George J. Mitchell Quotes

The process for producing public policy in Congress is flawed. The process itself kills policy ideas through the bypassing of the rules and procedural decisions that limit discussion.

There were two unpleasant surprises. One was the inertia of Congress, the length of time it takes to get a complicated piece of legislation through ... and the other was the irresponsibility of the press..

Congress doesn’t do comprehensive well.

If you're not comfortable with delay, frustration and impatience, get out of the Senate. It's the nature of the institution, but I think we've taken it to an art form.

You know the way Washington works. Once you start floating ideas, they are immediately attacked by all the different interest groups before the ideas can be brought to fruition.

We don't need to allow any more Nancy Pelosies to wind up in Congress.

The Obama administration and the Democratic Congress have taken the biggest lurch to the left in policy in American history. There've been no - no Congress, no administration that has run this far to the left in such a small period of time. And there is a reaction to that.

You run Washington DC though the House. The Senate gets in the way. The President gets in the way.

Why is it so hard for the Congress to do something for the public?

Members of Congress are never in town any more. They’re so busy raising money that they leave Thursday night and don’t return till Monday night. Tuesday through Thursday are now long days, so there is no time anymore for bipartisan socialization.

It is hard for the Chinese to understand that our policies are in great part the result of a number of random actions of different domestic pressure groups and not part of an overall plan.

The American political system has become so short term oriented.

In the “World’s Greatest Deliberative Body” [the U. S. Senate] there is little deliberation … Floor debates consisted primarily of political posturing.

In this political climate, there is no possibility of passing anything comprehensive.

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

In Congress, if you simply wait out the passion, you can get back to gridlock.

Health reform is, in some ways, a microcosm to everything that's right about Washington and everything that's wrong about it.

The reality is that the Republican Party may have unified government but is not unified enough on many major signature policy areas.

There's a lot of good, bipartisan legislation that passes in committee and then gets bottled up. As a businessman, it surprised me.

Congress is best viewed from a distance—the farther the better—because up close, it is truly ugly. I saw most of Congress as uncivil, incompetent at fulfilling their basic constitutional responsibilities (such as timely appropriations), micromanagerial, parochial, hypocritical, egotistical, thin-skinned and prone to put self (and re-election) before country.

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

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

If the presidency is the head of the American body politic, Congress is its gastrointestinal tract. Its vast and convoluted inner workings may be mysterious and unpleasant, but in the end they excrete a great deal of material whose successful passage is crucial to our nation's survival.

Our enemy, and the enemy of all America, is the monopolistic government of the United States of America

Congress has lost its capacity to manage itself.