Bill Maher Quotes

We know that we have to have the right combinations of government policies and private sector energy and dynamism. Getting that balance right is what I know President Obama has tried to do, and at every turn he's been stopped.

The American political system is so porous, it's so open, it's so frustrating for those who are trying to make policy.

We are tired of Obama's empty speeches and his misguided rhetoric.

Though President Obama promised during the 2008 campaign to pass the DREAM Act, he never made it a priority and failed to bring Republicans and Democrats together to do it in his first term.

When a president decides he's going to do something, a vast array of forces contrary to his purpose begin to organize to thwart him.

The President sets the policies and Congress does not. Our lawmakers in Washington ratify and implement what the President wants, but if he is a strong leader and can hold his own party together, even with the majority of the opposition against him he usually can win over enough members of Congress to carry what legislation he really feels is essential.

Successful and unsuccessful political policies have one commonalty. The people who created the policies thought they would be successful.

Remember, Obama was elected by a bigger margin than George W. Bush. He deserves to have his appointees, and he deserves to have votes on the issues, to have the government function, and to fight for the policies on which he was elected.

When a president doesn't know the policy, it doesn't make for a very effective leader.

I see nothing easy in Washington. I see either analytically simple things that are politically complex or those that are politically complex and analytically complex. I mean, look at immigration reform, you know? It is, I think, analytically easy, but politically very, very complex and very difficult.

I know Obama knows better than George W. Bush.

The shelf life of a seventh-year State of the Union address is about five minutes. Presidents can propose stuff. They're probably not likely to get it done.

We're not going to let some unelected bureaucrats in Washington stop us from moving forward with our agenda, but at the end of the day, CBO is not the Holy Grail.

President Obama makes fantastic stump speeches, but putting together an actual agenda is more complicated.

Electing Democrats means nothing happens. Elect Republicans, and at least there's a chance.

Congress has been productive when focusing on bites of policy that don't inflame the divisions within the party and quietly do the work of governing.

We need national economic policies that have been shown to work at the state level.

As every newspaper reader, liberal activist, or parliamentary junkie knows, the overarching barrier to most of Obama's agenda is the abuse of the filibuster in the Senate. In fact, several of Obama's second term priorities are not ideas in search of a majority - they are majorities in search of an up-or-down vote.

A divided government doesn't have to be a death blow to foreign policy.

Donald Trump is talking about the failed leadership of the Obama Administration.

I remember when we came in, in 2013, and I was implementing our border protection policy, people threw their hands up - and I said, 'I'm doing what I said I would do in the way I said I'd do it' - and guess what: I'm now getting the results I said I'd get.

Policy gets out of date.

Like, for example, way back then,[George W.] Bush could have passed immigration reform, just like [Barack] Obama could have when he first came in. And both of them passed on it, so now they leave it for now.

Immigration reforms are always controversial. Our Congress was created to muster political will to answer such challenges. Today we didn't, but tomorrow we will. I yield the floor.

[The Democrats] can't stop [Donald] Trump. They are in the exact position that the Republicans were in in 2009 and 2010 with [Barack] Obama.