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  3. In 1910, Henry Van Dyke wrote a book called The Spirit of America, which opened with this sentence: " The Spirit of America is b

In 1910, Henry Van Dyke wrote a book called The Spirit of America, which opened with this sentence: " The Spirit of America is b

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问题     In 1910, Henry Van Dyke wrote a book called The Spirit of America, which opened with this sentence: " The Spirit of America is best known in Europe by one of its qualities— energy. " This has always been true. Americans have always been known for their manic dynamism. Some condemned this ambition as a scrambling after money. Others saw it in loftier terms. But energy has always been the country’ s saving feature.
    So Americans should be especially alert to signs that the country is becoming less vital and assiduous. One of those signs comes to us from the labor market. According to figures from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States has a smaller share of prime age men in the work force than any other G-7 nation.
    Part of the problem has to do with human capital. More American men lack the emotional and professional skills they would need to contribute. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 35 percent of those without a high school diploma are out of the labor force, compared with less than 10 percent of those with a college degree. Part of the problem has to do with structural changes in the economy. Sectors like government, health care and high-tech have been growing, generating jobs for college grads. Sectors like manufacturing, agriculture and energy have been getting more productive, but they have not been generating more jobs. Instead, companies are using machines or foreign workers.
    The result is this: There are probably more idle men now than at any time since the Great Depression, and this time the problem is mostly structural, not cyclical. This is a big problem. It can’ t be addressed through the sort of short-term Keynesian stimulus some on the left are still fantasizing about. It can ’ t be solved by simply reducing the size of government, as some on the right imagine.
    It will probably require a broad menu of policies attacking the problem all at once: expanding community colleges and online learning; changing the corporate tax code and labor market rules to stimulate investment; adopting German-style labor market practices like apprenticeship programs, wage subsidies and programs that extend benefits to the unemployed for six months as they start small businesses.
    Reinvigorating the missing fifth—bringing them back into the labor market and using their capabilities—will certainly require money. If this were a smart country, we’ d be having a debate about how to shift money from programs that provide comfort and toward programs that spark reinvigoration.
    But, of course, that’ s not what is happening. Discretionary spending, which might be used to instigate dynamism, is declining. Health care spending, which mostly provides comfort to those beyond working years, is expanding. Attempts to take money from health care to open it up for other uses are being crushed. We’ re locking in the nation’ s wealth into the Medicare program and closing off any possibility that we might do something significant to reinvigorate the missing fifth. Next time you see a politician demagoguing Medicare, ask this: Should we be using our resources in the manner of a nation in decline or one still committed to stoking the energy of its people and continuing its rise?
It can be inferred from last two paragraphs that the author doubts about______.
选项 A、the rationality of capital allocation of government
B、the feasibility of invigorating labor market
C、the effectiveness of medicare programs
D、the possibility of reversing US downward trend
答案A
解析 本题考查对文章最后两段内容的理解。文章最后两段作者笔锋一转，谈到了美国医疗改革的问题。之所以提到医疗改革问题，是因为作者认为美国政府在资金分配方面出现了问题，本该用在提高年轻人就业率方面的资金现在都被用到了改善美国人生活水平的医疗领域，这无助于美国社会的经济复苏。据此可知[A]选项正确。[C]选项利用medicare设置干扰项。[B]选项利用invigorate一词设置干扰项。[D]选项无中生有。
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