Dan Webster Quotes

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

Our Congress should stay in session all summer - camp out in D.C., and turn off the AC. Put on their stuffiest powdered wigs and sweat it out, until they give in and put their John Hancocks (and their Nancy Pelosis and their John Boehners) on at least one meaningful law that no one wants to repeal.

Congress has been reformed so much that it can't get anything done.

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

Washington is not the problem; the Congress is the problem.

Unfortunately, the Senate Democrats have become an extreme party. They have become a party that has abdicated their responsibilities. Under Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats, we have a do-nothing Senate.

Many times, the Senate talks of things and never gets anything through.

You can see how dysfunctional this Congress is.

My viewpoint is the Senate is dysfunctional.

We'll pass it. The Senate won't do it, and we'll be left holding the bag.

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

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

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.

We're all tired of a Washington that has these partisan camps where nothing gets done.

Congress seems to be very good at doing nothing.

The House Rules Committee is perhaps the free world's outstanding bureaucratic abomination - a tiny, airless closet deep in the labyrinth of the Capitol where some of the very meanest people on earth spend their days cleaning democracy like a fish.

Given the slow pace of Washington's bureaucracy, policymakers are often busy solving yesterday's problems. This rearview mirror approach afflicts Mr. Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress.

We don't want the federal government to shut down. It is so inappropriate, and it is not respectful of the people that have sent us here to do our jobs.

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

This Congress is simply not doing its job under Republican leadership.

It seems as though there are Members in this body who want to filibuster just about everything we try to do, whether it is stopping judicial nominations, the Energy bill, or this Medicare bill.

There is a problem in Washington, and the problem is bigger than a continuing resolution. It is bigger than Obamacare. It is even bigger than the budget. The most fundamental problem and the frustration is that the men and women in Washington aren't listening.

For most governors, we find the United States Senate or the United States Congress very frustrating at the slow pace in which they act. There doesn't seem to be a lot of discipline and organization to what they do.

If I have to invade the sacred precincts of the White House to find out what is behind this paralysis of the Senate, I will.

Woe betide a bill that is opposed! It is laid aside for further time, and that never comes.