Quotes About Congress

We have the Israelis coming to us for equipment. We can say we can't possibly get the Congress to support a program like this. And they say don't worry about the Congress. We will take care of the Congress. This is somebody from another country, but they can do it. They own, you know, the banks in this country. The newspapers. Just look at where the Jewish money is.

It has now been over 7 years since Congress last raised the minimum wage to its current level of $5.15 per hour. Since that last increase, Congress's failure to adjust the wage for inflation has reduced the purchasing power of the minimum wage to record low levels.

I can't imagine that I would be asked that by the president-elect [Donald Trump], or then-president [Barack Obama]. But it's - I'm very clear. I voted for the change that put the Army Field Manual in place as a member of Congress. I understand that law very, very quickly and am also deeply aware that any changes to that will come through Congress and the president.

I was very, very concerned about President Obama and how much executive order and how much executive power he tried to exert. But I think I want to be, and I think congress will be, a check on any executive, Republican or Democrat, that tries to grasp too much power. And really, a lot of the fault is not only presidents trying to take too much power, it's Congress giving up too much power.

The difference between the more traditional sports clubs and Congress is that Congress doesn't really compete against another team.

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.

Congress doesn't regulate Wall Street. Wall Street regulates Congress.

It's not written in the Constitution or anything else.... Congress, just out of the clear blue sky, said the airwaves belong to the people, which means, in essence, that it belongs to Congress.

Presidents have absolutely gone against the will of Congress. Congress hasn't declared a war since December 7, 1941, and yet we've been at war ever since with somebody or other in order to justify the war machine. Now we have alienated almost the entire earth

Yes, [I am accusing the CIA of] misleading the Congress of the United States, misleading the Congress of the United States. I am.

...Jabotinsky insisted that all energies be expended to force the Congress to join the boycott movement. Nothing less than a 'merciless fight' would be acceptable, cried Jabotinsky. 'The present Congress is duty bound to put the Jewish problem in Germany before the entire world...(We [Jews] must) destroy, destroy, destroy them, not only with the boycott, but politically, supporting all existing forces against them to isolate Germany from the civilized world...our enemy [Germany] must be destroyed.

There are some things that you can always bet on. One is that when Congress comes up with a new program it never works right over the long haul. Another is, when Congress goes to fix the mess it has made the mess only gets worse.

Most of us complain about Congress. We say it's a place that doesn't reflect us; they don't listen to us. Actually, Congress well reflects the American people. It gives us exactly what we ask for.

I think we've set the bar with respect to the notion that it is possible to provide health care for people. Now I know that the incoming Congress and administration talks about repealing it. But we've set a bar that shows that this can be done. And that core principle is one that the majority of Americans, including supporters of Donald Trump believe in.

I love working for the people of Indiana. I love helping our citizens make the most of their lives, but I do not love Congress.

Mandatory minimum sentences give no discretion to judges about the amount of time that the person should receive once a guilty verdict is rendered. Harsh mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses were passed by Congress in the 1980s as part of the war on drugs and the "get tough" movement, sentences that have helped to fuel our nation's prison boom and have also greatly aggravated racial disparities, particularly in the application of mandatory minimum sentences for crack cocaine.

The universe is holding congress with itself.

The laws of Congress and the laws of physics have grown increasingly divergent, and the laws of physics are not likely to yield.

The Congress is pretty powerful if it wants to be.

Was the Vietnam conflict a war which should have, as a matter of constitutional law, required a declaration of war by Congress?

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.

The budget is like a mythical bean bag. Congress votes mythical beans into it, then reaches in and tries to pull real ones out.

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

Once lead this people into war, and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance. To fight, you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fiber of our national life, infecting Congress, the courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street.

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

Tonight, with a new Iraqi government in place, and following consultations with allies abroad and Congress at home, I can announce that America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat.

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

Earth Day gathered up those strands, and dozens more, and knitted them together in the public consciousness as "environmental" issues. The nation was pretty startled when 20 million people hit the streets. Congress, which had adjourned for the day to go back to its districts, was blown away.

I believe in the absolute separation of church and state and in the strict enforcement of the Constitution that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

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.

Well, it looks like John Boehner will be the new Speaker of the House. He is the son of a bartender, one of 12 children. He grew up in a two room home with just one bathroom, worked his way through school, became the first person in his family to graduate from college. And, sadly, fell in with the wrong crowd and wound up in Congress.

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.

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.

There's not an appropriations bill in the last 10 years that the-that Democrats passed in the Congress. We haven't spent any money of your taxes in the last decade.

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.'

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.

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.

President Obama's executive actions give work permits and federal entitlement benefits to people illegally in America - in direct violation of the laws passed by Congress. This undermines the entire constitutional system of government.

But in Congress, accountability is just a catch phrase, usually directed elsewhere. Demands to personal responsibility or corporate accountability abound, but rarely congressional accountability or fiscal responsibility.

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

It was declared by Congress that marijuana makes people insane. But . . . lawyers, defense lawyers, got the idea, OK, I can use this for an insanity defense.

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

A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school,preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not "studying a profession," for he does not postpone his life, but lives already.

You watch Jeff Sessions testifying in front of Congress, Jesus, like watching an amnesiac: "I don't recall," "I don't remember," "I don't recall," "I don't remember," "I don't remember what I don't recall," "I recall what I don't remember." Amazing.

We passed law that encouraged consumption through different purchasing habits like, you know, hybrid vehicles. You buy hybrid, you get a tax credit. We've encouraged the spread of ethanol as an alternative to crude oil. We have asked for Congress to pass regulatory relief so we can build more refineries to increase the supply of gasoline, hopefully taking the pressure off of price. And so the strategy is to recognize that dependency upon crude oil, in a global market, affects us economically here at home. And, therefore, we need to diversify away as quickly as possible.

The authority of the Supreme Court must not be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve.

Given the slow pace of Washington's bureaucracy, policymakers are often busy solving yesterday's problems. This rearview mirror approach afflicts Mr. Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress.