Quotes About Congress

The Constitution, in addition to delegating certain enumerated powers to Congress, places whole areas outside the reach of Congress' regulatory authority. The First Amendment, for example, is fittingly celebrated for preventing Congress from "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion or "abridging the freedom of speech." The Second Amendment similarly appears to contain an express limitation on the government's authority.

The men who wrote the First Amendment religion clause did not view paid legislative chaplains and opening prayers as a violation of that amendment... the practice of opening sessions with prayer has continued without interruption ever since that early session of Congress. It can hardly be thought that in the same week the members of the first Congress voted to appoint and pay a chaplain for each House and also voted to approve the draft of the First Amendment... (that) they intended to forbid what they had just declared acceptable.

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

I've got a pen, and I've got a phone, and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive action. I've got a pen to talk executive actions where congress won't. Where congress isn't acting, I'll act on my own. I have got a pen and I got a phone. And that is all I need.

I think that the most exciting thing is to find a tool, like an art, with an opportunity to share. Real roots come from everywhere in the world. Why call is congress? Because it is a congress.

It is not true that Congress spends money like a drunken sailor. Drunken sailors spend their own money. Congress spends our money.

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.

I went to Congress to change the policies of our country. I did not go to change the behaviors of members of Congress.

I'm sick of these congress meetings. There no reason to meet again. As you know, if there's a congress, I usually win it.

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.

Congress passes bills that appropriate money. Congress says, 'We're building this bridge or funding that defense project, and they cost this much.'

No subject was more important in the 2014 elections than healthcare, and Republicans in Congress should waste no time in taking decisive action in response to the voters'€™ demands. Obamacare has escalated costs, disrupted coverage, and introduced bad incentives throughout our healthcare system. Congress must repeal Obamacare and send the president a replacement package of reforms that protects freedom and focuses on the real problem with American healthcare -€” affordability.

I'm thinking, That's Barack Obama. He doesn't go to work. He doesn't go down to Congress and make a deal. What the hell's he doing sitting in the White House? If I were in that job, I'd get down there and make a deal. Sure, Congress are lazy bastards, but so what? You're the top guy. You're the president of the company. It's your responsibility to make sure everybody does well. It's the same with every company in this country, whether it's a two-man company or a two-hundred-man company... . And that's the pussy generation - nobody wants to work.

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.

The Republican Party has become more conservative. The Democratic Party has become marginally more liberal. There's almost no overlap in the middle, ideological overlap, in either house of Congress. That leaves moderates homeless. We have had a hollowing out of the middle in the U.S. Congress. There's less opportunity for compromise.

We have unleashed aspirations of youngsters. Democracy is not going to go backwards. India is too big a country to be run by one person. We are going to accelerate the process of democratization and I think that is the biggest opportunity for Congress party because that is the DNA of the Congress

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

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.

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

Rather than rewriting the law under the pretense of interpreting it, the Court should have left it to Congress to decide what to do about the Act's limitation of tax credits to state Exchanges.

The universe is holding congress with itself.

The Congress is pretty powerful if it wants to be.

If congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to use themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations.

[Barack] Obama was reaching a point [with Syria bombing] where he might not have been able to carry it off.He was losing support internally, and was compelled to send the vote to Congress, and it looked as if he was going to be defeated, which would have been a very serious blow to his presidency, to his authority.

We must shift the energy policy debate in America with an increased focus on alternative and renewable fuels and Congress must pass meaningful alternative fuels and incentive programs to help move the U.S. away from dependence on foreign oil.

Unfortunately there are too many examples of members of Congress and other elected officials using language, referring to your opponents in ways that you would have never done before, ascribing the worst motives to your opponents, and assuming that other Americans are the enemies. And that's just not the way it used to be. And I don't think it can be that way in the future.

I could not do what I do without the kindness, consideration, resourcefulness and work of librarians, particularly in public libraries... What started me writing history happened because of some curiosity that I had about some photographs I'd seen in the Library 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.

Congress, the legislative stone in America's urethra.

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

A territory cannot become a state or a nation unless Congress approves legislation and the president signs it.

This is a matter of Congress authorizes spending. They order me to spend.

I would never want to see myself viewed as beating the drums of war, ... but I would rather live with that image than look into the mirror and see a member of Congress who failed to do his duty.

Unfortunately, we have a 50% unemployment rate among our urban youth of color. It's not about making green jobs more attractive. It's about making them more available. And that requires Congress passing legislation that will give a real break to the people who want to introduce new technologies to the American marketplace.

Whether we like it or not, men have more of the offices, more of the higher jobs, more of the seats in Congress. Men need to re-examine what their power is. We need to understand how to use it.

No power but Congress can declare war; but what is the value of this constitutional provision, if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war? ... [T]hese remarks originate purely in a desire to maintain the powers of government as they are established by the Constitution between the different departments, and hope that, whether we have conquests or no conquests, war or no war, peace or no peace, we shall yet preserve, in its integrity and strength, the Constitution of the United States.

Most Americans are more concerned about the economy and job creation. And they can't understand why the Obama administration or the Democrat majority in Congress wants to pass a bill like the cap-and-trade tax that will cost us jobs, that will hurt our economy, that will drive up costs for families, as well as for small businesses.

I think it can be very important for the president to seek congressional approval for war , even though not constitutionally required to do so, in certain situations. It makes sense to go to Congress to signal our national resolve and our willingness to fight to defend other nations or the freedom of their peoples.

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

Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States.

The President's call for more math and science students is not being heeded by his party's leaders in Congress. They are cutting over $10 billion from student aide while refusing to fully fund No Child Left Behind. Something doesn't add up.

President Obama said he is going to use the Gulf disaster to push a new energy bill through Congress. How about using the Gulf disaster to fix the Gulf disaster?

The White House doesn't create jobs. The government together - White House, Congress - creates policies that allow for greater job creation.

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

The intelligence community's 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) stated, in a formal presentation to President Bush and to Congress, its view that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction - a belief in which the NIE said it held a 90% level of confidence. That is about as certain as the intelligence community gets on any subject.

What is required from members of Congress and the public alike is a new spirit of devotion to the national welfare beyond party or self-interest.

I think that the responsibility that the Democrats had may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress, or by me when I was President, to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

I think that our president should not be representing our country. He has alienated our allies. He continues to lie day in and day out. He creates controversy. He can't get along with the members of Congress. He needs to be impeached. I want him impeached.