Warren Buffett Quotes

When people say - 'Well, do you miss being a judge since you're in Congress,' I go - 'Only when I want people to sit down and shut up.'

The challenge has been, we make policy in the world of politics.

It is provided by the Constitution that the President shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the Union and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.

So with the end of the Cold War, it became increasingly obvious that there was no basis upon which any decision was being made, not in the White House, and certainly because of that, not in the Congress.

What Congress does is respond to pressures that are upon it.

Members of Congress often have to have testimony to hang their hat on if they wish to do something for you or do something for the country.

There’s a sausage machine on Capitol Hill. We’ve given the sausage machine the right kind of ingredients. Now it’s up to the sausage machine to turn out the right kind of legislation.

If I could solve these problems with passing laws in the Congress, I would do so.

Congress, after years of stalling, finally got around to clearing the way for informal discussions that might lead to possible formal talks that could potentially produce some kind of tenative agreements.

I've seen Congress do some remarkable things within a short period of time.

The political status legislation which emerged in Congress in 1990 and 1991 did not receive the support needed for enactment into law during my tenure as Attorney General.

We've got to trust the politicians with these decisions.

The best episodes of 'The West Wing' that dealt with policy and stuff, in my opinion, were the ones where they were in the middle of a crisis, and they were trying to figure out how to solve problems.

Politics doesn't matter, policy does.

Nothing happens in any legislative body that's not purposeful.

You can think of all the things a Congress or a legislature does, and then you kind of overshadow that with the fact that a few people are going to make those decisions.

Just as we cool our coffee at the breakfast table we pour legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it

Legislative proposals are not merely vehicles for expressing policy, they are devices for getting policy decided.

Senate: A body of elderly gentlemen charge with high duties and misdemeanors.

In Sacramento you simply had to think about what the law ought to be and leave it to someone else to implement. In San Francisco, you hear about it the next day.

Nearly all legislation is the result of compromise.

It is in the nature of the Congressional animal to be overly concerned with the backwaters of public policy and too little disposed to make hard decisions on mainstream national issues.

You can't possibly know everything that's in those bills ... you have to trust the leadership.

The employment had no reference whatever to anything pending in Congress.

The independence of the legislative arm must be respected. I had little taste for forcing Congressional action.