Congress's Quotes

#1. The attack on ObamaCare was that Congress does not have the power under the Commerce Clause to force a private citizen into a private contractual relationship. If such a thing is permitted to stand, the anti-ObamaCare forces argue, there will be no limit to Congress's power in the future.

John Podhoretz

#2. 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".

Hank Green

#3. Congress's definition of torture in those laws - the infliction of severe mental or physical pain - leaves room for interrogation methods that go beyond polite conversation.

John Yoo

#4. With gridlock the norm, Congress's approval rating is below 10 percent and the public has lost faith in its national leadership.

Ron Fournier

#5. Dodd acknowledged Congress's reluctance to become entangled abroad but added, "I do, however, think facts count; even if we hate them.

Erik Larson

#6. Congress is furious at the Secret Service for consorting with hookers, which has traditionally been Congress's role.

Andy Borowitz

#7. 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.

Jon Corzine

#8. Andrew Jackson was the first president to claim that the desires of the public overrode Congress's constitutional prerogatives. Virtually every president since Jackson has claimed the mantle, even while lacking two ingredients of an electoral mandate: a landslide victory and a specific agenda.

Ron Fournier

#9. 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

#10. I respect the Congress's oversight responsibility.

Hillary Clinton

#11. It was an attempt to stick the Congress's finger in King Hussein's eye.

George P. Shultz

#12. Appellant constituted a legitimate class of one, and this provides a basis for Congress's decision to proceed with dispatch with respect to his materials.

William J. Brennan Jr.

#13. 'Favoritism' is always a factor, and pressure always build for the appointment of friends of influential supporters of the President, or for the nominees of powerful Member of Congress from the incoming President's party.

Richard V. Allen

#14. This is deeply disturbing. Congress provided loans to help businesses hurt by the Sept. 11 attacks, not to be used as an accounting gimmick to cover up this administration's failure to provide for small businesses.

John F. Kerry

#15. It's disgraceful that year after year, Congress has bowed to the tobacco lobby and refused to act.

Edward Kennedy

#16. It will be up to Congress to check the president's ambition of committing the U.S. to an international green scheme that will produce little or no return.

John Barrasso

#17. There are 435 members of Congress. There's one 'Morning Joe' show. Hopefully, we can keep hammering the argument that you can disagree with other people and have debates but remain civil.

Joe Scarborough

#18. It is with great disappointment that I call on Representative Anthony Weiner to resign. The behavior he has exhibited is indefensible and Representative Weiner's continued service in Congress is untenable.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz

#19. Women's voices aren't heard often enough. Congress should reflect the population, but with only 20 percent women in the Senate and 18 percent in the House, it just doesn't.

Kirsten Gillibrand

#20. I think it's difficult for members of Congress to be as independent as they need to be in their voting.

Jim Moran

#21. Congress did not pass last year's 2006 budget proposals. The 2007 budget proposals are very similar, and once again unfairly target agriculture. I expect Congress to reject them again.

Saxby Chambliss

#22. The men and women of America's homeland security apparatus do important work to protect us, and Republicans and Democrats in Congress should not be playing politics with that.

Barack Obama

#23. I certainly enjoy going on stage and lecturing and talking to Congress. That's a personality explanation. And given government proposals, I thought I had a clear view that they were antagonistic to human freedom.

Whitfield Diffie

#24. Did anyone in the White House or the N.S.A or the C.I.A. consider flying to Hong Kong and treating Mr. Snowden like a human being, offering him a chance to testify before Congress and a fair trial?

Alex Berenson

#25. While Kuwait is not a democracy, giving only half the population a voice in their government is not a policy this Congress should support and one that I am glad that Kuwait's leaders are changing.

Ginny Brown-Waite

#26. While restoring a sense of fiscal discipline to Congress is a top priority, infrastructure spending is an important and necessary task of government. Our nation's long-term debt requires us to prioritize and economize with every tax dollar.

Cynthia Lummis

#27. That's what separates out American democracy from dictators and horrible governments across the world and the reason why that works is that we have a president that can consult with congress before making big decisions. That doesn't just make a unilateral decision to go in for military conflict.

Charles R. Chamberlain

#28. It's been said that members of Congress love receiving pats on the back weekdays in Washington, D.C., but they would benefit greatly from going home regularly to receive valuable slaps on the back of the head in their districts.

Tim Walberg

#29. It is time to end the discrimination against people who need treatment for chemical addiction. It is time for Congress to deal with our Nation's number one public health problem.

Jim Ramstad

#30. It is Republicans that have led the fight for women's equality. Go back through history and look at who was the first woman to ever vote, elected to office, go to Congress.

Marsha Blackburn

#31. We will make sure our troops have all that is necessary to complete their missions. That's why I went to the Congress last September and proposed fundamental - supplemental funding, which is money for armor and body parts and ammunition and fuel.

George W. Bush

#32. More coming out about Saddam Hussein. We now know he takes Viagra and he has as many as six mistresses. No wonder Congress is reluctant to take action against this guy - he's one of their own.

Jay Leno

#33. There's a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he's a reformer.

Hillary Clinton

#34. We deeply regret that some Senators are still willing to do Big Oil?s bidding, and we now turn to the House where the Arctic drilling scheme should be dead on arrival. Americans are clamoring for a clean Congress and a clean energy plan, but sadly they were shortchanged on both today.

Carl Pope

#35. It's not fair to say that Congress spends money like a drunk sailor. At least the sailor is spending his own money!

Ronald Reagan

#36. It's important to remember that whatever the presidential candidates of either party say, they will have to interact with the United States Congress, particularly the Senate, when it comes to crafting policy.

Tom Cotton

#37. Biologists summarize these hypothalamic duties as the "four F's" of animal behavior - feeding, fleeing, fighting, and, well, sexual congress.

Sam Kean

#38. The president is now having to deal with a Congress. He's never had to do that before. The president in the past, he has just done whatever he wanted. He had a big rubberstamp here up on Capitol Hill, whatever he wanted, they stamped OK. That's not the way it is now.

Harry Reid

#39. If U.S. national sovereignty continues, it is only as a state that Puerto Rico will have permanent 10th Amendment powers over its non-federal affairs, as well as voting power in Congress.

Dick Thornburgh

#40. I don't think 'my way or the highway' works, that mentality. And that's what the Tea Party has done: drawn a line in the sand. I'm sorry - that doesn't work in business, that doesn't work in your family, it certainly doesn't work in government and our Congress.

Patrick Murphy

#41. 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.

Craig Ferguson

#42. And I agree that the Democratic legislators in Massachusetts might have given some advice to Republicans in Congress about how to cooperate. But the fact of the matter is we used the same advisers and they say it's the same plan.

Barack Obama

#43. So we in Congress have a very clear choice. We can take largely symbolic action and sit back and fiddle while Americans burn more gasoline. Or we can pass concrete, effective legislation that will save consumers money while significantly reducing U.S. oil consumption.

Sherwood Boehlert

#44. In all, dozens upon dozens of groups and organizations have prioritized stopping the killing in Darfur before there is no one left to be killed. It is high time that we, the U.S. Congress, join our name to that list.

Kendrick Meek

#45. I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting. Most of us didn't think that. What we did learn is this - it's a hostage that's worth ransoming. And it focuses the Congress on something that must be done.

Mitch McConnell

#46. The problem we have had on the budget all along is a lack of adult supervision on the part of the White House. You can't blame members of Congress for looking out for their parochial interests. It is the president's responsibility to look out for the national interest.

Bruce Bartlett

#47. Congress must go further to protect the right to privacy, to end the NSA's dragnet surveillance of ordinary Americans, to make the intelligence community more transparent and accountable.

Elizabeth Warren

#48. I think there is some overreach in the sense that the EPA now says: if Congress doesn't pass greenhouse emissions regulations or testing, we'll simply do it on our own. I think that's an arrogance of a regulatory body run amok.

Rand Paul

#49. I've spoken in front of members of the U.S. Congress about a new dream of living in communities where everybody is welcome and everyone can live and go to school and work without facing the fear of bullies.

Lauren Potter

#50. In Congress, while the House's proposed defense budget calls for significant increases, it also cuts 11 billion dollars from veterans spending - including healthcare and disability pay. Be clear: we can't equate spending on veterans with spending on defense.

Jennifer Granholm

#51. The airheads of Congress will keep their own plush healthcare plan - it's the rest of us guinea pigs who will be thrown to the wolves.

Camille Paglia

#52. We've got a dictatorial president and a Justice Department that does not want Congress involved. Your guy's acting like he's king. His dad was at a 90 percent approval rating and he lost! And the same thing can happen to him!

Dan Burton

#53. But, you know, there's another group that really runs the show. It's very shadowy, just as you've described ... Those of us in the Congress of the United States are window dressing.

Virgil Goode

#54. It's one thing to stick to your guns. It's quite another to hold those guns to the heads of your citizens.

Lori Goodwin

#55. There is no debate in the scientific community ... We need [Congress] to change things, not to deny what's happening.

Bill Nye

#56. Challenges of historic import threaten America's future. Action on the deficit, economy, energy, health care and much more is imperative, yet our legislative institutions fail to act. Congress must be reformed.

Evan Bayh

#57. It's lawmakers know better than anyone that laws are more a matter of practical compromise than any kind of moral imperative.

Kim Stanley Robinson

#58. Most of our country's serious problems can be laid at the feet of Congress and the White House and not at capitalism.

Walter E. Williams

#59. Not a single time have we gotten our rights from Congress or the President, we get them from God. And when He gives us those rights, He puts a warning bell inside of us. When somebody tries to take them, a warning bell goes off. And that's what America is feeling right now.

Glenn Beck

#60. And then there's this guy, Barack Obama, who lost - I could take up a whole afternoon talking about his failures, but - he lost his first race for Congress, and now he gets to call himself my husband

Michelle Obama

#61. I think it's time ... that we reform Congress to the point where all public assistance comes in one single committee. One area where all public assistance can be located, and it will be easy to see all the duplications, all the waste, so much easier to see areas where fraud is running rampant.

Louie Gohmert

#62. It's awfully hard to convey a sense of credibility to allies when you [the Congress] voted for the war and then you declared: Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time.

Dick Cheney

#63. There's nothing more powerful than someone who has the disease who can be articulate and go in front of Congress or go to local government and say man, this is what's happening, and it's going to be you.

David Hyde Pierce

#64. With Americans worried about losing their jobs, their savings, their homes and their chance at the American Dream, the New Direction Congress will work in a bipartisan way to lift our economy and help America's middle class.

Nancy Pelosi

#65. I'm sick of these congress meetings. There no reason to meet again. As you know, if there's a congress, I usually win it.

Ivan Slavkov

#66. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

U.S. Congress

#67. It is statesmanlike for the administration and Congress to look to our nation's welfare beyond their terms in office.

Nick Clooney

#68. To help U.S. workers, farmers and businesses, and America's 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.

Joe Baca

#69. If we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday at a time of presidential inaugurals, this is thanks to Ronald Reagan who created the holiday, and not to the Democratic Congress of the Carter years, which rejected it.

David Horowitz

#70. We need a straitjacket around Congress when it comes to spending so that they are forced to do what 49 states are required to do and what every family business and every family is required to do, and that's live within their means.

John Cornyn

#71. Then the Zionists got involved and affected relations. The U.S. Congress stopped the export of grain to Iraq from the U.S. We explained it as Jewish influence and our stance on Palestine.

John Nixon

#72. As members of Congress, we take an oath to uphold the Constitution and bear true faith and allegiance to the United States, not the Republican or Democratic party. I have been willing to stand up to my own leadership when it's in the national interest.

Jackie Speier

#73. Congress has an obligation to protect our country's natural beauty, embodied in our nation's parks, rivers, and breathtaking landscapes.

Dave Reichert

#74. Well, it's not a pleasant experience. And it's a terribly political process, because that thing was initiated by the Congress and by, you know, our adversaries in the Congress.

Bruce Babbitt

#75. You need to know that a member of Congress who refuses to allow the minimum wage to come up for a vote made more money during last year's one-month government shutdown than a minimum wage worker makes in an entire year.

William J. Clinton

#76. The Middle East is literally going up in flames, as is California, and Katrina's problems haven't been solved, and Congress' response is to criticize Federal judges.

Alcee Hastings

#77. If we add state capitalism to the Bush administration's success in eroding both the US Constitution and the power of Congress, we may be witnessing the final death of accountable constitutional government.

Paul Craig Roberts

#78. Medicare debates in Congress should result in better Medicare benefits for all our nation's seniors. We're not asking for special treatment for rural America, just a fair deal.

Bennie Thompson

#79. When I came to Congress, like our first panel, small business people, 64 percent of the people had health insurance. We'd buy it. Now, we're down to about 34 percent. That's why we have to do something on health care in this country because the cost is killing us.

Bart Stupak

#80. People are worried about if somebody's going to say that I'm Islamophobic or what have you. This is craziness because we are at war. That's why I asked congress, go ahead and declare the war .

Benjamin Carson

#81. Many may look at me and see mostly what I have lost. I struggle to speak, my eyesight's not great, my right arm and leg are paralyzed, and I left a job I loved representing southern Arizona in Congress.

Gabrielle Giffords

#82. With a measly 18 percent of our Congress composed of women, the U.S. ranks just 77th in the world in terms of women in elected office, surpassed by such countries as Ezbekistan and Moldova.

Jackie Speier

#83. The same people in the Congress who are busy kicking holes in the social safety net are also those who would sell off the nation's forests for a song, give away its national parks, and trash its wilderness preserves; there is a connection between the two impulses.

Paul Gruchow

#84. Congress has a responsibility to review research paid for by hard-working American taxpayers.

Lamar S. Smith

#85. In the liberal imagination, the money is the government's by default, and the president and Congress determine through the tax code how much to give back to the people.

Matthew Continetti

#86. The law cannot do it for us. We must do it for ourselves. Women in this country must become revolutionaries." - Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Congress

Jessica Bennett

#87. Congress is the appropriate place to make laws about our country's immigration policy; it is not something that the president gets to decide on his own.

John Barrasso

#88. We'll look to the fall and if there is a new president and a new Senate that's part of a Congress willing to change, that's the next step.

Scott Walker

#89. It's a lie! I am not an anti-Semite. The World Jewish Congress supported me and said that I am not anti-Semitic.

Hugo Chavez

#90. Memo to Congress: America's problem is not that government is too small. It's the spending, stupid!

Bob Beauprez

#91. I would say to the president: This is not about me. This is not about Republicans here in Congress. It's about fairness for the America people.

John Boehner

#92. Most economists would concede that, in theory, government has the tools to smooth the business cycle. The problem is that fiscal policy is not made in theory; it's made in Congress.

Charles Wheelan

#93. People have to recognize that it's going to take some time for trust to be built, not only between Democrats and Republicans but between Congress and the White House, between the House and the Senate. You know, we've had a dysfunctional political system for a while now.

Barack Obama

#94. President Bush says he is looking forward to the testimony of Condoleezza Rice. Yes, he is very excited about Condoleezza Rice's testimony before Congress. Well, it makes perfect sense - he wants to know what was going on, too.

David Letterman

#95. 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

#96. We have some Jewish members of Congress, not a lot but there's a bunch of us.

Gary Ackerman

#97. Because the Bush Administration will set no timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, both chambers of Congress acted to make sure our troops will not be left in Iraq indefinitely.

Jan Schakowsky

#98. A prickle of porcupines, a cackle of hyenas, a pounce of cats, a slither of snakes. But it's a nest of vipers, a quiver of cobras, and a rhumba of rattlesnakes. They also have a parliament of owls and a congress of baboons, which I find insulting to baboons myself.

Abigail Roux

#99. It's time for Congress to act, restore the Voting Rights Act, and take action to prevent voter disenfranchisem ent. As your next Congresswoman, I will stand up to the extremists in the Republican Party to ensure civil rights are protected for everyone.

Alma Adams

#100. It's really beneath the office of a member of Congress to say something that outrageous. The fact that she was once the Speaker is mind-numbing, honestly ... mind-numbingly stupid.

Trey Gowdy