Quotes & Sayings About Capitol Hill

Once again, the puppets on Capitol Hill are about to slam the Muppets on Main Street. The country still hasn't recovered from the Wall Street-induced financial cataclysm of 2008, yet Congress is preparing to enact the Orwellian 'JOBS Act' - a bill that should in fact be called the 'Return Fraud to Wall Street in One Easy Step Act.' — Eliot Spitzer

It [Lincoln movie] had nothing to do with politics. It had nothing to do with holding a mirror up to the way we conduct our business on Capitol Hill. This was meant to be a story, a Lincoln portrait if you will. I think any time is the right time for a very compelling story, any time. — Steven Spielberg

On Capitol Hill, House Republicans have been doing our part. We've been hard at work developing policies that will help empower all Americans. We're beginning to see results. We reduced taxes for everyone. — Dennis Hastert

He believed there was nothing essentially unAmerican about greed or lust - hey, those qualities were encouraged everywhere from Wall Street to Capitol Hill. — Jeffery Deaver

I am convinced that there are more threats to American liberty within the 10 mile radius of my office on Capitol Hill than there are on the rest of the globe. — Ron Paul

There is an expression here on Capitol Hill," Issa told me. "'Don't ever get between a member and a camera.'" That can be particularly harrowing in the case of Issa, who had purchased a T-shirt for Bardella that said: "It's all about me. — Mark Leibovich

Climbing has worked for me in a number of ways on Capitol Hill. I'm much more inclined to look at what people do, as opposed to what they say. Also, it's about working together - we're all on the rope together, and you don't get to cut the rope if you're not getting along with someone. — Mark Udall

On Capitol Hill, the Republican-controlled House voted mostly along party lines tonight to pass President Bush's federal budget blueprint. This includes his big tax cut plan, partly bankrolled, critics say, through cuts in many federal aid programs for children and education. — Dan Rather

[On women in previously all-male fields:] I think it will change in a lot of workplaces. I'm not so sure it will ever change on Capitol Hill until more women are in powerful positions. Because this is the last plantation for men. — Andrea Mitchell

The richly cadenced prose is hypnotic, the research prodigious, the analysis acute, the mood spellbinding, and the cast of characters mythic in scale. I cannot conceive of a better book about Capitol Hill. An unforgettable, epic achievement in the art of biography. — Ron Chernow

Perhaps the most striking thing about the 2015 State of the Union address was not the president at the podium but the audience in the seats. The joint session of Congress listening to President Obama Tuesday night included 83 fewer Democrats than the group that heard Obama's first address in 2009 - 69 fewer Democrats in the House and 14 fewer in the Senate. The scene in the House Chamber was a graphic reminder of the terrible toll the Obama years have taken on Capitol Hill Democrats. — Byron York

Can I give a little advice to the old man on Capitol Hill? Stop saying teabagger. Ask your younger staffers what it means. — Andrea Tantaros

Every Democrat on Capitol Hill professes to be a fiscal hawk. — Bob Beauprez

The reality is the cap-and-trade legislation offered by the Democrats amounts to an economic declaration of war on the Midwest by liberals on Capitol Hill. — Mike Pence

I think it's important that members of the United States Senate spend time not just on Capitol Hill but making contact with ordinary people and engaging them in the political process. — Bernie Sanders

The power of the silent filibuster to distort Senate politics is now accepted on Capitol Hill and by the press as normal and not worth mentioning. Let me be the skunk at this political garden party and say this stinks. Representative government was not designed to work this way by the Founding Fathers. — Juan Williams

I guided my heap into the heart of Capitol Hill wondering for the first time in fourteen years what I could do to get money besides drive cabs or rob banks. Both occupations had their pros and cons. For instance, bank robbery isn't quite as dangerous as cab driving, but it pays better. — Gary Reilly

We see it in attempts on Capitol Hill to impose gag rules on rules on doctors on what they can say to their patients about family planning. And we certainly see it now with an effort by the government to tap our phones; invade our medical records, credit information, library records and the most sensitive personal information in the name of national security. — Dick Durbin

A senator will come off Capitol Hill and they'll be barred from two years from lobbying in the Senate. So they'll pick the phone up and they'll call their buddy, the senator, their old buddies, and they'll say, 'Listen, I'm here at this law firm now. I can't lobby you, but my new partner, Jack, can lobby you.' — Jack Abramoff

Artists have really never had any representation on Capitol Hill, because it's not the nature of the artist to join together and make a unified presence. Those days kind of died in the '60s. — Sheryl Crow

It would be great if politics were fact-based, but it is not, and it is surely not nuance-based. What works in a classroom or a think tank does not work on Capitol Hill or in the White House. Obama sometimes seems to be running the Brookings Institution, not the country. — Jon Meacham

Once Lola Pierotti earned $24,000 a year and worked long hours as an administrative assistant on Capitol Hill. Now she works longer hours and has even more responsibility- but no pay. What happened? Was she demoted? No, she just married the boss. Her bridegroom, of four years this month, was the senior Republican Senator from Vermont- George D. Aiken. "All he expects of me is that I drive his car, cook his meals, do his laundry and run his office," she enumerated, with a grin. — Phyllis Chesler

I hate to tell you, but it's not always pretty up there on Capitol Hill and there have been other scandals as you know that have been more than simply naughty e-mails. — Tony Snow

A lot of people on Capitol Hill don't want to talk to me. — Michael Moore

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

Obama's ability to use his personality to push folks, whether on Capitol Hill or in Europe, means that he has to stay popular. What happens if he loses that popular mandate? — Chuck Todd

I opposed No Child Left Behind, I opposed the Medicare prescription drug bill, I opposed the Wall Street bailout. What the American people are starting to see is that Republican, Republicans on Capitol Hill get it and the Democrats, from the White House to Capitol Hill, just don't get it. — Mike Pence

The president is now having to deal with a Congress. He's never had to do that before. The president in the past, he has just done whatever he wanted. He had a big rubberstamp here up on Capitol Hill, whatever he wanted, they stamped OK. That's not the way it is now. — Harry Reid

I came out of Capitol Hill. Well, that's just not an ordinary background for a writer of the ordinary American sort. — Gore Vidal

On Capitol Hill, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales raised his right hand, swore to tell the truth, and then everybody had a good laugh and went back to what they were doing. — Jay Leno

Capitol Hill is Israeli occupied territory. — Pat Buchanan

Like every American, I will never forget where I was on the morning of September 11, 2001. As a member of Congress from Indiana, that day my duties took me to Capitol Hill and to sights and sounds I will never forget. — Mike Pence

My favorite Congressional incongruity: ... Red State legislators galumphing from meeting to meeting in full pancake makeup. Estee Lauder may well make more money on Capitol Hill than in Beverly Hills. — Frank Bruni

According to a Public Policy Polling survey, most Americans find lice and colonoscopies more appealing than Capitol Hill. — Ron Fournier

When I was in high school, I would drive into Seattle to see bands and sip coffee late into the night, and I always ended up taking the long way home. I'd be a little anxious about stalling my Datsun on one of the hills around the city, so when I saw Denny Way, I always turned onto it, even though it led away from my home to Seattle's Capitol Hill district. From there I navigated winding hills and eventually ended up at home. A quick look at a map would have revealed the freeway that heads straight to my house, but since my circuitous route was familiar, I stuck to it. I should have known better, but I was just a kid. What excuse does the richest nation on earth have for driving around in the dark like an adolescent? Just because our familiar arguments over how best to help families and the economy lead us along well-trod paths doesn't make them the best ones we could be taking. — Heather Boushey

Environmentalists hate sprawl - except when it comes to the size of their expansive pet legislation on Capitol Hill. — Michelle Malkin

At the White House, everybody works for the same person. They're all part of the same company. But on Capitol Hill, they're all independent contractors. They all work for themselves. That's a formula for getting news. — Bob Schieffer

Our U.S. audience is composed of globally-minded Americans, an elite category, the ones who do have passports, the decision-makers, senior ranks in the administration, senators on Capitol Hill. — Lionel Barber

On my radio show Chris Christie came to the defense of Ted Cruz, noting that - I guess at a rally, that - one of those Iran rallies on Capitol Hill, I believe even Donald Trump, according to Christie, had acknowledged that, you know, Ted Cruz of course was eligible, and just because he was born in Canada. — Donald Trump

More than one-third of congressional staffers turn to a career in lobbying after leaving Capitol Hill. It's clear the staffer-turned-lobbyist's value to special interests depends on the robustness of his or her network on Capitol Hill. According to an August 2010 study, when a lobbyist's former boss on Capitol Hill left office, the lobbyist's salary declined by an average of 50 percent in the six months following the departure.27 Moving from Capitol Hill to K Street isn't limited to staffers: In 2010, 37 percent of the newly out-of-office members of Congress went to work for lobbying firms or clients. After losing his run for Senate in 2006, Tennessee Democrat Harold Ford Jr. moved to New York to take a job with Merrill Lynch with a guaranteed annual compensation of $2 million. At the time he had no experience in finance. What he was paid for were his networks: — Christopher L. Hayes

Wind has the potential to produce many, many more jobs per kilowatt hour than coal. But the coal industry has tremendous political clout on Capitol Hill because of its alliance with the railroads and coal-burning utilities. — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Congress, 535 commoditized temple monkeys pawing through the ruins of America in search of bribes. The bicameral whorehouse on Capitol Hill works like a vending machine. You put coins in the slot, select your law, and the desired legislation slides out. — Fred Reed

After all, Wall Street is clearly the most powerful lobbying force on Capitol Hill. From 1998 through 2008, the financial sector spent over $5 billion in lobbying and campaign contributions to deregulate Wall Street. — Bernie Sanders

And the banks - hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created - are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place. — Dick Durbin

I walked to Seward School first through fourth grade. It's just amazing to me now that we'd walk down 10th Avenue on Capitol Hill. — Stone Gossard