I support common-sense measures like universal background checks to prevent guns from falling into the hands of criminals and the dangerously mentally ill.
— Bill Foster
There is an almost universal experience in physicists, at least of my generation, which is home-made pyrotechnics.
It's wonderful to see more of my colleagues recognizing the importance of investing in STEM education and scientific research and development.
People are people, regardless of who they love or what gender they relate to.
Spend a while listening to people in your district to make sure you understand how they are served well in government and how they could be served better.
The fight for a truly inclusive nation that embraces its diversity is not over and perhaps will never be.
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.
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.
I understand clearly as a freshman in Congress, you don't get to steer the bus.
I really believe in U.S. manufacturing and U.S. exports, but we have to have a level playing field.
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.
As a businessman, I know that businesses need certainty.
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.
Alan Greenspan is going to go down in history as one of the worst Federal Reserve chairmen ever.
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.
There are a number of much less expensive alternatives to detaining immigrants than locking them up somewhere.
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.
Those in science perform research, have it reviewed by their peers, publish the results, and believe the answer should be obvious.
My dad spent most of the '50s and early '60s actually acting as sort of an advance man for the Justice Department, as a civil rights lawyer. So it was actually reading his papers after he passed away a few years ago that first started me thinking about this... What fraction of your life do you spend in service to your fellow man?
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.
I am committed to standing up for the LGBTQ community and being a strong voice.
Whoever is running the country should not be in the pay of a foreign interest. The best way is to see tax returns.
History has not looked kindly on us when we've prevented people fleeing violence from seeking refuge in this country.
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.
I think when you provide something absolutely free, the potential of abuse exists. Getting an education without skin in the game is not good.
I grew up in a family that was always talking about politics.
The freedoms and prosperity we enjoy in America are thanks to the brave men and women who have served in our armed forces.
We should not chip away at the protections that have built the largest economy and the largest middle class in the world.
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.
I don't want to do anything that capitalizes personally on the fact that I've been in public service.
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 used to say I represented 33% of the strategic reserve of physicists in Congress.
My father was actually a chemist. He got a degree in chemistry from Stanford.
I often say that I inherited the family's recessive gene for adult-onset political activism.
One of the big concerns is the increasing disrespect for the scientific method and for policies that aren't based on facts and evidence.
The amount of subtle and beautiful physics that's necessary to make a smartphone work is enormous.
Every person deserves to be treated fairly under the law.
The National Endowment for the Arts distributes money to all 50 states, and they try to do their best to distribute to rural and suburban areas. It's one of the great things about the program. It raises the awareness of culture throughout the population.
Those who promote hatred, bigotry, and fear do not represent America and do not represent us.
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.
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.
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.
I'm not opposed to the idea of helping regions that are struggling to get a reasonable fraction of federal research spending.
As we face tough decisions in Washington, we must never forget our responsibility to protect Medicare and preserve it for future generations.
The NLRB provides important protections to American workers.
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.
'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.
I am grateful for the sacrifices our veterans have made to defend our freedom and prosperity.
There's no way I can run a nonpartisan organization the same time I am running for Congress.
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.
