Chuck Schumer Quotes

Today, families like the one I grew up in still believe in that American dream. But as President Obama says, it's a make-or-break moment for the middle class. Mitt Romney's plans would make things worse.

The way to lessen the grip of the Tea Party on the electoral process would be to do what a handful have done and have a primary where all voters, members of every party, can vote, and the top two vote-getters then enter a runoff.

The dome of the U.S. Capitol has fallen into severe disrepair ... As the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, which oversees matters of the Capitol's physical plant, I have serious concerns about the consequences of omitting this funding from the stopgap spending measure.

I made education the highest priority of my campaign - actually education and jobs - and the reason is a simple one: I think the future of America depends on it.

Reclassification is the best way to for us to preserve the Internet as an unfettered tool for communication and the sharing of ideas.

I think it's a little insulting, a bit insulting to American workers when Rand Paul says that unemployment insurance is a disservice.

The vast majority of the people employed by Wall Street are the secretary who goes in to work on the Long Island Rail Road, who makes fifty, sixty, seventy thousand dollars a year.

You do have to change things as warfare changes.

Republicans always try to paint Democrats as weak on defense. This time, they can't. After all, Mitt Romney's idea of an overseas accomplishment is sending U.S. jobs there.

There are some tax expenditures that are there for very obvious and very important and very good policy reasons. Whether it's the charitable deduction or the deduction for homes, it's not a loophole.

America is a place where we all come together. It is a place of consensus.

When someone takes a private photo, on a private cell phone, it should remain just that: private.

In today's competitive economy, to stand still is to die.

There are many reasons why Mitt Romney should not become president, but perhaps the most important of all is the narrowness of his experience, perspective and vision.

My father, Abe, was a small businessman. For 32 years, he ran an exterminating company. That may explain why our family always associated the smell of roach spray with love.

Mitt Romney's only bottom line is the one at the end of his own bank statement. The problem is that he confuses his own narrow, self-interest - and that of people like him - with the national interest. He thinks as long as we do right by the Mitt Romneys of the world, America will be just fine.

Let me say this, to all of the chattering class that so much focuses on those little tiny, yes, porky amendments - the American people really don't care.

Barack Obama knows that to create an economy built to last, we need to focus on middle-class families. Families who stay up on Sunday nights pacing the floor, like my dad did, while their children, tucked in bed, dream big dreams. Families who aren't sure what Monday morning will bring, but who believe our nation's best days are still ahead.

Everyone has a hole inside themselves. They don't know they had it until they have kids, and then that hole fills up. And it's so great; it's just God's greatest gift to us.

You have to show Israel that it's not going to be forced to do things it doesn't want to do and can't do.

I'm totally opposed to vouchers. I will fight them tooth and nail.

There are very close ties between the Jewish and Mormon people.

I want to attract the best people into teaching.

We certainly want those at the top to do well, but if you base your entire presidency and your entire economic platform on helping them do even better, you're missing what makes the economy tick. Because not everyone has been as fortunate as Mitt Romney, you cannot base your whole approach on a life experience as rarified as his.

You know, we have three branches of government. We have a House. We have a Senate. We have a President.

The 2014 election was not a repudiation of government in general.

But these days there are a lot of younger people who would like to go into teaching but don't because the economic opportunities are sometimes elsewhere.

I'd like to see the health care professionals making decisions, not some bureaucrat in Indianapolis working for an insurance company.

When one has success, the answer is not to undo that success. It is to continue what has been done.

Wall Street excesses helped lead to the Great Recession.

It is essential that all Americans take the time to honor and remember those individuals who gave their lives in defense of our liberty.

If we say the Geneva Convention is obsolete, then what do others who have our soldiers say?

To do health care was a noble, good thing, and it will help America dramatically. I don't begrudge Barack Obama choosing it, even though if I were president, I might not have.

I went to the public schools myself. And they were great for me.

Any party that writes off 25, 30, 35 percent of the American people is not going to be a winner.

Democrats don't relate to middle-class people.

Well, I think it's too early to call Fallujah a failure.

I told the President, I told Rahm Emanuel and others in the administration that I thought the policy they took to try to bring about negotiations is counter-productive, because when you give the Palestinians hope that the United States will do its negotiating for them, they are not going to sit down and talk.

I'm strongly for a patient Bill of Rights. Decisions ought to be made by doctors, not accountants.

Well, the tough thing for them is that the Republican primary is pretty far over to the right, just as the Democratic primary is further over to the left than the average voter in each party.

What the public hates the most is when they think the politicians aren't listening to them. They understand that we can't solve all their problems with a snap of our fingers, but they sure want us to try because we are public servants.

A devastating commentary on the war in Iraq is that we have been unable to spend money on infrastructure.

The Tea Party elites believe government is evil. Everything about government is bad, and they blame all problems, even non-economic problems, problems that were caused by the private sector, on government.

The fundamental weakness in the Tea Party machine is the stark difference between what the leaders of the Tea Party elite - plutocrats like the Koch Brothers -want and what the average grassroots Tea Party follower wants.

Giving up even an ounce of precious freedom is a very serious thing to do.

The Tea Party people are ideologues. They are right, and no one can change their minds. There is no reason for compromise.

Mitt Romney would move the Court even further right, putting landmark decisions like Roe v. Wade at risk. Some say Romney would repeat the past. I disagree - he'd be worse.

So I want my kids to go to public schools because I think it's a better education overall.

Working with the media remains an effective and essential way to raise issues, educate the public, and prod policy-makers and corporate leaders to change for the better.

We are on the precipice of a crisis, a Constitutional crisis. The checks and balances, which have been at the core of this Republic, are about to be evaporated by the nuclear option. The checks and balances that say if you get 51% of the vote, you don't get your way 100% of the time. It is amazing, it's almost a temper tantrum.

The Tea Party is a rear guard, not a vanguard.

Have kids; have a lot of kids. Start early and keep having them.

Voters did say 'repeal health care', they did say 'reduce the size of government.' But not a single one of them from the tea party or anywhere said 'give tax breaks to the wealthiest.'

The Tea Party elites gained extraordinary influence by being able to funnel millions of undisclosed dollars into campaigns with ads that distort the truth and attack government.