A Tale of Two Presidents

Compare and contrast:

“The one thing that we absolutely know for sure is that if we don’t work even harder than we did in 2008, then we’re going to have a government that tells the American people, ‘you are on your own,’” Obama told a crowd of 200 donors over lunch at the W Hotel.

Versus:

…the time is now to redeem promises once made to the American people, by another candidate, in another time and another place.

He said:

“For three long years I have been going up and down this country preaching that government – Federal, state and local – costs too much. I shall not stop that preaching. As an immediate program of action, we must abolish useless offices. We must eliminate unnecessary functions of government.

“We must consolidate subdivisions of government and, like the private citizen, give up luxuries which we can no longer afford.”

And then he said:

“I propose to you, my friends, and through you, that government of all kinds, big and little, be made solvent and that the example be set by the President of the United States and his Cabinet.”

That was Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s words as he accepted the Democratic nomination for President in 1932.

The time is now, my fellow Americans, to recapture our destiny, to take it into our own hands. And to do this it will take many of us, working together. I ask you tonight, all over this land, to volunteer your help in this cause so that we can carry our message through out the land.

— Ronald Reagan’s Acceptance of the Republican Nomination for President, July 17, 1980.