You know, we have three branches of government. We have a House. We have a Senate. We have a President.
Chuck Schumer
There are two tests in life, more important than any other test. On Monday morning, when you wake up, do you feel in the pit of your stomach you can't wait to go to work? And when you're ready to go home Friday afternoon, do you say, 'I can't wait to go home?'
Anyone who thinks they have a monopoly on truth, and there is only one way to see the world, always gets us into trouble.
The Internet in the 21st Century is as important to our future as highways were in the 20th Century. Like a highway, the Internet must remain free and open for all - not determined by the highest bidders.
Democrats don't relate to middle-class people.
We are on the precipice of a crisis, a Constitutional crisis. The checks and balances, which have been at the core of this Republic, are about to be evaporated by the nuclear option. The checks and balances that say if you get 51% of the vote, you don't get your way 100% of the time. It is amazing, it's almost a temper tantrum.
Barack Obama knows that to create an economy built to last, we need to focus on middle-class families. Families who stay up on Sunday nights pacing the floor, like my dad did, while their children, tucked in bed, dream big dreams. Families who aren't sure what Monday morning will bring, but who believe our nation's best days are still ahead.
I think teaching should be an exalted profession, not a picked-on profession.
In a brave new world, a post-September 11 world, anyone is going to make certain mistakes. The mistakes that have been made on homeland security, on protecting our Nation from another terrorist attack, are mistakes of omission. We are simply not doing enough.
When someone takes a private photo, on a private cell phone, it should remain just that: private.
I went to the public schools myself. And they were great for me.
In today's competitive economy, to stand still is to die.
But I don't think the Democratic Party is at eye level with the middle class.
You have to walk in the other guy's moccasins. You have to think what they think. If you want to bring somebody onto your side, you have to figure out what motivates them. What do they need?
Giving up even an ounce of precious freedom is a very serious thing to do.
You have to show Israel that it's not going to be forced to do things it doesn't want to do and can't do.
What the public hates the most is when they think the politicians aren't listening to them. They understand that we can't solve all their problems with a snap of our fingers, but they sure want us to try because we are public servants.
America is a place where we all come together. It is a place of consensus.
The vast majority of the people employed by Wall Street are the secretary who goes in to work on the Long Island Rail Road, who makes fifty, sixty, seventy thousand dollars a year.
I'm strongly for a patient Bill of Rights. Decisions ought to be made by doctors, not accountants.
Well, I think it's too early to call Fallujah a failure.
When Mitt Romney says he wants to reform the tax code, hold on to your wallets. We know Mitt Romney never met a tax haven he didn't like. But his new favorite tax haven is actually not the Cayman Islands - its Paul Ryan's budget.
Let me say this, to all of the chattering class that so much focuses on those little tiny, yes, porky amendments - the American people really don't care.
We need to make sure middle-class people are able to pay the bills. We need to make sure that poor people don't starve. Those are values, too.
The Tea Party people are ideologues. They are right, and no one can change their minds. There is no reason for compromise.
So I want my kids to go to public schools because I think it's a better education overall.
We tend to talk, Democrats, as a party, in legislative terms.
Do not let arguments of expediency persuade you. That is the slow road to oblivion. That is the tortured path to undoing step by step, bit by bit, as the river creates a canyon, the way of life that we love.
It is essential that all Americans take the time to honor and remember those individuals who gave their lives in defense of our liberty.
Whether you are a Democrat or Republican, whether you are a liberal or a conservative, we know that neither this President nor prior Presidents of both parties did everything right or we would not have had a 9/11.
A devastating commentary on the war in Iraq is that we have been unable to spend money on infrastructure.
To those like Mitt Romney who want to take us backwards, let's send a strong message in November: as we say in Brooklyn, 'Fuhgeddaboutit.'
My father, Abe, was a small businessman. For 32 years, he ran an exterminating company. That may explain why our family always associated the smell of roach spray with love.
I think it's a little insulting, a bit insulting to American workers when Rand Paul says that unemployment insurance is a disservice.
When one has success, the answer is not to undo that success. It is to continue what has been done.
As long as the Palestinians send terrorists onto school buses and to nightclubs to blow up people, Israel has no choice but to build the fence.
I respect people who feel things passionately. I do. But when someone is a judge, that is not what they should bring to the bench. It is not really passion, except in rare instances, that serves the bench well. It is, rather, an ability to understand the law and follow it.
Everyone has a hole inside themselves. They don't know they had it until they have kids, and then that hole fills up. And it's so great; it's just God's greatest gift to us.
Voters did say 'repeal health care', they did say 'reduce the size of government.' But not a single one of them from the tea party or anywhere said 'give tax breaks to the wealthiest.'
I told the President, I told Rahm Emanuel and others in the administration that I thought the policy they took to try to bring about negotiations is counter-productive, because when you give the Palestinians hope that the United States will do its negotiating for them, they are not going to sit down and talk.
I made education the highest priority of my campaign - actually education and jobs - and the reason is a simple one: I think the future of America depends on it.
Mitt Romney would move the Court even further right, putting landmark decisions like Roe v. Wade at risk. Some say Romney would repeat the past. I disagree - he'd be worse.
Inaction is perhaps the greatest mistake of all.
Wall Street excesses helped lead to the Great Recession.
If we are going to stay a great power and I hope and pray we will we need the truth. We need to know what is going right and we need to know what is going wrong. There is no greater time than now.
Most of the people I meet who are on unemployment are people who have had jobs for 25 years, lost them; they've been knocking on doors every week.
The bottom line is there are lots of problems that were not created by government. The biggest one is loss of middle class incomes, loss of good-paying jobs which was created by technology and globalization. Above all, when you can move a job to China or India, it reduces wages.
When Republicans say, 'The first thing you do when you do deficit reduction is reduce rates,' it would be like Democrats saying, 'The first thing you do when you do deficit reduction is provide free Medicare at age 55.' We'd like to do that! But it won't bring the deficit down. That's for sure.
Soft money will find its way and seep into the political system and corrode it, unless we plug every hole.
We certainly want those at the top to do well, but if you base your entire presidency and your entire economic platform on helping them do even better, you're missing what makes the economy tick. Because not everyone has been as fortunate as Mitt Romney, you cannot base your whole approach on a life experience as rarified as his.
