Quotes About Congress

It's politically impossible, as you know, for any member of Congress to make a public statement condemning or criticizing the policies of Israel. It would be political suicidal for them to do so. A lot of the members of Congress agree with me, some very high up in the Congress. But if they came out publically and said it, their seats would be in danger.

In foreign affairs, the president can do what he wants unless Congress says no. In domestic policy, the president can't do anything unless Congress says yes.

Internal self-government under a local constitution was authorized by Congress and approved by the residents in 1952, but federal law is supreme in Puerto Rico and residents do not have voting representation in the Congress.

I'm also politically independent so I'm not a fan of either the Democrats in Congress or the Republicans in Congress.

Obama lost his ability to push his agenda through Congress when he received what he himself called a 'shellacking' in the November 2010 elections. That shellacking was primarily the result of massive policy overreach when he had a Democratic Congress in his pocket.

Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra has charged the Bush administration with keeping programs secret from Congress. Somehow no one from Congress reads the New York Times, I guess.

When President Obama in 2011 used military power against the Qaddafi regime in Libya, he did not even notify Congress. A few in Congress mumbled, but did nothing.

The Patriot Act is the most egregious piece of legislation to ever leave Congress since the Alien and Sedition Acts, John Ashcroft and every member of Congress who voted for it should be indicted.

For Members of Congress, we are saying here on the Democratic side of the aisle we are not going to vote for another pay increase for Members of Congress until the American people get an increase.

I don't think this is a situation where you can say that Congress was avoiding any mention of the tax power. It'd be one thing if Congress explicitly disavowed an exercise of the tax power. But given that it hasn't done so, it seems to me that it's - not only is it fair to read this as an exercise of the tax power, but this court has got an obligation to construe it as an exercise of the tax power if it can be upheld on that basis.

Now, six months after he sent the military back into combat to take on the terror group calling itself the Islamic State, Mr. Obama has acquiesced and sent a measure to Congress asking it to formally authorize what he has been doing all along. And now that they have gotten what they asked for, few in Congress seem all that enthusiastic about the prospect.

June 1st is a date that is looming in everybody's mind with the final enforcement of the UIGEA. I actually think it may, finally, once and for all prove that it's an ineffective law. Congress created that law and now Congress has to do something to correct it.

If I were in Congress in 1996, I would have voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which used Congress's constitutional authority to define what official state documents other states have to recognize under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, to ensure that no state would be forced to recognize a 'same sex' marriage license issued in another state.

The president is eager to get to work and looks forward to working with the new Congress on policies that will make sure middle-class Americans are sharing in the economic recovery, but the president is clear that he will not let this Congress undo important protections gained -- particularly in areas of health care, Wall Street reform and the environment.

It is difficult to get Latina and Asian women to speak out. We must make it clear it's not their problem, it's our problem. We need magazines like this one to keep talking about the issue. And know that we women in Congress are with you 100 percent.

No law can give Congress a backbone if it refuses to stand off as the coequal branch the Constitution made it.

The voters in my district, and around the country, have demanded that Congress get a hold on the influx of illegal immigrants and tighten the security around our borders.

I am not liked as a President by the politicians in office, in the press, or in Congress. But I am content to abide the judgment - the sober second thought - of the people.

This is what class warfare looks like: The Business Roundtable - representing Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and others - has called on Congress to raise the eligibility age of Social Security and Medicare to 70, cut Social Security and veterans' COLAs, raise taxes on working families and cut taxes for the largest corporations in America.

The universe is holding congress with itself.

...Senate Doc. # 259. The 65th congress(:)...The coal companies made between 100% and 7,856% on their capital stock during the war (to end all wars, WWI). ...The leather people sold your Uncle Sam hundreds of thousands of saddles for the calvary. But there wasn't any calvary overseas!

Mike Pence, when he was in Congress, voted against raising the minimum wage above $5.15. And he has been a one-man bulwark against minimum wage increases in Indiana.

Man-made global warming was a potential serious threat, and NASA wanted Congress to fund new satellites to study the problem. It was a team effort to get that accomplished.

In a body [like Congress] where there are more than one hundred talking lawyers, you can make no calculation upon the termination of any debate.

Last year, I co-sponsored the Highlands Conservation Act and in a bipartisan effort we passed the bill through Congress.

In 2003, Congress authorized the construction of a visitor center for the Vietnam Memorial to help provide information and educate the public about the memorial and the Vietnam War.

The appropriation of public money always is perfectly lovely until some one is asked to pay the bill. If we are to have a billion dollars of navy, half a billion of farm relief, etc... the people will have to furnish more revenue by paying more taxes. It is for them, through their Congress, to decide how far they wish to go.

People vote against their own interests that all the time. But when you do the polling in the U.S., it has gone from less than 50 percent who thought climate change was real to 70-odd percent. And if you listen to the Republicans in Congress, they used to say, "Oh, climate change doesn't exist." Then they switched to "Well, it exists, but it's not man-made," to "Well, I'm going to address the issue." Why? Because when they go home, the local constituent says, "Wait a second. What are you talking about? We just had a flood. We haven't had rain in a long time." They can't get away from it.

Aren't we supposed to believe that if you are an elected official, if you serve in Congress, you are representing all the people of your district not just the people who voted for you, not [just] the people who you agree with?

There is not a subject in which I take a deeper interest than I do in the development of Alaska, and I propose, if Congress will follow by recommendations, to do something in that territory that will make it move on.

Oh, if only I could be President and Congress, too, just for ten minutes.

However, as our brave men and women continue to return from the battlefields of the War on Terror, Congress must respond by enacting policies that meet the evolving needs of the veterans community.

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.

The bigger issue is that we're communicating directly with voters [during the president campaign]. For those members of congress that endorse us, terrific, for those that don't, we're still winning voters in their state.

Write letters to your editors, write to your members of Congress, and write to your news stations.

Elect me to office. I will protect and defend the U.S. Constitution. Because there's no constitutional authority for Congress spending on the objects of benevolence, don't expect for me to vote for prescription drugs for the elderly, handouts to farmers and food stamps for the poor. Instead, I'll fight these and other unconstitutional congressional expenditures”? I'll tell you how many votes he'll get: It will be Williams' vote, and that's it.

When this president was sworn into office, he was handed a deficit of over a trillion dollars. Republicans were in control of Congress for much of the time that President George W. Bush was in office, and they didn't do a great job of controlling spending.

And I am saying, how about the other two branches? And putting the pressure on our representatives in the Senate and the Congress, and the court system. They should be counter-acting this corruption, but they are sitting there silent.

In seven years, we'll have the highest percentage of Americans non-native born since the founding of the republic. And some people think, "Well, we've always had these numbers." But it's not so. This is very unusual. It's a radical change. And in fact, when the numbers reached about this high in 1924, the president and Congress changed the policy, and it slowed down immigration significantly. And we then assimilated through the 1965 and created really the solid middle class of America, with assimilated immigrants, and it was good for America.

Congress is not a party which fades when not in power

[The necessary and proper clause] neither enlarges any power specifically granted; nor is it a grant of any new power to Congress; But it is merely a declaration, for the removal of all uncertainty, that the means of carrying into execution those otherwise granted are included in the grant.

The time is now for Congress to address health care in America.

We're half the people; we should be half the Congress.

Every politician just has to remember how he got his position in the first place. A young candidate running for Congress or any outsider interested in public office could only achieve his goals by relying on soft power. They could not force anyone to vote for them. They needed to convince their potential voters, they needed to do fundraising, they needed to be attractive candidates.

We recognize the force of the argument that the effects of war under modern conditions may be felt in the economy for years and years, and that if the war power can be used in days of peace to treat all the wounds which war inflicts on our society, it may not only swallow up all other powers of Congress but largely obliterate the Ninth and the Tenth Amendments as well.

I have a reputation for being the hardest working person in Congress.

One poll showed that Americans have a higher opinion of witches, the IRS and hemorrhoids than Congress

All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting.