Congress Quotes

“Decisions to cut aid for the terminally ill, for the elderly, for dependent children, for food stamps, even school lunches, are being made by men with full stomachs who live in comfortable houses with two cars and umpteen tax shelters. None of them go hungry to bed at night.”
― Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

“You cannot be afraid to speak up and speak out for what you believe. You have to have courage, raw courage.”
― John Lewis

“Leaders who do not help the people must be replaced by the people.”
― DaShanne Stokes

“The more I see of the representatives of the people, the more I admire my dogs.”
― Alphonse de Lamartine

“Congress didn't vote on the bills, they just wave at them as they go by.”
― Will Rogers

“…being specific is the essence of lawmaking and the whole difference between having a Congress and having a mom.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government

“The message from too many Democrats and Republicans alike remains that we should not let facts get in the way of our day-dreams. It's so much easier to fantasize about an alternative and ideal world, rather than making the hard and unpopular decisions that are necessary to deal with the complicated and frustrating one in which we live. It is so much easier to imagine that world as a blank slate on which America can draw as it wishes, rather than to recognize that limits on American power, and recalibrate strategy accordingly. If Americans fail to reexamine their fundamental attitudes toward that world, then the risk for the future is that failure in Iraq will make the United States more cautious, but not wiser.”
― John Hulsman, Ethical Realism: A Vision for America's Role in the World

“He came away with an exasperated sense of failure. He denounced parliamentary government root and branch that night. Parliament was doomed. The fact that it had not listened to Rud was only one little conclusive fact in a long indictment. "It has become a series of empty forms," he said. "All over the world, always, the sawdust of reality is running out of the shapes of quasi-public things. Not one British citizen in a thousand watches what is done in Parliament; not one in a thousand Americans follows the discourses of Congress. Interest has gone. Every election in the past thirty years has been fought on gross misunderstandings.”
― H.G. Wells, The Holy Terror

“...the Constitution is an invitation for the president and Congress to struggle for the privilege of directing foreign policy. Although the president is the principal foreign policy actor, the Constitution delegates more specific foreign policy powers to Congress than to the executive. It designates the president as commander-in-chief and head of the executive branch, whereas it gives Congress the power to declare war and the power of the purse. The president can negotiate treaties and nominate foreign policy officials, but the Senate must approve them. Congress is also granted the power to raise and support armies, establish rules on naturalization, regulate foreign commerce, and define and punish offenses on the high seas.

Although the president is the chief foreign policy maker, Congress has a responsibility to be both an informed critic and constructive partner of the president. The ideal established by the founders is neither for one branch to dominate nor for there to be an identity of views between them. Rather, the founders wisely sought to encourage a creative tension between the president and Congress that would produce policies that advance national interests and reflect the views of the American people. Sustained consultation between the president and Congress is the most important mechanism for fostering an effective foreign policy with broad support at home and respect and punch overseas. In a world of both danger and opportunity, we need such a foreign policy to advance our interests and values around the globe.”
― Lee H. Hamilton, A Creative Tension: The Foreign Policy Roles of the President and Congress

“Wisdom of the Ages: "Keystone Pipeline" Conveniently removes the need to speak figuratively about Congress stick a dagger into the heart of America.”
― Matthew D. Heines

“About half the population thinks that every person in Congress, including their own representative, should be thrown out. That's the center not holding.”
― Noam Chomsky, Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire

“By simply refusing to fund a president's unconstitutional conduct, Congress can stop him dead in his tracks - even after the courts have abdicated their responsibilities to do so.”
― Mike Lee

“Quote from Ranger Captain David Craig, character in Voice in the Wilderness, page 187:
“If the House and the Senate had the guts to stick to it [Constitution], and we could trust SCOTUS to uphold it, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
― H.L. Wegley, Voice in the Wilderness

“Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why if all politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don’t have Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don’t control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices — 545 human beings out of 235 million — are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excused the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered by private central bank.

I exclude all of the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it.

No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislators’ responsibility to determine how he votes.

Don’t you see the con game that is played on the people by the politicians? Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of Tip O’Neill, who stood up and criticized Ronald Reagan for creating deficits.

The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating appropriations and taxes.

Those 545 people and they alone are responsible. They and they alone should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses — provided they have the gumption to manage their own employees.”
― Charley Reese

“There is Irish Spring, but there is no fall soap.”
― Jerry Mooney, History Yoghurt and the Moon

“This was one of the unfortunate consequences of exaggerating the enemy's evil. You were obligated to exaggerate your own virtues as well. To counter the enemy's fiendish subversion, you wielded a blunt instrument of righteousness. And then you got a congressional committee of yahoos with subpoena power and God on their side...If only, Axel thought. If only they weren't so god damned dumb.”
― Ward Just

“Congress should make it so that all sex scenes in all films should be provided with a screaming baby sound track. That should help take away all the fun and may show a major decrease in unwanted pregnancies without having to provide birth control to anyone.”
― Heather Chapple, Write like no one is reading

“This is going to be a lot for the Congress to swallow, even on the deck of a sinking ship.”
― Kenneth Eade, Terror on Wall Street, a Financial Metafiction Novel

“We need to show the Congress that our Government is no longer on sale to the highest bidder. It belongs to the voters.”
― Kenneth Eade, Terror on Wall Street, a Financial Metafiction Novel

“Forget public service. We all come here with good intentions, but as time passes, it becomes all about self-service and selfish survival.”
― Congressman X, The Confessions of Congressman X

“Senator Markey’s Cyber Shield Act can work! Start the conversations with the basics: Use a QR code that attaches to a dynamic database that runs an artificial intelligence algorithm to calculate the score. Let’s not make this more difficult than it is.”
― James Scott, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology

“Overall, Cyber Shield Act is an excellent idea and could facilitate a much-needed cultural shift in secure device manufacturing and upkeep."
James Scott, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology”
― James Scott, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology

“Most IoT devices that lack security by design simply pass the security responsibility to the consumer, thus, treating the customers as techno-crash test dummies.
James Scott, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology”
― James Scott, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology

“The two main problems with signature and heuristic based anti-virus is the mutating hash and the fact that you first need a victim in order to obtain the signature."
James Scott, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology”
― James Scott, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology

“If developed and implemented meaningfully, Cyber Shield Act could be a catalyst to incite responsible cybersecurity adoption and implementation throughout multiple manufacturing sectors."
James Scott, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology”
― James Scott, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology

“The Cyber Shield Act could serve as a secure conduit to facilitate update and patch delivery"
James Scott, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology”
― James Scott, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology

“Overall, Cyber Shield Act is an excellent idea and could facilitate a much-needed cultural shift in secure device manufacturing and upkeep.”
― James Scott, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology

“The Cyber Shield Act could serve as a secure conduit to facilitate update and patch delivery”
― James Scott, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology

“After Congress passed SJ Res 34, we are no longer merely battling a cyber-kinetic war on all fronts, we are now in a state of perpetual cyber-kinetic-meta war, and there will be no end.”
― James Scott, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology

“The Lamar Life stationary carried on its letterhead an oval portrait of Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, for whom the Company had been named: a Mississippian who had been a member of Congress, Secretary of the Interior under Cleveland, and a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, a powerful orator who had pressed for the better reconciliation of North and South after the Civil War.”
― Eudora Welty, On Writing