal aid to Detroit's auto makers has tepid support from Americans, mirroring the situation in Congress, where the emergency loans have backers but few champions.
根据《华尔街日报》/全国广播公司新闻网新近进行的一项调查，有46%的受访者赞同向底特律提供救助，42%的人反对。调查误差率为上下3个百分点。
According to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 46% approve of giving aid to Detroit, compared with 42% who disapprove. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.
不过，赞同救助汽车厂商的人要远远多于7,000亿美元金融救助计划的支持者，后者的支持率较两个月前大幅下降。此次调查中，有半数的受访者反对政府救助金融行业。
Support for U.S. car makers is far greater than that for the government's $700 billion plan to aid the financial industry, which has slumped from just two months ago. Half of respondents in the latest poll disapproved of the financial-industry rescue.
底特律救助计划招致的众怒大体上少于金融服务业救助计划。底特律救助计划目前商议的金额是340亿美元，比金融救助计划的金额要少得多。而且，议员们和汽车厂商也一直宣称救助汽车业是为了保住蓝领工人而不是华尔街巨头的工作岗位。
The Detroit rescue plan has drawn less ire in general than its financial-services predecessor. The dollar amount in question, $34 billion, is far smaller. And the car-industry bailout has been cast by lawmakers and the companies themselves as a move to save blue-collar jobs rather than Wall Street titans.
此次调查是12月5日至8日进行的，当时通用汽车(General Motors)、福特汽车(Ford Motor)和克莱斯勒(Chrysler LLC)的老板们正在国会接受第二轮拷问。
The poll was conducted Dec. 5-8, as the chief executives of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC endured a second round of grilling on Capitol Hill.
最初对金融业救助计划持反对态度的人比例比现在反对汽车救助的人比例还低，在10月初的调查中，只有38%的受访者持反对态度，但他们的声势却大得多。左翼和右翼组织均炮轰救助议案，向国会议员发送大量邮件，还在主要城市组织抗议活动。
The initial opposition to the financial-sector bailout was actually smaller -- 38% disapproved in an early October poll -- but it was much more vocal. Groups on the left and the right blasted the proposal, deluging members of Congress with letters and orchestrating protests in major cities.
但在救助汽车业的问题上，议员们接到来自他们选区选民的反应较少，无论是赞同还是反对的都是如此。印第安纳州民主党众议员卡森(Andre Carson)的办公室表示，卡森已经收到了与此有关的约600封信件和电邮以及30个电话。相比之下，在国会审议问题资产救助计划(TARP)的时候，他收到了2,000封信件和电邮。
But representatives are seeing less of a constituent response either for or against the auto-industry bailout. Rep. Andre Carson (D., Ind.) has received about 600 letters and emails, and 30 phone calls, his office said. When Congress was considering passing the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, as the financial bailout is called, he received 2,000 e-mails and letters.
甚至来自可能受益于汽车救助计划的底特律地区的众议员麦考特(Thaddeus McCotter)的办公室也表示，他每天平均只接到200个电话，而TARP计划争论时期他每天要接到1,000多个电话。
Even Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, whose Detroit-area district would benefit from the auto bailout, has received an average of 200 calls per day, compared with more than 1,000 calls per day during the TARP debate, his office said.
负责此次调查的哈特研究所（Hart Research）民调专家坎贝尔(Jay Campbell)表示，本质上对公众而言，金融行业救助计划就像是缺乏监管的暗箱操作。虽然公众可能对汽车业感到不满，但他们绝对不希望汽车业就此崩溃。
'Essentially, to the public, the bailout of the financial industry comes off as something that happened in the dead of night with no oversight,' said Jay Campbell, a pollster at Hart Research who conducted the poll. 'While people may be angry at the auto industry, they've never had any desire for them to fail.'
此前积极抗议金融业救助计划的一些组织现在也置身事外。左翼活动组织“美国行动”（USAction）此前在华尔街组织了一次游行，抗议政府救助金融业。该组织发言人艾略特(David Elliot)表示，他们目前没有鲜明反对救助底特律，部分原因是经济形势变得越来越黯淡，也是因为他们相信奥巴马政府和民主党国会能够解决经济问题。
Some of the groups active in protesting the financial-services bailout are sitting this fight out. USAction, a left-wing activist group, sponsored a march on Wall Street to protest a financial-industry rescue. The group isn't actively opposing the Detroit bailout, partly because the news about the economy has become gloomier, and partly because it trusts an Obama administration and a Democratic Congress with the economy, spokesman David Elliot said.
不过对底特律的反感也快浮出水面了。亚利桑那州住房建筑商Golden Star Properties的创始人约瑟夫?史密斯(Joseph Smith)表示，自己公司的业务已经显著下滑；之所以能够坚持下来，是因为公司负债较低，相对而言很少涉足投机地产，业务支出较为保守。他说，我为那些可能失业的人感到难过。但我所在的行业正在经历洗牌，汽车业也需要这么做。
But antipathy toward Detroit isn't far from the surface. Joseph Smith, founder of Golden Star Properties, a custom home builder in Tucson, Ariz., has seen a dramatic slowdown in business. He has stayed afloat, he said, thanks to a low debt load, comparatively few speculative properties and old-fashioned penny-pinching. 'I feel sorry for the people who would lose their jobs,' Mr. Smith said. 'But my industry is going through a shakeout, and the auto industry needs to do it, too.'
Easha Anand
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