Compromise Failure Quotes
In the early years of the Obama Administration, the minority leader of the Senate declared that the object of the Republicans in the Senate was to prevent Obama from being reelected. Therefore, the Republicans used the filibuster to block virtually all legislation. In 2010, the Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives and would not pass any legislation that the President favored lest he get credit for accomplishing something. It had gotten so bad, that even when the President proposed Republican ideas about which everyone agreed, that too was blocked.
Labeling an initiative a “war” has generally been mistake for the reason suggested in this quotation. The American public expectation is that wars, once begun, must be won! Not compromised.
At the time many of the Republicans wanted to solve the deficit by cutting non-defense and non-homeland security spending only and was opposed to any increase of taxes or any closing of tax loopholes despite the fact that taxes were at the lowest rate that they had been since before the Second World War. The Democrats wanted to increase taxes for the most wealthy Americans by repealing the tax cuts for the wealthy that the George W. Bush administration passed. They were willing to cut spending for the military but did not want to cut services for poor and middle class people—especially Medicare and Medicaid. The public was calling for a compromise and some Republican leaders said that they would agree to cutting a little less than they had originally insisted upon, but would not budget on repealing the tax cuts for the wealthy or in closing tax loopholes for corporations. This triggered the Clinton’s statement. While this quotation was an accurate description for Republican behavior at the time, historically it was not typical of Republicans before that time when the Republican and Democrat view of compromise
