Top 79 Quotes & Sayings by Bill Foster

There's no way I can run a nonpartisan organization the same time I am running for Congress.

We need to beef up STEM education.

It is important to remember the purpose of health care reform: to make sure Americans have access to quality, affordable health care - especially those individuals who were being denied by their insurance companies because they weren't profitable customers.

One of the fundamental scientific discoveries of the dog-human relationship is that when a dog looks into his master's eyes, you have a release of oxytocin - which is the trust hormone, the love hormone.

Science has improved public health, taken us to the moon, and allowed us to understand the origins of our universe. It also has given us the tools to solve problems now instead of reacting to them after it is too late.

I was surprised that when you get into electoral politics how scientific the analysis was in the electorate. You can identify on a state-by-state or district-by-district basis fundamental building blocks that behave in different ways. I was impressed in general with the sophistication of polling.

There's a fundamental question that everyone has to answer: What fraction of your life do you spend in service to your fellow man? It's not something that science helps you answer at all. It's one of these questions like, Who are you gong to marry? Science doesn't really help you with the question.

Immigrants greatly contribute to our country's economic prosperity.

The NLRB provides important protections to American workers.

As a businessman, I know that businesses need certainty.

Lawmakers imagine they can be political heroes by voting for budgets that slash scientific research by 20 percent, but they inhibit our ability to respond to health crises.

I support marriage equality and oppose legislation that defines marriage as only being between a man and a woman.

'Too big to fail' is fine for restaurant chains. If Denny's fails, it's fine for this economy. You can always go down to the TGIFs. But that's not the same for large-scale investment companies.

When I see the sort of mindless tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts to education, I just think we've got it exactly backward in this country.

We should not chip away at the protections that have built the largest economy and the largest middle class in the world.

If you're dealing with live nuclear material, and you do anything that disperses them, it is very hard to hide, even after a 24-day cleanup period, the fact that there was nuclear material in this facility.

I don't want to do anything that capitalizes personally on the fact that I've been in public service.

Anyone concerned with the broken politics in Washington needs to look no further than Mitch McConnell's cynical manipulation of the rules and obstruction of the NLRB.

From a scientific point of view, it's hard for me to understand why someone in the Texas Panhandle should not have access to the same research funds that someone in the Oklahoma Panhandle can have.

When I first ran for Congress, I decided that I would not take pledges to vote for or against any issue. I believe the practice of taking pledges contributes to the worst of the partisan gridlock in Washington, preventing many members of Congress from even considering a reasonable compromise offered by the other side.

My father was actually a chemist. He got a degree in chemistry from Stanford.

History has not looked kindly on us when we've prevented people fleeing violence from seeking refuge in this country.

Federal policies must understand the linkages between economic growth, social mobility, and a strong middle class.

I support the Affordable Care Act and believe we should take steps to further expand coverage and reduce costs.

America cannot become just a service and financial services economy, and to prevent that, there is no substitute for having people with successful, real-world manufacturing experience in Congress.

Veterans often need medical and psychological assistance, and often, for them, it is hard to ask for help, but we want them to know they are not alone.

There are a number of much less expensive alternatives to detaining immigrants than locking them up somewhere.

Properly funding federal research at Argonne National Labs and Fermi National Accelerator Labs will also create jobs and directly benefit the Eleventh District.

I believe we need a balanced, bipartisan approach to debt reduction that includes a combination of spending cuts, investments in economic growth, and simplification of the tax code that closes corporate loopholes that incentivize companies to ship jobs overseas.

The idea of ensuring that federal research dollars should be reasonably spread around is an arguably useful goal. But it should be done per person, not per state.

Science, logic, and truth should not be partisan issues; they are the cornerstones of fields that have made the United States a leader in innovation and a better place for everyone to live.

As a scientist, the starting point is always the facts of the matter, whereas often, in politics, the starting point is how does this play in the next election.

If we had created rules to automatically turn up the required down payment on a home when there's a housing bubble, or just say that the mortgage on a property cannot be larger than the value of the property three years ago, the amount of human misery that would've been avoided would've been enormous.

In science, if you stand up and say something you know is not correct, that's career-ending. It used to be that way in politics, but not anymore.

Measles may not spread as fast as erroneous sound bites and tweets, but they both have the potential to cause a great amount of damage.

I'm pushing - on a bipartisan basis, actually - to get federal support for the creation of high-quality textbooks that can be downloaded for free on the Internet.

I used to say I represented 33% of the strategic reserve of physicists in Congress.

I am grateful for the sacrifices our veterans have made to defend our freedom and prosperity.

The freedoms and prosperity we enjoy in America are thanks to the brave men and women who have served in our armed forces.

We owe these heroes a great deal - it is our solemn responsibility to ensure that all veterans receive the care and respect they have earned.

I think when you provide something absolutely free, the potential of abuse exists. Getting an education without skin in the game is not good.

The real question is whether the federal government should be in the business of redistributing wealth to equalize the economic status of every state, including states where not many people, for whatever reason, have chosen to live. That type of redistribution is a distortion of our economy.

We have to get back to universities being more focused on education and more connected on what they educate students for to the jobs that actually exist.

If we choose to ignore science and refuse to fund important scientific research, we voluntarily cede our place as a world leader in innovation.

As we face tough decisions in Washington, we must never forget our responsibility to protect Medicare and preserve it for future generations.

As someone who started a small business from scratch, I know how important it is for families and for communities to have strong job creation.

I think the amount of love and trust on Capitol Hill is often in short supply, and having more dogs here would probably make this place work better and maybe in a more bipartisan manner.

I supported and voted for the public option in the version of the Affordable Care Act passed by the U.S. House. Had it been incorporated into the final version of the ACA, it would have done much to increase the competitiveness of ACA Exchange Marketplaces.

I really believe in U.S. manufacturing and U.S. exports, but we have to have a level playing field.

As a scientist and successful businessman, I understand that no one has a monopoly on good ideas.

I'm not opposed to the idea of helping regions that are struggling to get a reasonable fraction of federal research spending.

Alan Greenspan is going to go down in history as one of the worst Federal Reserve chairmen ever.

I often say that I inherited the family's recessive gene for adult-onset political activism.

The decline of particle physics in the U.S. is really a symptom of the erratic and sometimes anti-scientific attitudes in Washington and the incompetence of Congress in managing science.

I grew up in a family that was always talking about politics.

Scientists want to know the evidence behind a statement; they want reproducible tests and verifiable facts. There is a big difference in the thought process of a trial lawyer who is interested not in what's true but what he can convince a jury is true.

The United States will always be a global leader, and we need to actively engage the international community to make sure all citizens of the world live freely and equally under their country's rule of law. We cannot, however, afford to fight other nations' wars interminably or stabilize their regions.

I understand clearly as a freshman in Congress, you don't get to steer the bus.

Scientific discovery requires sustained funding for decades, and politicians can destroy it in a single budget cycle.

As we continue to work to pass comprehensive immigration reform, we must take action to stop these predators who are exploiting immigrants attempting to play by the rules.