Barack Obama Quotes

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

Politics doesn't matter, policy does.

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

Nearly all legislation is the result of compromise.

It's harder to pass a law than stop one.

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.

There's a rhythm to the legislative session and there are rhythms to legislative sessions. So I think that's very important to take into consideration when you are deciding what to do when.

I think there's a lot to learn from Rockefeller on how to pass legislation.

I know how to take good ideas and turn them into sensible law at great odds.

I don't order laws, I propose them.

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

Speaker Newt Gingrich has appointed a task force, which I'm on, and over the next couple months the task force is going to try to come up with legislation that does what we're all trying to do. I feel pretty good about the members that are on the task force.

I look for the consensus because the consensus drives the policy into new places.

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

I learned some valuable lessons about the legislative process, the importance of bipartisan cooperation and the wisdom of taking small steps to get a big job done.

I don't know if anybody can second-guess what they will do on Capitol Hill.

Public policy has been a passion of mine. For three decades, I've had some involvement in the political process.

I know how to make sausage, and now that I've seen how laws are made, I'll stick with sausage.

The dominant color of politics is gray; difficult choices and compromise are required at almost every step of the journey toward a major new program.

You've got to have a theme if you're going to get Congress to do something difficult.

Don’t hurry to legislate.

Governments propose, and oppositions dispose.

Politics is about timing and situations.

Regulations are a form of legislation and should be decided by a political process, not more or better benefit-cost analyses.

In the United States almost every political question becomes a legal question—or at least a question with legal dimensions.