“Serving in Congress is like having a second shot at high school.”

Whenever people are being intellectually dishonest in debate, it is an implicit concession they have lost the fight

Today, many people take for granted the notion that people whose lives are going to be very heavily affected by public policies should have a say in how they are formulated and carried out.

There are no moderate Republicans left, with the exception of a few who would vote with us when it doesn’t make any difference,” Frank said. “It’s the most rigid ideological party since before the Civil War. … The bumper sticker I’m going to have printed up for Democrats this year is, ‘We’re not perfect, but they’re nuts.’

These two entities—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—are not facing any kind of financial crisis.

Let us not say that we will decide on a political basis at the national level that no State is competent to regulate the practice of medicine in that State if they decide to allow a doctor to prescribe marijuana, because that is what we are talking about.

While I was pleasantly surprised by the relatively high number of jobs created in April, the fact is that job creation during this recovery period has significantly lagged both historical experience in recovery, and the projections of the Bush Administration.

When community action was put into federal law in the early sixties as part of the effort to combat poverty and social injustice, I supported it intellectually.

The problem with the war in Iraq is not so much the intelligence as the stupidity.

I hope we will not so characterize religious people as being so narrow and so biased towards people not of their own religion that they cannot even work with them in this common cause to which you say they are committed.

Before this learning experience, I had assumed that with regard to programs that sought to help people out of poverty, the political world was essentially divided into two camps: conservatives who opposed these for a variety of reasons, and liberals who supported them.

NATO was a wonderful idea. It was formed in 1949. We are as far away from NATO as NATO was when it was done in time from the presidency of Grover Cleveland.

Legislators have a formal set of responsibilities to work together, but there’s no hierarchy.

In America, unlike England, unlike Israel, unlike Japan, other democracies, we have elections that have staggered terms.

Capitalism works better from every perspective when the economic decision makers are forced to share power with those who will be affected by those decisions.

Nothing in the world is as mobile as capital. It can move anywhere in the world instantaneously.

I smoke a cigar or two a day. I did have a brownie once. It made me sleepy.

Congress, just out of the clear blue sky.

Said the airwaves belong to the people, which means, in essence, that it belongs to Congress.

If they exist, Congress needs to get them. If they’re not provided willingly, Congress should subpoena them.

We need Democrats and Republicans in Congress to work together to fashion a very comprehensive pushback to Russia, not just the cyber-hacking, but their bribery of officials in Europe, their social media campaign, their overt media campaign.

No other nation can do that the way we can, and it’s going to be very hard for Congress to do it over his opposition.

I meet with ambassadors from all countries in my role as a member of Congress, and you always have better relationships with those you actually personally get along with. That matters.

While General Howe with a Large Armament is advancing towards New York, our Congress resolved to Declare the United Colonies free and Independent States.

A Declaration for this Purpose, I expect, will this day pass Congress…It is gone so far that we must now be a free independent State, or a Conquered Country.