[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16456-16457]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         FINDING COMMON GROUND

  (Mr. YARMUTH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, this week at the University of Louisville's 
McConnell Center, the Speaker of the House gave a speech on the need to 
find common ground, but without compromise. We've been testing the 
wisdom of this approach all this year. Here's what we've gotten: 
stalemate, manufactured crises, and an inability to act on behalf of 
the American people.
  In a government as polarized as this, insisting on common ground 
while refusing to compromise is maybe the best way to guarantee that 90 
percent of our Nation's problems go unsolved. Not coincidentally, 
that's the same percentage of Americans who disapprove of this Congress 
and its ongoing search for a hidden, preexisting common ground.
  I encourage the Speaker to hear the people out on this. They know the 
solutions which we've already agreed are the easy ones, and they didn't 
elect us to make easy decisions. They elected us to solve difficult 
problems. In other words, to lead. Real leaders don't just look for 
common ground. They create it. Our country was formed through 
compromise and has been strengthened by it for more than 200 years. 
Until Republicans provide leadership that values results over ideology 
and economic progress over antitax pledges, this Congress will continue 
to fail America.

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