“When the norm is decency, other virtues can thrive: integrity, honesty, compassion, kindness, and trust.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“There is too much blind partisanship in Congress, which has blocked progress on critical issues. Too many members view compromise as weakness rather than the essence of our democracy. This has to end.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“The possibility that members of the Trump team coordinated and colluded with agents of the Kremlin on Russia’s interference in our elections is a profound and disturbing one, but it is pivotal that we approach this issue with the seriousness it deserves.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“In some ways, ‘decency’ is a hazy concept; we know it when we see it.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“The American people need to know if public servants are operating in the best interests of the United States or the Kremlin.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“A high school diploma will no longer be sufficient. But that post secondary education does not have to be a four-year university or a four-year college. It can be career technical education, vocational education, community college.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“America works best when we work together to expand the circle of inclusion.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“As an immigrant, I am grateful for the tremendous opportunities that this great nation has afforded me and my family. I am also aware of the ongoing challenges that immigrants confront, and understand that respecting law and borders is essential for keeping America strong.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“For too long, people in Washington and Congress point fingers at each other, even as millions of middle-class Americans remain unemployed and our economy continues to sputter. They must realize that we are all in this together, and I respectfully submit that the best way to remind Congress of this is to tie their pay to their collective results.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“The most important thing is to recognize that research is our seed corn. It’s a national security priority. It’s not just a way to have enough going on that graduate students can do their Ph.D.s and scientists can publish. We have to do research, or we’ll fall behind the rest of the world.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“There’s another important reason not to send the Dreamers packing: they are essential to preserving the social insurance programs on which older Americans rely.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“I hope that President-elect Trump will drop his unrealistic campaign pledge to deport millions of immigrants who’ve made their lives in this country and contribute to our country.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Mail in our country serves as an economic engine.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“As a candidate for Congress, I proposed a federal infrastructure bank to help local governments fund badly needed projects, including ones in my district. We need to repair and expand our crumbling transportation systems by creating many good-paying construction jobs.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“When a foreign adversary knows that an American official has deceived or withheld vital information from our government, it creates a fundamental counterintelligence vulnerability that can render that official irreparably compromised.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Following well-established national security screening procedures and accurately informing Congress about them is not a joke or a political game. It is essential to guaranteeing that our national secrets are protected and to preventing possible blackmailing of key administration officials.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“We must have the strictest adherence to security procedures to protect against compromise by hostile foreign powers.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“There’s a lot of good, bipartisan legislation that passes in committee and then gets bottled up. As a businessman, it surprised me.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Every night at dinner, my father would say something about the greatness of the United States – and tell us to make sure the government is there for the next people who come along and need it.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“I think with the right leadership on both sides and the right president, we can get a lot done.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“If I am elected to Congress, I plan to introduce legislation tying Congressional pay to performance.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“If I am elected to Congress, I will put the interests of our community first, and I will actively seek input and respond to it.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“In my roles as Deputy State Treasurer and Special Assistant Attorney General, I strove to make government more responsive, transparent, efficient, and proactive.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Voters should know what their representative is doing, what votes he casts, and who he pays, so my office will make this data readily available in a way which is easy to understand.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Americans want Washington to put aside political differences, find common ground, and start producing real economic solutions for the middle class.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Trumpcare would be devastating for millions of American families, but perhaps no one will bear the brunt of its cruelty more than older Americans.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“In addition to skyrocketing premiums, Trumpcare also unravels protections that older Americans want and need in their health coverage.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“All in all, Trumpcare is a bad plan for older Americans.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Losing access to quality and comprehensive coverage, including for prescription drugs, would be devastating to older Americans.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“In the past, leaders of both parties have been able to reach across the partisan divide. They succeeded by retaining their own humanity and recognizing the same in their political opponents.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“In some ways, political decency is a sign of a healthy democracy, but in other ways, it is the cause of it.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“We must reject the politics of meanness and contempt that increasingly dominate our airwaves and Internet.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Our political system has been bankrupted by the failures of Congress to act in ways that give meaning to the struggles our constituents endure.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“After Charlottesville, our politics have now borne witness to a U.S. president at times openly defending neo-Nazis and white supremacists before condemning them.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“The truth is that searching for our commonality instead of our differences could transform our dysfunctional politics.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“In truth, ending DACA will cost us tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic activity.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Each Dreamer in our country is more than a mere statistic; he or she is a proud American in everything but official documentation.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Illinois is home to a disproportionate share of Dreamers and would suffer a significant economic blow should they be compelled to leave.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“I believe the benefits of tax reform should flow to those who most need them most – hard-pressed working families struggling to reach or stay in the middle class.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Our best path to economic growth and global competitiveness is to invest in our people – not to provide huge new tax breaks to special interests.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Cutting tax credits for education and training will result in more Americans working at minimum-wage jobs while U.S. companies go begging for the higher-paid skilled workers they need.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Working with a Republican co-sponsor, Rep. Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania, I introduced a bill to strengthen our nation’s career and technical education programs and more closely align them with the needs of local businesses and industries.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“When our Founding Fathers wrote the historic words ‘all men are created equal,’ they probably didn’t have people like me in mind.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Our country’s history is a generation-spanning journey to effectuate the notion that ‘all men are created equal’ for the members of our ever-expanding national family: women, African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, gays and lesbians, the disabled, immigrants, and refugees.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Equality as a principle is at the heart of our democracy.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“It is time to investigate Russian interference in our democracy and to address it in a manner that will help restore Americans’ trust in their government.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“When the chair of an investigating committee refuses to share vital findings or source information with any of his colleagues, his committee’s ability to function has been fundamentally undermined.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Whenever the Congress represents the increasing diversity of the United States, that’s a good thing.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Donald Trump will become president even after losing the popular vote in our November elections by a wide margin. To govern effectively, he must appeal to a broader base than what he campaigned on and avoid the divisive rhetoric that alienated so many Americans.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“I have strong differences with Mr. Trump on a woman’s right to choose and what kind of justices belong on the Supreme Court.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“I decided to run for Congress to get and keep people in the middle class.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“When I was a young child, my parents came to America in search of a better life for them and their family.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“My parents found good paying jobs, educated me and my brother in wonderful public schools, and entered the middle class.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“I’m looking forward to going to Congress to pursue my Working Families Agenda and find areas of bipartisan agreement to move forward on important legislation.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Before I was elected to Congress, I helped to create the public corruption unit in the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Unfortunately, business was good. Among the usual suspects were government contracts steered to insiders – leaving Illinois taxpayers holding the bag.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“We should never waive the checks on government spending that taxpayers deserve.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“As a small-business man myself, I believe strongly that improving the health of small businesses is the key to improving the economy, growing the middle class, and creating innovative products and services.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“One of the best programs that the federal government sponsors is the Small Business Innovation Research program, in which more than 2.5 percent of federal research and development funding at the largest agencies goes directly to small businesses.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“In my experience, union leaders are respected by their members.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Illinois is large, but we do not always receive our fair share of federal resources because our leadership is often divided. When we all row together, good things happen.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Illinois is becoming more diverse, more tolerant, and even more green.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Mail enables businesses to deliver vital services and products, including medication, and allows these same businesses to receive payments in a timely way.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“So many of our businesses rely on green card holders – how are we supposed to attract these people if they think they’ll be detained at the airport if they go abroad for a wedding or just to show their baby to relatives?”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“I was always a little skeptical of how voters would react to my name.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Pocketbook and economic issues is pretty much all I campaigned on.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“The fact that Barack Hussein Obama became president is historic, to say the least. Actually, to become U.S. senator, that was historic, and then what he did later on – that’s what inspired me to think about running for office.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“In terms of what I wanted to do before I got into politics, I was a businessman. I ran a company that makes and sells infrared night vision military technology and solar technology, so I wanted to grow that company and pursue groundbreaking technology in each of those areas.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Congress increasingly represents the diversity of America.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“If I’m privileged to be elected, I’d be blessed to represent a diverse district, including South Asians and Indian Americans.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“My parents climbed their way to the middle class.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“We cannot afford to balance the budget on the backs of America’s middle class and seniors and must do what it takes to strengthen Social Security and Medicare, including enabling the government to negotiate the price of prescription drugs.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“I strongly support screening all visitors and potential immigrants thoroughly to prevent bad actors from entering the country.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“A porous border is a danger to America’s national security, the people who live near it, and to those who cross it.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“I believe you cannot survive in this global economy without some form of postsecondary education.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“As the president of a cutting-edge research and development firm, I deal with the development of solutions to long-term national security and renewable energy problems every day and will bring this same perspective to Congress.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Making Congress into a less crisis-driven institution starts with electing members of Congress who can take the long view.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“In the private sector, as the president of a small business, my focus has been on driving the growth of our business, not driving any partisan political agenda.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Partisan politics is not my passion.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“We need to cut unnecessary weapons programs like the F-35 fighter plane that cost trillions of dollars and don’t even work.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“We need to invest in our crumbling infrastructure to create jobs and remain economically competitive.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Ultimately, much of the dysfunction in Congress is due to the impact of big money, which drowns out the voices of working families and leads to the special treatment of special interests.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Everyone agrees that our immigration system is broken. Building a wall with Mexico isn’t going to fix it.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“As the son of legal immigrants to America who came from India, I support stronger border security for our nation as well as deporting undocumented immigrants who have committed serious crimes.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“As a party, Democrats must focus on the pocketbook issues that our constituents care about every day when they wake up to go to work, drop off their kids at school, and tuck them into bed at night.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“I think that what is really important is that, at the grassroots level, Indian-Americans really engage in the political process. That means voting and volunteering and assisting candidates who support the agenda that is friendly to their values.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“I am hopeful that both India and U.S.A. would be able to expand their counter-terror partnership through wider intelligence sharing and effective coordination.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“While U.S. investments in India are growing, we also need Indian investments in America.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“A functioning democracy cannot stand when its people do not trust their leaders to uphold the law.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Even people who have successfully obtained a visa are sometimes being turned back at the airport. Such incidents have never happened in the past but are increasing now because even low level officers of the border patrol department are being entrusted with too much discretion power on how they execute the laws.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“Step one of the initial process of getting a non-immigrant visa is tough, renewing it is tough, and then transferring from the status of non-immigrant to immigrant or green card is tough. The only process which is easy is the last part of transferring from green card to citizenship, but getting there is quite a journey.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“When you encounter some form of discrimination or maybe even worse, I urge you to alert others. Regardless of how small the incident is, it has to be brought to the attention of people like me and also the law enforcement agencies.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“We have numerous mandirs, gurudwaras, and mosques in my Congressional district and all across the U.S.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“I’ve led programs that have helped thousands of individuals, small businesses, veterans, the disabled, farmers get low-interest loans to prosper.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“When we came to this country, unfortunately, my father lost his job, and we were this close to destitution. We were put on food stamps. We were put in public housing.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“One of the positives of the Illinois delegation is the congressmen and women work together on issues of local concern in a lot of different ways.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“I’m an immigrant. I came here when I was 3 months old.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“I think it’s so important we’re a nation of laws but also a nation of immigrants.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“China is eating our lunch with regard to renewable energy.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“I’m a product of public schools. They are resource-challenged, and when you take those dollars away from public schools and send them to private schools, you’re further starving the system.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
“I will not stand for any tax increase for middle class or working Americans. There is no way I will support that.”
― Raja Krishnamoorthi
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