Raja Krishnamoorthi Quotes

We need less bipartisanship in Congress.

We have seen in Washington the worst kind of partisanship, the worst kind of gridlock. There is nothing wrong with our country. There is much wrong with our politics ….

The middle in Congress is gone now. That is where we got most things done.

I've had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should. There is much too much partisanship and not enough progress.

While I have worked hard to bring folks to the middle to craft common-sense solutions to the many problems that confront our nation, Washington is mired in gridlock, gamesmanship and constant partisan bickering.

You used to get legislation done by getting the moderates to agree. But we have no moderates now so it doesn’t get done

Overall, Congress is dysfunctional, partisan, and polarized, and it isn’t getting anything done. We need commissions to break out of divisive partisanship.

Both parties are so entrenched in their ideologies and a desire to score political points and hold on to power that we never seem to agree on a problem, much less find solutions.

Congress is unable to do the work of the American people because too many politicians believe that compromise means capitulation.

Washington has, with some justification, gained a reputation for being hopelessly mired in partisan gridlock.

I think that what is truly unfortunate is when an entire party makes a decision that they're going to block every single thing that a president wants to accomplish. It's very - it's very hard to get anything done in those circumstances.

I wouldn’t be too serious about bipartisanship. It’s a great myth that ought to be fostered. And don’t bring too damn much scholarship to bear on it. You’ll prove it out of existence if you’re not careful.

Congress, too, has changed in our time. There has grown a certain divisiveness. We have seen the hard looks and heard the statements in which not each other's ideas are challenged, but each other's motives. And our great parties have too often been far apart and untrusting of each other.

We're all tired of a Washington that has these partisan camps where nothing gets done.

We need Congress to do more than just engage in partisan games.

Politics presents few win-win situations for partisans on either side.

So the - the part of the problem is not just the rhetoric. It's the fact that we - we're so polarized in what we've done to each other as parties over the last thirty years in redistricting that it's very, very hard to overcome your own constituencies and move to the middle.

Partisan rancour and party politics and ideology have got in the way of compromise - and compromise is the only thing that has ever made politics successful.

I've never seen a constructive Social Security debate that started with one side digging in, in one place and another side digging into another.

People want divided government.

Campaigns are partisan. Governing should not be partisan.

There are some in Congress who would rather see their opponents lose than see their country win. That has got to stop…. They must find a way to put country ahead of party.

In our political system it’s easier to block action than to act.

… despite widespread popular unhappiness with the direction of national politics and a Congress with the lowest approval ratings on record, the highly partisan and deeply polarized American electorate opted collectively for the political status quo in 2012.

We [Congress] are proving inadequate not only to our most difficult problems but also to routine duties. Our national political campaigns never stop. We seem convinced that majorities exist to impose their will with few concessions and that minorities exist to prevent the party in power from doing anything important. […] That’s not how we were meant to govern. Our entire system of government — with its checks and balances, its bicameral Congress, its protections of the rights of the minority — was designed for compromise.