Suzan DelBene Quotes

Policy making is not as easy as slurping down cabbage soup.

When you're going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.

Whenever there's a bad law, it can be repealed or nullified.

My focus has been on being a good congressman, and there is so much other work to do.

I've always been a ... believer in good regulation.

The Senator from Massachusetts has given us ample grounds to doubt the judgment and the attitude he brings to bear on vital issues of national security.

Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians.

What Washington needs is adult supervision.

I'm convinced the question of development is mainly an issue of governance and leadership.

As I've learned in my time in the state legislature, important legislation is always a work in progress.

Congress can't take the year off, election or no election.

I don't think we've asked the right questions, the tough questions, at the right time, in Washington.

Censure is a limp noodle across the wrist of the president. I think the way we vote on the articles will express the way we feel stronger than any censure vote.

The only way to improve the GOP brand and make good public policy is to fix the process. This requires transforming the way Congress does business.

Government is about hard choices.

Public policy must lead and not merely react.

Political checks will no more act of themselves than a bridle will direct a horse without a rider. If the checking functionaries are as corrupt or as negligent as those whom they ought to check, and if the public, the mainspring of the whole checking machinery, are too ignorant, too passive, or too careless and inattentive, to do their part, little benefit will be derived from the best administrative apparatus. Yet a good apparatus is always preferable to a bad.

The issues are too complicated for government leaders to discuss, and too important for bureaucrats.

Please veto this bill. Mr. President, the Congress is out of control and needs adult supervision.

Government has much wider dimensions than merely managing an economy.

Politicians can’t just point to problems. They need to propose solutions.

The question of our time is rapidly becoming can government get things done?

I am not on trial here, Mr. Chairman. This committee is on trial here before the American people. Let us get that straight.

Politics is about making institutions work somewhat better, helping people’s lives at the margins

If you can't legislate, you can't deal with problems.