Political Quotes

“I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the column that has been referred to, the Charles Krauthammer column from this morning's Washington Post called ``The Great Divide.'' There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: [From the Washington Post, July 29, 2011] (By Charles Krauthammer) The Great Divide We're in the midst of a great four-year national debate on the size and reach of government, the future of the welfare state, indeed, the nature of the social contract between citizen and state. The distinctive visions of the two parties--social-democratic vs. limited-government--have underlain every debate on every issue since Barack Obama's inauguration: the stimulus, the auto bailouts, health-care reform, financial regulation, deficit spending. Everything. The debt ceiling is but the latest focus of this fundamental divide. The sausage-making may be unsightly, but the problem is not that Washington is broken, that ridiculous ubiquitous cliche. The problem is that these two visions are in competition, and the definitive popular verdict has not yet been rendered. We're only at the midpoint Obama won a great victory in 2008 that he took as a mandate to transform America toward European-style social democracy The subsequent counterrevolution delivered to that project a staggering rebuke in November 2010. Under our incremental system, however, a rebuke delivered is not a mandate conferred.…”