Quotes & Sayings About Bipartisan

The U.S. Congress can do a lot to support America's workplaces and the family. By working together in a bipartisan fashion, we can ensure our constituents get jobs they need while helping employers make smart decisions about their workforce. — Charles B. Rangel

It's time to look beyond the budget ax to assure access to health care for all. It's time to look for bipartisan solutions to the problems we can tackle today, and to work together for tomorrow - building a health care system that works for all Americans. — Ron Wyden

There's a huge cost in being bipartisan, a tradition started by Newt Gingrich when he took over the House in 1994 and has continued forward, that you dare not vote against the Republican Party even if you're voting against your own initiatives and your own interests. — Gwen Moore

So it is the business community and agricultural community who I think might have the most influence on helping us make this effort more bipartisan. — Claire McCaskill

I believe that there is a bipartisan consensus to have individual mandates. — Chuck Grassley

If there is a nuclear tactic being used here, I submit it is the use of that obstruction where a willful minority blocks a bipartisan majority from voting on the President's judicial nominees. — John Cornyn

President Obama has offered a plan with 4 trillion dollars in debt reduction over a decade, with two and a half dollars of spending reductions for every one dollar of revenue increases, and tight controls on future spending. It's the kind of balanced approach proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission. — William J. Clinton

The people we elect aren't bipartisan. The American public is bipartisan. — Lewis Black

I guess because the shows were activist in their own way - the marriage of my public activism and my career activism, you know - people understand me very well. They also understand there's a very strong bipartisan part in all of this. — Norman Lear

The irony is that we've seen this model work really well in Massachusetts because Gov. Romney did a good thing, working with Democrats in the state to set up what is essentially the identical model and, as a consequence, people are covered there. It hasn't destroyed jobs. And as a consequence, we now have a system in which we have the opportunity to start bringing down costs as opposed to just leaving millions of people out in the cold." "Gov. Romney said this has to be done on a bipartisan basis — Barack Obama

In the first weeks of the Obama administration, 'bipartisanship' was the reigning buzzword, and when the Beltway thinks 'bipartisan,' it pictures President Reagan and Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill putting aside their differences and forging a legislative partnership, a ruddy pair of genial patriarchs bonding over the Blarney Stone. — James Wolcott

As a rule of thumb. Congressional legislation that is bipartisan is usually twice as bad as legislation that is partisan. — Thomas Sowell

I think George Mitchell was the right guy for the right time, and many people will note his spectacular foreign policy accomplishments, both in and out of office. I think all would note his devotion to Maine; that was number one. The fact he did work in a bipartisan basis with Bill Cohen. And for me, he helped the first Democratic woman get elected. — Barbara Mikulski

The two most frightening words in Washington are 'bipartisan consensus.' Bipartisan consensus is when my doctor and my lawyer agree with my wife that I need help. — P. J. O'Rourke

I think history would say that medical research has, throughout many changes of parties, remained as one of the shining lights of bipartisan agreement, that people are concerned about health for themselves, for their families, for their constituents. — Francis Collins

With the strong bipartisan rejection of the Dorgan amendment today, the Senate cast a vote in favor of the U.S. working to knock down unfair trade barriers that hurt American business and farmers — Rob Portman

The 2000s were marked by terrorism and a bipartisan desire to fight it. — Ari Fleischer

You can be president of the United States and have the best, most bipartisan-seeming idea in the world. But if it doesn't have a constituency, you might as well be town clerk of Toad Suck, Arkansas. — Timothy Noah

Since September 11th Congress has created the Department of Homeland Security, more than doubled the homeland security budget and implemented a bipartisan overhaul of our intelligence systems. — Doc Hastings

Our customer base isn't just people saying, 'I'm an environmentalist, I'm in my Birkenstocks, I went to Woodstock.' Solar is a bipartisan technology. Republicans like solar; conservatives like solar. Over 30% of our customers are veterans. There's something very American about being able to produce power on your own rooftop. — Lynn Jurich

Hostility towards China distorted Australia's international affairs for 20 years until 1972, but reconciliation with China 30 years ago had produced a quarter century of constructive bipartisan relations with our region and the world, unmatched in Australian history. — Gough Whitlam

One bipartisan policy tradition is to deny Americans the use of our own resources. — Harold Ford Jr.

I believe it's time to put our best ideas on the table and work toward a bipartisan solution, with the single goal of leaving the Social Security system stronger than we found it. — Chris Chocola

It is a bipartisan gathering to be able to pray for the needs back in our districts, for our families and each other. Another thing the prayer caucus does is to address religious liberty issues around the country as they arise. — James Lankford

The president recognizes that funding global health is good for national security, domestic health and global diplomacy. Consequently, President Obama has steadily increased funding for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which was created by President Bush and has strong bipartisan support. — Ezekiel Emanuel

The budget enforcement rules of the 1990s were an important part of getting the budget back into balance. It was done on a bipartisan basis. Those pay-as-you-go rules were tested and they worked. We are now in a one-party system, and we have thrown them out. — Melissa Bean

My assessment is that we have a crisis in national political leadership. When will America recognize the danger we face? When will the corrosive partisanship of American politics end and allow for a bipartisan solution to arguably the most dangerous threat our nation has faced in over 60 years? — Ricardo Sanchez

There are also concerns that Congress, despite bipartisan — Anonymous

The Violence Against Women Act has been a true bipartisan success story since it was first enacted in 1994. In my home state of Texas alone, its programs have helped hundreds of thousands of victims to break free from the terrible cycle of domestic violence. — John Cornyn

If the notion on this is we're going to elect somebody to the United States Senate so they can be the 100th least senior person in there and be polite, and somewhere in their fourth or fifth year do some bipartisan bill that nobody cares about, don't vote for me. — Elizabeth Warren

I do think that Social Security reform needs to be bipartisan, and we are going to have to reach that in this debate at some time before we can find really meaningful reform. — Judy Biggert

The whole point about corruption in politics is that it can't be done, or done properly, without a bipartisan consensus. — Christopher Hitchens

Bipartisan democracy presupposes the individual, whose welfare is identical with that of the community in which he lives, the absence of coherent social classes, a basic uniformity of interest throughout. — Learned Hand

We need to work together, on a bipartisan basis, to create new jobs, increase job training, enact real and substantive middle class tax relief, and reward companies that create jobs at home. — Ruben Hinojosa

There are many miles to go before we get this done ... But I have a feeling that ... we're going to have a big bipartisan vote for this in the end. My sense is that people are more optimistic than they've been in 20 years about addressing this problem. — Michael Bennet

I want to make it clear publicly that I expect more candor from this Administration during the next four years, particularly with members on the Foreign Relations Committee so that we can maintain a bipartisan foreign policy. — George Voinovich

I do normal kind of contributions, particularly for people who are going over to Africa and help highlighting global health, and that's tended to be pretty bipartisan in nature because of the coalition there exists fortunately around these global health issues. But I don't think my backing, putting a lot of money into political contributions is a way I'm going to try and help improve the world. — Bill Gates

Gore Vidal, Glenn Greenwald, Noam Chomsky, all these guys talk about how the United States became a national security state after World War II. I agree with that thesis. Essentially there's this bipartisan foreign policy elite who've been calling the shots for the last few decades and they're clearly still in control regardless of how clownish or absurd or stupid they demonstrate themselves to be. There's no shaking their orthodoxy. — Michael Hastings

You know there's nothing a Hill Democrat would rather do than criticize another Democrat. It is their favorite activity. Then they can read about how honorable they are in an Op-Ed piece, how bipartisan. — James Carville

The No Child Left Behind Act will be one of President Bush's enduring legacies. And it was engineered and inaugurated with a truly bipartisan coalition in Congress. Accountability, standards, and truly measuring student performance just makes sense. The only real debate about the law was and is whether or not it was adequately funded. — Mark McKinnon

It's nice to say let's be bipartisan. But we're a partisan nation. We were raised as a partisan nation. — Colin Powell

We also think this is a reminder of the long tradition of bipartisan foreign policy that has been the hallmark of America at moments of greatest need, and that's the kind of spirit that we hope will be reflected in our administration. — Barack Obama

I welcome the Democrats' ideas on Social Security. I think it is very important to make a bipartisan reform. — Jack Kingston

The American people have made it abundantly clear that they want less government, not more. They want problems solved in a bipartisan manner, not the creation of new problems. — Marsha Blackburn

I believe in working in a bipartisan manner. — Erskine Bowles

I think there's bipartisan support in the Senate to pass a good reform bill. — Don Nickles

Israel is a country of six million people. They need the U.S. It used to be bipartisan on Israeli politics. You never messed with that relationship. The fact that [ Benjamin] Netanyahu is willing to do that, I thought would horrify voters more than it turned out it did. — David Brooks

So we have broad bipartisan support for the bill, and it's my hope that we can build on some of the things that have been talked about in Washington involving building a larger ownership society. — Harold Ford Jr.

There's never a perfect bipartisan bill in the eyes of a partisan. — William J. Clinton

The Spending Control Act. It would recreate President Reagan's grace commission to have a bipartisan commission on how we reduce spending. — Mark Kirk

When the September 11th attacks happened, only about a year later, the crypto community was holding its breath because here was a time when we just had an absolutely horrific terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and if the NSA and the FBI were unhappy with anything, Congress was ready to pass any law they wanted. The PATRIOT Act got pushed through very, very quickly with bipartisan support and very, very little debate, yet it didn't include anything about encryption. — Matt Blaze

I do know that all of the Michigan delegation worked very hard as related to the revival of the auto industry. There was really a choice between bankruptcy and liquidation. There was no one that was willing to come up not only with the cash to keep them afloat but also to serve the warranties of everyone, you and I that drive all these cars. There was no one that could have picked up those pieces other than the federal government. [The auto bailout was] bipartisan from the get-go. [Without it,] Michigan would have hit 40 percent unemployment rates. — Fred Upton

Let's create jobs by bringing the Shaheen-Portman bipartisan energy efficiency bill to the floor. — Jeanne Shaheen

In New Mexico, I inherited the largest structural deficit in state history, and our legislature is controlled by Democrats. We don't always agree, but we came together in a bipartisan manner and turned that deficit into a surplus. And we did it without raising taxes. — Susana Martinez

They reality is that we have 70% of our voters use a punch card system that I tried to change and that bipartisan resistance in the legislature stopped. — Kenneth Blackwell

The medical device tax repeal is the only proposal that had the most bipartisan votes coming out of the House and has the opportunity in the Senate to gain tractions, and it fixes a part of ObamaCare in terms of repealing an awful tax. And it's got bipartisan support. — Erik Paulsen

Religious liberty should be a bipartisan issue. — Ted Cruz

I believe that as a nation we must have a bipartisan discussion about how to best preserve and protect Social Security for our seniors and for future generations of Americans. — Steve Israel

I support the framework that the bipartisan group of senators are working on ... We have to remember the 11 million people who are here are people ... [i]t's what Abraham Lincoln would have said, it is what the Republican Party stands for. It is the reason we have to get it right on who stays and who goes. — Darrell Issa

Increasing access to federal student loans has been a bipartisan effort in Washington, one that I have supported. But it has created what many experts believe is a bubble in higher education, not unlike the housing bubble that preceded the financial crisis. — Marco Rubio

The word bipartisan usually means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out. — George Carlin

The federal government needs a strategic approach that includes strong leadership and the ability to manage weather related risks. The challenge of developing such an approach is complex: It must not only encompass all levels of government but must also be developed in a bipartisan manner. — Matt Cartwright

I'm a Democrat, but I'm really bipartisan - some people might say nonpartisan. — Mark Pryor

President Obama has ignored or dismissed proposals that would address our anti-competitive tax code and unsustainable trajectory of federal debt - including his own bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform - and submitted no plan for entitlement reform. — Glenn Hubbard

Here's what presidential candidate Mitt Romney said about Barack Obama: Barack Obama is not a very good President. He said Barack Obama doesn't do a very good job on the economy; he said that Obama's foreign policy has a lot of holes in it; he said Obama has done a pretty poor job across the board of working in bipartisan fashion. But, Romney added, Obama's a good guy. He's a good family man, a good husband, a man who believes in the basic principles espoused by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He is not someone you should be afraid of in any way. Essentially, Romney's campaign slogan was this: "Obama: Good Guy, Bad President. — Ben Shapiro

We believe - we believe that, if we tell the people the truth, that they will act bigger than the pettiness we see in Washington, D.C. We believe it is possible to forge bipartisan compromise, and stand up for our conservative principles. — Chris Christie

There is overwhelming bipartisan support outside of Washington that we need to finally secure our borders, enforce our laws, and stop the problem of illegal immigration. — Ted Cruz

I've got a bit of an independent streak. I'm not afraid of bipartisan compromise on issues that are important to the nation. — Heather Wilson

The U.S. is by far the biggest exporter of arms in the world. It was true during the Clinton administration, and it's true during the Bush administration. It's bipartisan. — Andrew Niccol

I think on this issue more than any other we're going to see sort of a bipartisan longing to get something done, and hopefully you're not going to find the fisticuffs that you would find on lots of other issues. I think you'll be able to glean a sense of progress without us revealing the specifics. — Charles Schumer

Nixon was always willing to be bipartisan, so there are a lot of surprises in the man. — Douglas Brinkley

Economic policies command bipartisan support only when they're incoherent. — Steven Landsburg

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. — Jeff Flake

I have an ability to work collegially across a wide range of interests in the caucus and in the Congress, and an ability to work on a bipartisan basis. Appropriators pride themselves on that. — Marcy Kaptur

For more than a half a century, we know that we prospered because of a bipartisan consensus on defense and foreign policy. We must do more than return to that sensible, cooperative approach. — Hillary Clinton

I still believe the momentum is there to accomplish comprehensive immigration reform, and I think there is a bipartisan coalition that would pass right now, a pathway to citizenship if Speaker Boehner lets it come to the floor. — Joaquin Castro

This is a bipartisan effort. This is just good common sense. This is where the public wants us to go. They want us to not be so dependent on foreign oil. — Sam Brownback

The leaders in Washington have got to come together in a bipartisan way and do the right thing for the people who are being left behind. We cannot have an America that is only based on the wealthy. — Howard Schultz

I am long term optimistic and short term pessimistic on immigration. Long term, I'm optimistic because there's a lotta bipartisan agreement outside of Washington on immigration. There's overwhelming bipartisan agreement, number one, that we need to secure the borders. That we need to finally do something to stop illegal immigration. — Ted Cruz

President Obama hosted lawmakers Thursday saying he wanted bipartisan input on health care reform. Nobody's mind was changed. At the summit's end he threatened to go with the nuclear option, showing he's tougher on Republicans than he is on Iran. — Argus Hamilton

Winning control of the Senate would allow Republicans to pass a whole range of measures now being held up by Reid, often at the behest of the White House. Make it a major reform agenda. The centerpiece might be tax reform, both corporate and individual. It is needed, popular and doable. Then go for the low-hanging fruit enjoying wide bipartisan support, such as the Keystone XL pipeline and natural gas exports, most especially to Eastern Europe. One could then add border security, energy deregulation and health-care reform that repeals the more onerous Obamacare mandates. — Charles Krauthammer

I will say that I think Israel enjoys strong bipartisan support in the United States. It's really above and beyond American politics. — Benjamin Netanyahu

I think Social Security should be bipartisan and it should transcend the next election, and you should get the best ideas of the Democrats and of the Republicans, and move forward with the best. — Jack Kingston

With Americans worried about losing their jobs, their savings, their homes and their chance at the American Dream, the New Direction Congress will work in a bipartisan way to lift our economy and help America's middle class. — Nancy Pelosi

Sometimes countries have to go through periods of crises and then rediscover why it's important to be bipartisan and compromise and if you haven't had a deep crisis for a while, you feel like you have the luxury of going on your own way. — Robin Wells

The goal with a big piece of social legislation is to have a bipartisan result, so the country will accept it. — Lamar Alexander

He led the state through a budget crisis, natural disasters, and political turmoil, working across party lines for a better environment, election reforms, and bipartisan solutions. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

[The healthcare bill is a] headlong rush into socialism ... we will not stand for the Obama-Pelosi-Reid hijacking of our freedom and democracy so they can impose their socialist 'utopia' of higher taxes, restricted access, inferior quality, and deadly inefficiency on the best health care system in the world ... You and the RNC are all that stand between the Democrats' scheme to take more of your hard-earned income to pay for this unsustainable, freedom destroying entitlement and an opportunity to work for real, truly bipartisan step-by-step solutions ... — Michael Steele

You don't have to dislike people you disagree with and it doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to have bipartisan friendships in this place. Life's too short to have it any other way. — Dave Obey

Like its Senate counterpart, H.R. 1908 is the product of years of bipartisan collaboration. And now, by passing S. 1145, the U.S. Senate has a similar opportunity to restore our patent regime to its rightful position of protecting inventors' property rights and spurring innovation. These are values that all Americans should rally behind. — Viet D. Dinh

Well, we have a crisis along the Mexican border right now, a state of emergency as declared by a bipartisan group of Texas House members just last fall. You know, we've had almost 200,000 OTMs - the government categorizes OT 'other, other than Mexicans' - along the Mexican border. — Henry Bonilla

I thought that the administration needed bipartisan support, and I was for our commander-in-chief. Because I felt at that time it was the right thing do. If I knew then what I know now, I would have never voted for the war. — Ken Lucas

Administration officials, in fact, have repeatedly condemned ISIS for its treatment of religious minorities, including Christians. But a bipartisan resolution now moving through Congress calls on the administration to go further and say ISIS is guilty of genocide. — Tom Gjelten

I did look for compromise. I worked in a bipartisan way. — Stephanie Herseth

They said it was impossible to touch the third rail of politics, to take on public-sector unions and to reform a pension and health benefits system that was headed to bankruptcy. But with bipartisan leadership, we saved taxpayers $132 billion dollars over 30 years and saved retirees their pensions. We did it. — Chris Christie

The progressive notion of the state as a loving, caring parent is becoming a bipartisan affair. — Jonah Goldberg

Foreign policy always has more force and punch when the nation speaks with one voice. To remain secure, prosperous, and free, the United States must continue to lead. That leadership requires a president and Congress working together to fashion a foreign policy with broad, bipartisan support. A foreign policy of unity is essential if the United States is to promote its values and interests effectively and help to build a safer, freer, and more prosperous world. — Lee H. Hamilton

We have come so far. It's become a real bipartisan cause, which I'm very happy to see. And in the case of America, and it's - certainly, without America, we'd be facing catastrophe. — Elton John

I will not be making appointments to a committee that is not bipartisan. — Nancy Pelosi

Just as some historians seemed more shocked that the author of the Declaration of Independence had sex with Sally Hemmings than by the fact that he owned her, Clinton received far more censure for his sexual misdeeds than for other moral lapses, such as his politically motivated decision to ignore the finding of a bipartisan panel that issuing needles to drug addicts would save lives and curtail the spread of AIDS without increasing drug addiction. — Stephanie Coontz