[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 134-135]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         FINDING COMMON GROUND

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, Winston Churchill said:

       Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is 
     also what it takes to sit down and listen.

  I know each of my colleagues in the Senate--regardless of political 
party--has the courage to stand up and speak in defense of his or her 
principles. This year I hope we each find the courage and faith to 
listen and cooperate as well.
  The Founders, in their wisdom, when drafting our Constitution, 
created a divided government. That is what they did with this bicameral 
legislature they envisioned. They also looked to see a robust debate on 
important issues. I do not believe they envisioned the obstructionism 
and gridlock that ground the Senate to a halt last year. Influenced by 
the tea party voices, Republicans forced us to waste months on routine 
legislation, they nearly shut down our government, and they held 
hostage the full faith and credit of the United States.
  So I remind my Republican colleagues that not every discussion, every 
matter we deal with, should collapse into a fight. We do not have to 
fight about everything. Every piece of legislation we consider should 
not result in a political battle.
  When we work together, we achieve greater results for the American 
people. That is why this year Democrats and Republicans must seek 
common ground. We must also admit it when we find that common ground, 
and work on that common ground we have discovered.
  We should all be able to agree that Congress must do whatever it 
takes to help create jobs and strengthen our economy. Democrats believe 
it will take commonsense policies that protect the middle class and 
smart investments that rebuild our roads, bridges, and schools, our 
water and sewer systems.
  We must combat income inequality now or the rich will keep getting 
richer and the poor getting poorer, while the middle class disappears. 
That is not fiction; it is fact.
  I watched on public television within the past week or so a wonderful 
piece

[[Page 135]]

on ``Bill Moyers Journal.'' I was so impressed with that, I called and 
spoke with him afterwards. I am not in the habit of calling people like 
that very often, but over the years we have spoken a couple times--
three or four times probably over the many years I have been here.
  The reason I was so impressed with what he said is that it reminded 
me I think of what a lot of people should be reminded. He talked about 
going to a public elementary school, he talked about going to a public 
high school, a State-supported university, and during all this time of 
going to libraries, public libraries.
  We have to understand that government has been so helpful to most of 
us, and we cannot turn away from institutions of government which have 
been so important to us over the years.
  So I repeat, we must combat income inequality and combat it now or 
the rich will keep getting richer, the poor getting poorer, and the 
middle class being squeezed all the more. I repeat, that is not 
fiction; it is a fact.
  We Democrats will continue to defend working Americans, and we hope 
Republicans will join us in that regard. But if they allow the tea 
party to turn every issue into an all-or-nothing battle, we cannot back 
down--we should not back down--and we will always side with the middle 
class.
  We saw the results of Republican brinkmanship in December.
  I was on a--well, I will not talk about TV shows--but as soon as we 
had the vote here, I walked up to the press gallery, as I was requested 
to do, and complimented publicly my Republican colleague Senator 
McConnell--and I was happy it did get some press--because Senator 
McConnell and I made an arrangement here to complete this legislation, 
and he stuck by that. I know he had tremendous pressure, and I cannot 
understand all the pressure he did have. But I admire and appreciate 
what he did in sticking with what the Senate did. So we then refused to 
give up on a tax cut for hard-working families, and it turned out well 
because Members of Congress came to the realization that the American 
people said they could not afford a thousand-dollar tax hike. Putting 
money back in the pockets of 160 million American workers should not 
have been so difficult. It should not have been a fight in the first 
place. I hope we all learned a lesson in this battle.
  It is time for us to stop fighting. I repeat, we do not have to fight 
about everything. There comes a time--and that time is now--when we 
need to have the courage to stand up and fight for what is right.
  This year it will be as important that we summon the courage to sit 
down and listen. Rather than standing up and fighting, we need to sit 
down and listen more often.

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