Reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as telling it like it is when it is actually just reckless, outrageous and undignified. And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else. It is dangerous to a democracy.
There are some Republicans who say that any time you raise new revenue, you have to have a tax cut to match it. I am not one of those Republicans.
Just when you think [Donald Trump] can stoop no lower, he does.
This isn't all going to be done in one day, either.
Unfortunately there are too many examples of members of Congress and other elected officials using language, referring to your opponents in ways that you would have never done before, ascribing the worst motives to your opponents, and assuming that other Americans are the enemies. And that's just not the way it used to be. And I don't think it can be that way in the future.
These are people who wanted to provide for their family and wanted a better life. We've got to have a secure border. But we've also, we've got to act compassionately and recognize labor markets as well. ... I've never thought that it's [path to citizenship] a bad thing. If somebody is going to be here for 20, 30 years, to give them some skin in the game, if you will, to hold out the prospect of citizenship.
This Congress is out of control and in desperate need of adult supervision.
Many of the earmark request forms are actually filled out by lobbyists and then just turned in by the member's staff to the appropriations committee.
The country is facing a fiscal crisis, and the United States Senate is at the center of the debate about how to bring federal spending under control.
I'm also particularly pleased that there is bipartisan support to include the input of border communities. Not only will security be strengthened according to Washington, D.C., but border communities will have a say as well.
The impulse to scapegoat and belittle threatens to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking people. In the case of the Republican Party, those things also threaten to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking minority party.
American leadership looks to the world and just as Lincoln did sees the family of man. Humanity is not a zero-sum game.
I rise today with no small measure of regret, regret because of the state of our disunion, regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics, regret because of the indecency of our discourse.
It's going to take a while for some of these things.
After September 11, it became unpatriotic to question any homeland-security or defense spending, and that let things get out of control.
