There's no question that Kennedy was an utter failure as a passer of laws during his proverbial thousand days.
Our nation suffers when Congress fails to pay America's bills on time.
So that the failures to pass a civil rights bill isn't because of Black Power, isn't because of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; it's not because of the rebellions that are occurring in the major cities.
Congress does two things well: nothing and overreacting.
Memo to future presidents: Never stake your entire survival on the painful passing of a bad bill. Never take the country down the road to 'Demon Pass.'
The Obama administration is on notice - they will not be allowed to regulate what they have been unable to legislate.
I think the idea that the hedge fund manager gets lower taxes than the taxi driver or the physics professor is insane. The legislators who leave that policy in place are derelict in their duties to be rational and fair. There are plenty of them in both political parties. It's totally outrageous.
There are amendments never offered, there are bills never heard, that are basically killed because of the process.
Congress seems to be very good at doing nothing.
We'll pass it. The Senate won't do it, and we'll be left holding the bag.
Conservatives in the Senate were filibustering the bill at the time.
There is no getting around it; Congress is failing the American people.
So was it a political mistake for Obama to put so many eggs in the health-care-reform basket? Well, a negative decision from the Supreme Court will certainly make it appear so.
There is an increasingly pervasive sense not only of failure, but of futility. The legislative process has become a cruel shell game and the service system has become a bureaucratic maze, inefficient, incomprehensible, and inaccessible.
It's disgraceful that year after year, Congress has bowed to the tobacco lobby and refused to act.
Immigration reform almost happened under President George W. Bush. Twice. And it was comprehensive.
In the year of our Lord 2010, the voters of the United States elected the worst Congress in the history of the Republic. There have been Congresses more dilatory. There have been Congresses more irresponsible, though not many of them.
[The Republicans] have come up with nothing. They say repeal and replace. That has alliteration.
I've long favored smart judicial-selection reform - every member of my court does - and every legislative session, reform measures are filed... and then they fail.
No-one wants polluted air, water or land, denuded forests or extinct animal species. But the error most people make is to trust the legislature to prevent these tragedies. What they don’t realize is how big a role the legislature has played historically in causing environmental destruction.
This law was not making people drink any less, but it was making hypocrites and law breakers of a great number of people.
All legislative experiments in the way of making forcible distribution of the wealth produced in any country have failed.
I think President Trump is trying to distract the country away from the failures he's had - the inability to get a health care bill that both sides could come together on.
This [health care reform] cannot pass. What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass.
The failure of Obamacare, I think, rests solely on the shoulders of Democrats. They created the program. They pushed it through. They made this legislation happen, and they need to own the failure of it.
The House GOP continues to fail to address the real & serious issues thatthousands of families face each day.