Quotes About 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.

Thou shalt not steal unless thou hast a majority vote in Congress.... I'm healthy; subsidized prescription drugs won't do me much good. I'd be willing to forego my prescription drugs if Congress would force some young American to mow my lawn.

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.

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 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.

One time, the Library of Congress was giving books to local libraries around the country on Islam. The library of a guy named Walter Jones, who's a member of Congress from North Carolina, got some books and resource materials, and he got up in the press and said he didn't want any Muslim books in the library. And the people said, "Wait a minute, that's kind of anti-Muslim." He said, "Oh no, Keith Ellison is a friend of mine." And I said, "You know what? We are friends, but you're wrong about this.

You know, I think many people have the mistaken impression that Congress regulates Wall Street. In truth that's not the case. The real truth is that Wall Street regulates the Congress.

In seeking the help of the Congress and our countrymen, I pledged no easy answers. I pledged, and asked, only toil and dedication. These the Congress and the people have given in good measure.

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.

The mistakes made by Congress wouldn't be so bad if the next Congress didn't keep trying to correct them.

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 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.

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

What do Americans know about morality? They don't want their presidents to have penises but they don't mind if their presidents covertly arrange to support the Nicaraguan rebel forces after Congress has restricted such aid; they don't want their presidents to deceive their wives but they don't mind if their presidents deceive Congress- lie to the people and violate the people's constitution!

In order to do vigorous oversight, the leadership of the intelligence community has got to be straight with the American people and straight with the Congress. For there to be vigorous oversight, the intelligence community's got to be straight with the American people and the Congress and that has not been the case.

...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.

For decades, people right, left, and center complained that the presidency is too powerful. Trump's administration is shrinking the presidency. The president has less and less influence over Congress. This president is not fulfilling the usual role of the president in being the moral leader and the spokesman for the country. He's just not being looked to for leadership.

It is difficult to get Latina and Asian women to speak out. We must make it clear it's not their problem, it's our problem. We need magazines like this one to keep talking about the issue. And know that we women in Congress are with you 100 percent.

I am not liked as a President by the politicians in office, in the press, or in Congress. But I am content to abide the judgment - the sober second thought - of the people.

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

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 government needs to help those in need, but members of Congress shouldn't take advantage of the situation and use a national tragedy as an opportunity to spend taxpayer dollars on their pet projects.

I worked when I was Congress on a second chance act. We have got to do a better job recognizing and correcting the errors in the system that do reflect on institutional bias in criminal justice. But what - what - what Donald Trump and I are saying is let's not have the reflex of assuming the worst of men and women in law enforcement. We truly do believe that law enforcement is not a force for racism or division in our country.

Congressional mistakes have dramatically increased immigration through a series of what I believe were ill-advised actions going back to 1965 when the basic notions of our immigration laws were revised. In 1990, Congress opened the floodgates by passing a 35-percent increase in legal immigration.

The notion that Congress can change the meaning given a constitutional provision by the Court is subversive of the function of judicial review; and it is not the less so because the Court promises to allow it only when the Constitution is moved to the left.

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.

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.

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.

It is provided by the Constitution that the President shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the Union and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.

The appropriation of public money always is perfectly lovely until some one is asked to pay the bill. If we are to have a billion dollars of navy, half a billion of farm relief, etc... the people will have to furnish more revenue by paying more taxes. It is for them, through their Congress, to decide how far they wish to go.

We can't wait for Congress to do its job. So where they won't act, I will.

I have seen ministers of justice, clothed in magisterial robes and criminals arraigned before them, while life was suspended on a breath in the courts of England; I have witnessed a congress in solemn session to give laws to nations;...but dignity and majesty have I seen but once, as it stood in chains at midnight, in a dungeon, in an obscure village of Missouri.

The right of petition, I have said, was not conferred on the People by the Constitution, but was a pre-existing right, reserved by the People out of the grants of power made to Congress.

Congress and state legislatures should not tell teachers how to teach, any more than they should tell surgeons how to perform operations.

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.

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.

If a trip is worth taking, members of Congress should be prepared to justify paying for it out of their office accounts.

However, as our brave men and women continue to return from the battlefields of the War on Terror, Congress must respond by enacting policies that meet the evolving needs of the veterans community.

Republicans have reached out so much to black Republicans because it's part of our tradition. Blacks have been in this nation longer than most other Americans with the possible exception of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. The first blacks in Congress and the first black Governor were all Republicans. It was Republicans who fought the Civil War over slavery and who introduced the Civil Rights legislation over the next hundred years.

You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do every thing they can to assist you in this wise intention.

Americans want to have what members of Congress have: guaranteed health coverage.

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 American people in Congress have got to ask themselves a very simple question. Why are we the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people as a right?

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.

There will be a focus on infrastructure. The American people had elected a builder to be President of the United States. We're going to work with members of Congress to move forward legislation to fund our infrastructure more effectively in the country.

The United States Congress, acting with large bipartisan majorities, at the urging of the President, enacted as the law of the land that all children are to be above average.

My judgment is that neither House of Congress, nor both combined, have any right to interfere in the count. It is for the Vice-President to do it all.... There should be no compromise of our Constitutional rights.

The Media are corporations so... It's the concentrations of private power which have an enormous, not total control, but enormous influence over Congress and the White House and that's increasing sharply with sharp concentration of private power and escalating cost of elections and so on.