William Haywood: “Really. It is the equivalent of trying to lose 50 pounds and spending all year, the first 50 weeks, losing 2 pounds, and…”

“Really. It is the equivalent of trying to lose 50 pounds and spending all year, the first 50 weeks, losing 2 pounds, and saying you are going to lose the other 48 in the final 2 weeks of the diet. Mathematically, the operation of subtraction can work when you put pencil to paper. Realistically, honestly, it does not work. It does not work. This is what is especially galling. For when one is selected to serve and take the oath of office in this Chamber, as a member of the legislative branch, and I daresay, as our Chief Executive at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, there is a sacred trust, and there is a burden, an opportunity of governance that rests upon our shoulders. How cynical it is to devise mathematical formulae which would say, oh, if I am bestowed with the trust of the American people for a second 4-year term, 2 to 3 year after I leave we will achieve this; 2 to 3 years after I give up custodianship of this role, things will come into balance. It is akin to the shortcut to house cleaning, but it is with far, far more dire results, because you can sweep a little bit under the rug. We can take those kinds of shortcuts, but what this threatens is the very structure and the very foundation of our free society. It is not the same as sweeping the dirt under the rug, but it is fundamentally being less than candid about the challenge that confronts the American people.”