Bill Shuster Quotes

Barbara Boxer is the most bitterly partisan, most anti-defense senator in the United States Senate today. I know that because I've had the unpleasant experience of having to serve with her.

Our adversaries - our Democratic adversaries - like to be able to portray the Republican Party as a bunch of wingnuts - narrow based, always have some agenda that's not attractive to the public... That's easier for them, and more fun, than dealing with their own problems. And I think their problems are significant.

Even with the approach that I take in Congress, which is to bring people together to get things done - many people describe that as 'reasonable' - I couldn't vote for John Boehner's re-elect.

Jon Tester's priorities are with the liberal, extreme minority of Democrats in the Senate unwilling to compromise. He does not have Montana's best interests in mind. He has failed to represent Montanans.

There is no question that the minority party always makes a sport of going after the governor.

The argument most commonly made in the filibuster's favor is crudely partisan: 'Our side may be in the majority now, but someday it will be in the minority, and when that happens we'll want to block the other side's extremist agenda.'

It's counterintuitive, but the most divisive arrangement is when the same party controls both Congress and the presidency, a situation encountered in eight of the past 10 years. With government unified under a single party, the minority has the least possible incentive to cooperate with the majority.

One of the tragedies of the Bush administration is that we went back to business as usual, make a deal with the Democrats, let's all be friends in Washington philosophy.

While 2013 will not see a major national election, we can be sure that most Republicans will obstruct and some Democrats will appease.

The GOP doesn't seem particularly afraid of being perceived as blocking reform, despite efforts by the Obama White House to establish that narrative.

I cannot allow state government to continue to be consumed by this game of political 'gotcha.'

The reason that last-ditch political maneuvering has become business as usual in Washington is that the actors involved are drunk on blame and are convinced that the voting public is, too. They count on outrage, thereby spreading numbness. They cherish the prospect of partisan fury, thereby inspiring nonpartisan disgust.

The enemy is not me. The enemy is Barack Obama.

For better or worse, I've been involved in the description of political conflict.

Americans are sick and tired of political gamesmanship.

In no way am I supporting or suggesting that a Conservative government is a good thing, far from it.

The carping and bickering of political factions in the nation's capitol reminds me of two pelicans quarreling over a dead fish.

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule-- and both commonly succeed, and are right.

I wasn’t elected to get into back room deals with Jesse Helms. I’ve despised Jesse Helms since I was 18 years old.

Nothing arouses the sharks in Congress so much as the smell of failure.

Ideology isn’t driving the dynamic in Washington, it’s the desire to stay in power.

The Republicans, specifically those of the House of Representatives, are responsible for undermining the confidence of the public that Government can help people.

What we need to do is bitch-slap the Republican Party. Get those guys heeding too, and if we have to, we’ll take it over to make it a true conservative party,

Concerned about re-election, interest-group reactions, the media, or fundraising, many legislators have found it in their interest to refuse to cooperate with members of the opposing party - or to treat them as enemies in some kind of war, in which the whole point is to defeat and humiliate them. But the American people have been the real losers.

Congressional opposition to immigration reform or emergency funds doesn't stem from any philosophical objections or differences of principle. It stems from a calculated, petty, selfish rejection of anything Obama proposes.