Quotes About Congress

So the president is like, "Well, once upon a time it was Congress's job to decide whether or not we attacked countries, so let's let them decide." Which is funny, because, as we all know, if Congress were on fire, Congress could not pass the "Pour Water on Congress Act".

I think if you look at yesterday's New York Times poll, particularly when you judge Democrats in Congress versus the Republicans in Congress, people put a little more faith, or even a little more than a little more faith in the Democrats 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.

A Bush Administration will, I believe, enjoy a better relationship with the new Congress, although President-elect Bush will be faced with real challenges in getting along with the Congress.

Of course, the genesis of a good portion of the gridlock in Congress does not reside in Congress itself. Ultimate reform will require each of us, as voters and Americans, to take a long look in the mirror, because in many ways, our representatives in Washington reflect the people who have sent them there.

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 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.

The thing about an executive order - there has never been an executive order that a Congress couldn't say, "You know, we don't like that so we're going to do something else," if there is a majority in Congress to do something else.

I don't think we can depend on Congress. In the American political system - we have been brought up to believe that the American political system works beautifully; it is democratic; Congress represents us; the President is elected, he represents us - it doesn't work that way.

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.

Congress Mukt Bharat BJP ka naara nahi hai, jan jan ka sankalp hai. Be it dynasty politics, nepotism, corruption, communalism, divisions in society or poverty, getting freedom from all this is what I mean by a Congress Mukt Bharat.

There were two unpleasant surprises [about Washington]. One was the inertia of Congress, the length of time it takes to get a complicated piece of legislation through ... and the other was the irresponsibility of the press.

A republican stands up in congress and says 'I GOT A REALLY BAD IDEA!!' and the democrat stands up after him and says 'AND I CAN MAKE IT SHITTIER!!

The Parliament in Canada and the Congress in Washington do not have the authority to revoke the commandments of God, or to modify or amend them in any way.

As a Member of Congress, I've continued my family's tradition of focusing on education.

Sovereignty inheres in the right to issue money. And the American sovereignty belongs by right to the people, and their representatives in Congress have the right to issue money and to determine the value thereof. And 120 million, 120 million suckers have lamentably failed to insist on the observation of this quite decided law. ... Now the point at which embezzlement of the nation's funds on the part of her officers becomes treason can probably be decided only by jurists, and not by hand-picked judges who support illegality.

Now, today, some children are enrolled in excellent programs. Some children are enrolled in mediocre programs. And some are wasting away their most formative years in bad programs....That's why I'm issuing a challenge to our states: Develop a cutting-edge plan to raise the quality of your early learning programs; show us how you'll work to ensure that children are better prepared for success by the time they enter kindergarten. If you do, we will support you with an Early Learning Challenge Grant that I call on Congress to enact.

The American people expect more from Congress. They expect fiscal responsibility and common sense. They expect us to return to the pay-as-you-go budget rules that we had enacted in the past that helped us establish a surplus, however briefly.

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.

During my first term in Congress, I signed a pledge that I will take no more earmarks and I've been faithful to that pledge.

The powers of congress must be defined, but their means must be adequate to the purposes of their constitution. It is possible there may be abuses and misapplications; still, it is better to hazard something than to hazard at all.

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 White House approved an exemption in Obamacare coverage for Congress and members of their staff. Members complained that the Affordable Care Act will cost them thousands extra a year in premiums. Wait a minute. It's their bill. If it's too expensive, why did they name it the Affordable Care Act?

Congress should stop treating veterans like they're asking for a hand out when it comes to the benefits they were promised, and they should realize that, were it not for these veterans, there would be nothing to hand out.

The thing I'd want people to say about me is that, in some way, I helped bring the Senate and the Congress back to what it used to be, the people's branch of government, doing things that made a difference in people's lives. I have devoted my life to government.

We know the legislation that passed the House. It was the worst piece of legislation frankly against working class people that I can remember in my political life in the Congress.

During the terrorist regime in Haiti in the 1990s, the CIA, under the administration of Bill Clinton, was reporting to Congress that oil shipments had been blocked from entering Haiti. That was just a lie. I was there. You could see the oil terminals being built and the ships coming in.

Most people are far more concerned that they can control their own bodies than they are about petitioning Congress.

We, as conservative intellectuals, should not be in the business of making excuses for bad parliamentary decisions by Republican leaders in Congress.

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.

My father ran for Congress in 2004, and I got a sense that there is no way to achieve much success without a certain amount of compromise.

The founders were very worried that if parties developed in America, you might have something like the modern Italian system, where you have 20 different parties that divide Congress and the country and can't govern.

[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.

I think there are only two things you should really expect Congress to do.One is to pass a short-term funding bill, because it's not in their political interest to shut down the government when the fiscal year comes into effect, the new fiscal year, on October 1. The second thing, I think, is Zika funding. This has been put off and off for months and months.

We cannot make the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the United States someone who has risked America's secrets and lied about this to Congress and the American people about it day after day after day.

Campaign boot camp started as an opportunity to work in a grassroots way with people who were running for Congress. Colleagues on the Democratic National Committee were batting around different possibilities. I said, 'We should have boot camps.'

On the question of opposition, I think there are - when you want to send a signal if you're on the Democratic side that this is a very right wing cabinet at odds with so much of what [Donald] Trump said. And it's also going to be fascinating to see if your Republican Party in the congress actually goes along with those aspects of the Trump plan that are designed to raise wages.

I do think that Republicans are flirting with their tax cut, which has always been the narcotic of Republicans, that they in fact have to at some point, with any remote pretense of candor, abandon any pretense of a balanced budget.I mean, they talk about - because they are going to finance the tax cut by tax cuts. That's how they're going to do it. And I do think that the will is there right now in the Congress to act. I think they will be as close to unity as you will see on Capitol Hill this year.

What standards are upheld by the scientific community affect the community internally, and also affect its relations with society at large, including Congress.

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

Political gerrymandering makes the incentive for most members of Congress to play to the extremes of their base rather than to the center.

President Obama signed a bill preventing members of Congress from profiting from insider trading. Didn't you think that was already illegal?

The Congress, the Administration and the public all share a profound commitment to the rescue of our natural environment, and the preservation of the Earth as a place both habitable by and hospitable to man.

This war [in Syria] is going to support Al-Qaeda and the same people that killed Americans in the 11th of September. The second thing that we want to tell Congress, that they should ask and that what we expect them to ask this administration about the evidence that they have regarding the chemical story and allegations that they presented.

I fully share the Congress's objective of promoting nonproliferation and combating Iran's efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and missile delivery systems. This issue remains at the top of the agenda with Russia as well as with other countries whose companies may be providing such assistance to Iran. In the case of Russian entities' cooperation with Iran, we have imposed penalties ten times in the past and stand ready to apply them again whenever necessary.

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

I would rather be known as 'Jim Kolbe, the trade expert in Congress who happens to be gay,' rather than 'Jim Kolbe, gay congressman from Arizona.'

Illegal immigration presents a huge problem. That is why I decided to spend a week along the southern border to see firsthand how bad the problem is and, more importantly, what Congress can do to fix it.