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".

Normally what happens in a new presidency is the president has a big agenda, and Congress is full of people with human weaknesses. And so the president indulges the human weaknesses of members of Congress in order to pass his agenda. This time it's the other way around. Donald Trump does not have much of an agenda. Congress burns with this intense Republican agenda and so does Congress that has to put up with the human weaknesses of the president in order to get a signature on the things it desperately wants to pass.

Congress doesn't hate Congress.

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 my father ran for the state Assembly, the headline said, 'Kean's Son to Run for Assembly.' When my grandfather first ran for Congress, it was 'Kean's son to run for Congress.'

We want this - and I - we hope that right when they come back, that the Congress passes the Lilly Ledbetter Act which would correct the Supreme Court decision that was just recent that essentially guts wage discrimination law. It's been in place for years. It was gutted by this Roberts Court. We want it to be reversed by legislation. We hope that Congress passes it and that is on the desk for [Barack] Obama to sign as one of his first acts once he's sworn in. So it - I could go on, we have quite a well-developed list.

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.

A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it. Dealing with Congress is a matter of give and take. The president doesn't get everything he wants, the Congress doesn't get everything they want. But we're finding good common ground.

For the first time in history, Congress has 100 women in it. Congratulations. Welcome to modern times, America. It's great having 100 women in Congress. Unless you're in line for the congressional bathroom.

In fact, corporate and union moneys go overwhelmingly to incumbents, so limiting that money, as Congress did in the campaign finance law, may be the single most self-denying thing that Congress has ever done.

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.

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.

...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.

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.

One thing I want to do is create something called Ring Around Congress. It would be a state deal and also a national thing, where the kids, as a field trip, will go and join hands around Congress and give the politicians report cards on how they're voting on hunger issues.

Republicans in Congress boosted the economy by cutting taxes and ending programs that don't work.

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

Congress is so beholden to the money that any solution in the general interest will be frustrated and subverted by the corporate interests who feel they will be damaged by progress, fair play and justice.

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.

The only reason the president insists on raising [tax] rates is because he knows it will destroy Republican unity, it will cause a complete fracture of the Republican majority in the house, it will hand him a Congress that he can then manipulate for the next two years at least because the Republicans will be neutered. ... This is entirely a political action, a way to get a surrender from the Republicans.

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.

All I can say is that with business and the interest of any party before me, I will consider and apply the law as it is written by Congress and informed by precedent.

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

In this time of challenge, I am asking the prime minister to address Congress on the grave threats radical Islam and Iran pose to our security and way of life.

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

Nobody can refuse a person who comes and asks for a job. Nobody can refuse a poor man when he goes and asks for food. Nobody can stop any Indian if he asks a question of his government. This is what the Congress party and the UPA have done over the last 10 years.

Have we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our only defence, the militia, is put in the hands of Congress?

I've learned the importance of changing people's minds at the grassroots level so that whoever does run will have a much better chance of encountering public opinion that reaches a critical mass and brings about a change not only in White House policies but in the Congress and in the state legislatures and all around the world.

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

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

A more important antidote to American democracy is American gerontocracy. The positions of eminence and authority in Congress are allotted in accordance with length of service, regardless of quality.

Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street are owned by the Zionists.

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.

Virginia and Maryland attorneys argued this is a national problem and needs a national solution. I'm hoping that with a federal court agreeing this is inequitable, Congress will now act and do the right thing for the District.

Soldiers join the military to serve their country, but when bullets are flying, it's hard to fight for an abstract notion like patriotism. They're fighting for the people standing next to them, and it doesn't matter who's a Republican or a Democrat, or who's black or white or Christian or Muslim or gay or straight. If Congress and all Americans could manage to ignore those differences, we would have a perfect country, but somehow we cannot rise to that level of nobility.

That's why we have senators and members of congress from every state. That's why we have elections. Because the people speak and there are different viewpoints out there. It doesn't mean just because we're members of one party or another, doesn't mean that we behave monolithically. It means that we will express our view points.

We're trying to convey how much easier it is than most people think, especially young people, to turn the country around if they focus on the levers, if they focus on Congress, and state legislatures.

I can tell you that too much money is corrupting American politics. Don't blame the American public. The U.S. Supreme Court has a lot to answer for, because it has made it impossible for Congress to reduce the corrupting influence of money on American political life.

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.

When will the men do something besides extend congratulations? I would rather have President Roosevelt say one word to Congress infavor of amending the Constitution to give women the suffrage than to praise me endlessly!

The slave power dares anything, and it can be conquered only by the united masses of the people. From Congress to the people, I appeal.

Trump has said that he wants to remove the tax deductibility of interest. If he can do that, fine. But I hope that Trump knows that it's not the President that sets tax policy. It's Congress.

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress’s generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

To help U.S. workers, farmers and businesses, and Americas long-term economic security, Congress should take decisive action to bring about fair trade with China, instead of squandering this opportunity on a weak Republican bill.

If Congress doesn't raise taxes, you cannot get a private investment account without forgoing a portion, possibly all, of your guaranteed benefit check.

I mean, look, Nancy Pelosi said in the very beginning this is going to be the most open, honest and ethical Congress in history. And what we're seeing is she's breaking that promise every day.

The Congress has now become a fairly evenly divided entity.

If you want to right-size executive power relative to the other branches of government, the best way to do that is to have a healthy Congress in which the two parties are debating, disagreeing, but also occasionally working together to pass legislation.