Congress Quotes - Page 15

• We all have a role to play - the President, Congress, parents, students and schools - in making college affordable and keeping the middle class dream alive.

  Arne Duncan

  Dream, School, College

  "Lower Student Loan Interest Rates" by Sec. Arne Duncan, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 27, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Once we secure our borders - and the federal government has not done a good job - then Congress, I believe, needs to take up the issue and look at how we try and identify those people that are here, that are national security risks to the United States.

  David Dewhurst

  Jobs, Believe, Issues

  4 Copy quote

• Ayman Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, as well as Abu Musab Zarqawi, have made it quite clear in their internal propaganda that they cannot win unless they can drive the Americans out. And they know that they can't do that there, so they've brought the battlefield to the halls of Congress.

  Geoff Davis

  Winning, Osama Bin Laden, Propaganda

  "House Republicans Respond to Murtha". Geoff Davis' remarks during news conference by House Republicans at the United States Capitol in Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C., www.nytimes.com. November 17, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are no ideas in the Republican Party right now in the Congress. They're the party of no. They desperately need some intellectual leadership. And whatever you think of Newt Gingrich, he can supply intellectual leadership. So I hope he does run.

  Howard Dean

  Running, Party, Thinking

  "Newt Gingrich, Howard Dean Talk Race, Economy and Elections". "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace, www.foxnews.com. July 25, 2010.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I ran for Congress not because I was having a mid-life crisis. I left the private sector because I saw a looming financial crisis that was coming to this country. It's unsustainable.

  Steve Daines

  Country, Saws, Financial

  52 Copy quote

• There's a reason that students don't grade their own papers. There's a reason defendants don't sentence themselves. And there's the reason the State Department doesn't get to investigate itself, determine whether or not it made errors in Benghazi. That is Congress's job.

  Trey Gowdy

  Jobs, Errors, Paper

  "Gowdy to first-hand account Benghazi eyewitnesses: You will be protected". "On the Record" with Greta Van Susteren, www.foxnews.com. April 30, 2013.

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• F.D.R. had to deal with Southern segregationists - and outright racists - who held power in Congress, so he had to yield to that power in order to get his New Deal legislation passed.

  Jeff Greenfield

  Yield, Order, Southern

  7 Copy quote

• Senator, it has been reported that you have had illegal congress with your mother.

  Lou Reed

  Mother, Politics, Illegal

  Lou Reed (2008). “Pass Thru Fire: The Collected Lyrics”, p.392, Da Capo Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We've got a tax code that is encouraging flight of jobs and outsourcing. And that's why we've specifically recommended in this campaign that Congress change our tax code so that we stop giving tax breaks to companies that are moving to Mexico and China and other places, and start putting those tax breaks into companies that are investing here in the United States.

  Barack Obama

  Jobs, Moving, Giving

  Barack Obama and Alan Keyes Illinois Senate Debate hosted by Illinois Radio Network in the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, www.keyesarchives.com. October 12, 2004.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• I wish I could set deadlines for the Congress, but that's just not the way the Constitution is written.

  Robert M. Gates

  Wish, Way, Constitution

  "Interview with Defense Secretary Robert Gates on 'Fox News Sunday'". "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace, www.realclearpolitics.com. June 20, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is inexcusable for the White House and Congress to not even make the effort to find at least some offsets to this new spending, ... No one in America believes the federal government is operating at peak efficiency and can't tighten its belt.

  Tom Coburn

  Believe, Government, White

  "No Katrina sacrifice", www.cnn.com. September 15, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If Congress were to censure, fine or otherwise try to punish a president, it would dramatically alter the balance of power between the branches.

  Mike DeWine

  Balance, Trying, President

  "Could Clinton escape censure, too?". www.cnn.com. December 31, 1998.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• [An] act of the Congress of the United States... which assumes powers... not delegated by the Constitution, is not law, but is altogether void and of no force.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Law, Void, United States

  Thomas Jefferson, H. A. Washington (2011). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private”, p.466, Cambridge University Press

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you give Congress a chance to vote on both sides of an issue, it will always do it.

  Les Aspin

  Humorous, Issues, Giving

  4 Copy quote

• Congress has really set this thing up in a way that they absolve themselves of blame, They have their scapegoats. They can blame the Pentagon. They can blame BRAC. It's hard for voters to say this is Ortiz's fault.

  Juan Carlos I of Spain

  Voters, Way, Faults

  10 Copy quote

• Money cannot be applied to the *general welfare*, otherwise than by an application of it to some *particular* measure conducive to the general welfare. Whenever, therefore, money has been raised by the general authority, and is to be applied to a particular measure, a question arises whether the particular measure be within the enumerated authorities vested in Congress. If it be, the money requisite for it may be applied to it; if it be not, no such application can be made.

  James Madison

  May, Welfare, Authority

  James Madison (1974). “The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: As Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787 ...”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you tell Congress everything about the world situation, they get hysterical. If you tell them nothing, they go fishing.

  Harry S. Truman

  Fishing, World, Hysterical

  Harry S. Truman (1967). “The Quotable Harry S. Truman”, Anderson, S.C. : Droke House, distributed by Grosset & Dunlap

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Members of the Congress, the Constitution makes us not rivals for power but partners for progress. We are all trustees for the American people, custodians of the American heritage. It is my task to report the State of the Union--to improve it is the task of us all.

  John F. Kennedy

  People, Progress, Custodians

  Kennedy, John F. (1963). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1962”, p.5, Best Books on

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The First Amendment's language leaves no room for inference that abridgments of speech and press can be made just because they are slight. That Amendment provides, in simple words, that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." I read "no law . . . abridging" to mean no law abridging.

  Hugo Black

  Mean, Simple, Law

  Concurring opinion, Smith v. California, 361 U.S. 147, 1959.

  68 Copy quote

  Show source

• Citizenship is no light trifle to be jeopardized any moment Congress decides to do so under the name of one of its general or implied grants of power.

  Hugo Black

  Light, Names, Citizenship

  "Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 267 - 68". 1967.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The full consequences of a default or even the serious prospect of default by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and on the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The Nation can ill afford to allow such a result. The risks, the cost, the disruptions, and the incalculable damage lead me to but one conclusion: the Senate must pass this legislation before the Congress adjourns.

  Ronald Reagan

  Risk, Damage, Serious

  Letter to Majority Leader Howard Baker, November 16, 1983.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think the Supreme Court has, as an equal branch of government, the ability to overrule Congress and the president. But I also feel it's the role of the Congress and the president to push back. I mean I think it's important that they are understood as equal branches of government.

  Rick Santorum

  Mean, Thinking, Government

  Source: www.nbcnews.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Congress should not be creating money out of thin air, which is what Lincoln did when he created greenbacks. But it is a congressional responsibility to maintain gold and silver as a legal tender.

  Ron Paul

  Responsibility, Air, Creating

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Next time a man tells you talk is cheap, ask him if he knows how much a session of Congress costs.

  Evan Esar

  Men, Cost, Next

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Team, Fall, School

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.129, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source