Christopher Shays: “I was making reference to the fact as a moderate Republican I voted for a number of programs that I have had to look at…”

“I was making reference to the fact as a moderate Republican I voted for a number of programs that I have had to look at and say in some ways what that has allowed me to do is it has allowed me to go back to some of my constituents and say, you know I care because I voted for that program. But as I have seen the program unfold, some of them, not all of them, I have had to go back and say you know, really what I have been is a caretaker and I have done something the exact opposite of what you would do for someone you love. What I started to do about 3 years ago is I asked anyone who really started up in a lower echelon economically who now is a very successful person, far more successful than I would be, and I would say, what happened? Why are you so successful? When you were there in a development, in poverty, happened to have been a minority, so you had the laws against you and so on, and you had racial prejudice; and yet you succeeded? Yet in every instance, in every instance it was, I had someone who took an interest in me, I had someone who sometimes kicked me in the butt. I had someone who did not always give me what I wanted. I had someone who did not let me get away with the excuse I do not want that because it is a dead-end job. I had someone would taught me to dream.”