Bush's speech on his Chicago visit_演讲_双语阅读-查字典英语网

Bush's speech on his Chicago visit

(July 8,2006)

Good morning. This week I visited the city of Chicago. In that great city, and across America, our strong and growing economy is creating jobs and delivering prosperity to more of our people.

In the Chicago area, businesses have added more than 74,000 new jobs over the past two years. And in Illinois, the unemployment rate has fallen to 4.6 percent, the lowest rate there in over 5-and-a-half years.

We have good news about our national economy, as well. On Friday, we learned that the American economy created 121,000 new jobs in June, and it has created over 5.4 million jobs since August 2003. We now have added jobs for 34 straight months, and the unemployment rate is 4.6 percent.

In the first quarter of 2006, our economy grew at an impressive annual rate of 5.6 percent. This follows our economic growth of 3.5 percent in 2005, the fastest rate of any major industrialized nation. And because taxes are low, our workers are keeping more of the money they earn.

Behind each of these positive statistics are countless stories -- stories of workers who start each day with hope because they have a job that will help them build a better life; stories of families with more money in the bank for college tuition, or a down payment on a home; stories of small business owners who know they can hire more workers and grow with confidence.