Political Quotes

“one of the untold and unspoken-about crises facing this country is that in many respects we are losing our democratic traditions. As you know, France recently had an election, and 80 percent of the people voted in that election. We are going to have an election in November, and the estimate is that 35, 36 percent of the American people are going to vote in our election. And, in fact, we end up having by far the lowest voter turnout of any industrialized and major nation on earth. What makes the situation even scarier is that as low as the voter turnout in general is, it is especially low among young people, people 25 years of age or younger. And the estimates are that about 80 percent of those people do not vote. And what sociologists tell us that as these people get older, they are less likely to vote, which means the voter turnout will go down and down and down. And it is not just voter turnout, Mr. Speaker, it is that poll after poll shows that millions of Americans do not know how government functions, do not know anything about the major issues facing our country, and I think that this is a very scary situation.”