Quotes About Washington

Washington, D.C. is what is broken, not the immigration policies. We have good laws. We have people suffer every day because of government's failure to enforce the law and be respectful to the process we have. We have a pathway to citizenship already in place.

Movies such as 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' in 1939 to 'Dave' in 1993 portray Washington leaders as the ultimate Everymen - decent people just like you and me, only thrust onto greatness.

Most political journalists come to Washington because they're snappy writers, big thinkers, or news breakers. Me? My ticket to the big leagues had little to do with talent. It was mostly about the governor I was covering, Bill Clinton.

The country has moved off track. The people in Washington don't have the hard-nosed business experience needed to get the economy up and running.

It's a sad indication of where Washington has come, where policy differences almost necessarily become questions of integrity. I came to Washington in the late '70s, and people had the ability in the past to have intense policy differences but didn't feel the need to question the other person's character.

Throughout the 40 years I've been in Washington, I've always worked hard, particularly with regards to the budget issues.

I ran for president in order to be able to try to change Washington D.C. from the inside. Our federal government is broken.

Filibusters have proliferated because under current rules just one or two determined senators can stop the Senate from functioning. Today, the mere threat of a filibuster is enough to stop a vote; senators are rarely asked to pull all-nighters like Jimmy Stewart in 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.'

Of course, the genesis of a good portion of the gridlock in Congress does not reside in Congress itself. Ultimate reform will require each of us, as voters and Americans, to take a long look in the mirror, because in many ways, our representatives in Washington reflect the people who have sent them there.

You do not need to have a 2,400-page bill come out of Washington, D.C.

Washington is still very much a male-oriented culture. Being from Los Angeles, I think it is less so there - there is less attachment to tradition, perhaps, there is more flexibility, more acceptance of change generally. That is partly because of Hollywood.

If you spend any time in Washington you'll find nerds. What happens is most of them sublimate their fixations with comics, or baseball cards, or 1960s British comedies to policy minutiae and political arcana. But, like Christians in ancient Rome, you can still spot them if you know the signals.

And again, President Obama's health care plan really is another drag on the economy. Until we get Washington out of the way, this president's recovery is going to continue to rank dead last.

I think there is a shared sense of urgency in Washington on fiscal issues.

It seems to me the Washington Monument is a symbol of America's power. It has been the symbol of our great nation. We look at the symbol and we say 'this is one nation under God.'

The past two decades revolutionized the way we access information. You and I can have our questions answered with the click of a mouse at any time of day. If America, both corporation and citizen alike, can use these services to solve problems, why can't Washington?

The strength of America is not in Washington.

Having bought furniture for my own house, and bought furniture for our house in Washington, a furniture store seemed like a good idea, and it also played into my personal history.

It's time for all of us to unite across the state of Washington to build a working Washington. Let's get to work.

We need to fix Washington, D.C. and states need to fix their sanctuary policies. That's the problem.

Hollywood has a history of raising expectations beyond Washington's reach, of appealing to the very American desire to mythologize political leaders, particularly the president.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is the most influential woman in Washington - for what she has accomplished and for what she may yet do: win the presidency.

Giving governors more leeway in administering health care could represent a small, positive development in the ongoing saga of Obamacare. Unfortunately, instead of choosing flexibility, President Obama and his left-leaning advisers always default to rigid 'Washington knows best' answers.

As you may recall, Truman was extremely unpopular when he finally left Washington in 1953, thanks largely to the Korean War. Today, however, he is thought to have been a solidly good president, a 'Near Great' even, in the terminology of those surveys of historians they do every now and then.