US Presidency
2009

And they knew that when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American, when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter, that at that point we don't merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges, we lose something essential about ourselves. That was true then; it remains true today. I understand how difficult this health care debate has been. I know that many in this country are deeply skeptical that government is looking out for them. I understand that the politically safe move would be to kick the can further down the road, to defer reform one more year or one more election or one more term. But that is not what the moment calls for. That's not what we came here to do. We did not come to fear the future.