[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 1191]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   TRUTH LIES SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE

  (Mr. KRATOVIL asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KRATOVIL. Madam Speaker, I come to Congress as a career 
prosecutor, someone whose job it has been to sort through facts in 
search of the truth. In my career, I have found that usually the truth 
lies somewhere in the middle. Running for Congress gave me the 
opportunity to meet with people with divergent opinions.
  But what I found was that as differing as their opinions may have 
been, more often than not they shared the same goals for their families 
and communities. Most wanted more financial stability. They wanted to 
send their children to college, and they wanted a government that 
didn't interfere with their small business, but provided incentive and 
opportunity to grow. People agreed that a clean and healthy Chesapeake 
was vital to our region, whether they valued the bay for sport, 
commerce or tourism, and they wanted a Congress that applied oversight 
to every penny they appropriated.
  The long and short was that my constituents there were just as 
different, they shared the same goals. In my first days as a Member of 
Congress, I found the same to be true of my colleagues. I pledged to my 
constituents that I would work with both sides of the aisle in order to 
help accomplish these common goals, and that is the same promise I make 
to my colleagues. No party has a monopoly on good ideas, and, as 
always, if we work in a bipartisan manner, we will find that the truth 
is somewhere in the middle.

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