Quotes About Congress

Congress' dynastic politics has shattered the hopes & aspirations of people. Congress hides behind the veil of secularism whenever its governance falters and its misconduct is exposed. This will no longer go unchallenged. The younger generation will not accept these actions of Congress!

A President and his wise men can only propose; but Congress disposes. It is when President and Congress agree that American history marches forward.

With nearly two years remaining in his presidency, George W. Bush is alone. In half a century, I have not seen a president so isolated from his own party in Congress - not Jimmy Carter, not even Richard Nixon as he faced impeachment. Republicans in Congress do not trust their president to protect them.

The court follows elite opinion, not public opinion. And Democratic leaders in Congress and Republican leaders in Congress follow elite opinion as well. It's what I've called "the Washington cartel." It's career politicians in both parties. It is lobbyists and giant corporations.

Secularism for the Congress is merely a slogan while for the BJP it is an article of faith. Secularism is about votebank politics for the Congress, while it is about 'India first' for the BJP.

A new Republican Congress is taking over. Sen. Ted Cruz has been appointed tooverseeing NASA in Congress. He says he wants NASA to focus on finding aliens so he can deport them.

State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress. ... Inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description, as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c., are component parts of this mass. No direct general power over these objects is granted to Congress, and, consequently, they remain subject to State legislation.

Consider that in a galaxy far, far away (otherwise known as the 1990s), President Clinton felt that he had to assure an isolationist Republican Congress - repeat after me, an isolationist Republican Congress - that the 20,000 U.S. peacekeeping troops he promised Bosnia as part of the Dayton Accords would only stay deployed for a single calendar year.

Of course, running a coalition government in a country like India is a difficult task. More so when Congress leads the coalition, since most of the political parties were anti-Congress. To have a coalition, to run a coalition government, you require a lot of adjustments, a lot of flexibility.

The President doesn't just appoint the Secretary of State, he appoints the Secretary of State, and then the Congress votes. And if the Congress approves that person, that person becomes Secretary of State.

I think Churchill is right, the only thing to be said for democracy is that there is nothing else that's any better, and therefore he used to say, Tyranny tempered by assassination, but lots of assassination. People say, If the Congress were more representative of the people it would be better. I say the Congress is too damn representative. It's just as stupid as the people are; just as uneducated, just as dumb, just as selfish.

The country wants the president and the Congress focused on jobs and the economy. Any regulation that the president promulgates that isn't focused on, I think, is a risk for him, and the same is true for Congress.

The American people want jobs and economic growth. Congress is doing nothing to provide that. The American people want their constitutional liberties protected. Congress is doing nothing to provide that.

I don't want to make a member of Congress do something that that member of Congress's constituents would not approve of, or would not agree to. So in that regard, I'm kind of the opposite of a lobbyist.

If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare... they may appoint teachers in every state... The powers of Congress would subvert the very foundation, the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America.

In a certain sense, and to a certain extent, he [the president] is the representative of the people. He is elected by them, as well as congress is. But can he, in the nature [of] things, know the wants of the people, as well as three hundred other men, coming from all the various localities of the nation? If so, where is the propriety of having a congress?

Let me make it clear that I do not assert that a President and the Congress must on all points agree with each other at all times. Many times in history there has been complete disagreement between the two branches of the Government, and in these disagreements sometimes the Congress has won and sometimes the President has won. But during the Administration of the present President we have had neither agreement nor a clear-cut battle.

If the Federal Reserve pursues a policy which Congress or the President believes not to be in the public interest, there is nothing Congress can do to reverse the policy. Nor is there anything the people can do. Such bastions of unaccountable power are undemocratic. The Federal Reserve System must be reformed, so that it is answerable to the elected representatives of the people.

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.

It is almost impossible for anyone outside this damn beltway to really understand how the Congress works. If you aren't here, walking the halls of Congress, sitting at bars and attending parties where you get to knock back some brews with Hill staffers, you don't have a handle on the almost numbing amount of bullshit that goes on.

While Kuwait is not a democracy, giving only half the population a voice in their government is not a policy this Congress should support and one that I am glad that Kuwait's leaders are changing.

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

After two years of hard work and debate, Congress has passed a highway bill that will help fuel our economy by creating roughly 500,000 new jobs, as well as address many critical transportation needs in Ohio and the 18th Congressional District.

I hear people who are worried about climate change tell me, oh, Congress that's gridlock, that's not where the action is.

The urge to pass new laws must be seen as an illness, not much different from the urge to bite old women. Anyone suspected of suffering from it should either be treated with the appropriate pills or, if it is too late for that, elected to parliament [or congress, as the case may be] and paid a huge salary with endless holidays, to do nothing whatever.

The Congress is pretty powerful if it wants to be.

Frankly, nobody's every seen anything like what's happening today. When you have somebody getting a subpoena from the United States Congress to have your e-mails and all other information sent, and after - not before, after getting the subpoena, 33,000 e-mails are deleted and acid washed. And nobody even knows what that means, acid wash. It's a very expensive thing to do. Most people don't even know what it means.

The Middle East is literally going up in flames, as is California, and Katrina's problems haven't been solved, and Congress' response is to criticize Federal judges.

It's August, which means Congress is on recess and Mitch McConnell has shimmied back into the ocean to seek a mate.

One hundred and fifty years ago the vacant lands of the West were opened to private use. One hundred years ago the Congress passed the Homestead Act, probably the single greatest stimulus to national development ever enacted. Under the impetus of that Act and other laws, more than 1.1 billion acres of the original public main have been transferred to private and non-federal public ownership. The 768 million acres remaining in federal ownership are a valuable national asset.

There are 435 members of Congress. There's one 'Morning Joe' show. Hopefully, we can keep hammering the argument that you can disagree with other people and have debates but remain civil.

But, you know, there's another group that really runs the show. It's very shadowy, just as you've described... Those of us in the Congress of the United States are window dressing.

There is no debate in the scientific community...We need [Congress] to change things, not to deny what's happening.

Obamacare is the nation's biggest job killer and stands in the way of our country's economic growth and prosperity. It should be defunded and repealed. President Obama should hear the pleas from the untold number of Americans who are losing their jobs, wages, and healthcare plans, and Congress should act immediately to stop Obamacare from inflicting any more damage on the country on our hard-working citizens.

I don't think the only place to fight for freedom is in the halls of Congress.

When the ACLU took my case and we got a ruling I think, for the first time, they could - the Congress could put out the report internally but they couldn't put it out at taxpayers' expense around the country. And I felt odd about that because I, in a way, I was interfering with free speech, but then, you can't always win.

In explaining the Constitution, James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, wrote in Federalist Paper 45: 'The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peach, negotiation, and foreign commerce.' Has the Constitution been amended to permit Congress to tax, spend and regulate as it pleases or have Americans said, 'To hell with the Constitution'?

We cut tax exemptions in 1986, it was the most admired tax reform in U.S. history. Congress and the president worked together then to eliminate scores of loopholes and exemptions and deductions; this made taxes much simpler, and allowed a major cut in tax rates.

The most significant impact is what it does in terms of the integrity of the legislative process and the executive process, as opposed to what it does for campaigns. But to remove this unheard of process in the 1990s, where members of Congress are being pushed and shoved every Tuesday to ask for $100,000, $500,000, a million dollars from corporations, unions, and individuals, this was never allowed in American history.

The right to participate in the choice of representatives for Congress includes, as we have said, the right to cast a ballot and to have it counted at the general election whether for the successful candidate or not.

The argument has been made in Congress that it is slippery slope if you allow therapeutic, what people people are calling therapeutic cloning, then you will get reproductive cloning.

If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don't, you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves.

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

In a democracy, hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can’t otherwise win their fights through elections, can’t win their fights in Congress, can’t win their fights for the Presidency, and can’t win their fights in Courts. For this right-wing minority, hostage-taking is all they have left – a last gasp of those who cannot cope with the realities of our democracy.

I am the first podiatrist to serve in the U.S. Congress.

I believe that the power to declare war is most important in limiting the powers of the national government in regard to the rights of its citizens, but that it does not require Congress to give its approval before the president uses force abroad. I do not believe that the framers of the Constitution understood the power to declare to mean "authorize" or "commence" war. That does not mean that the separation of powers or checks and balances will not work.

I meet with ambassadors from all countries in my role as a member of Congress, and you always have better relationships with those you actually personally get along with. That matters. So if there is chemistry between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, maybe that can bode for something.

If someone had told me in 1963 that one day I would be in Congress, I would have said, 'You're crazy. You don't know what you're talking about.'