Quotes About Congress And The President

#1. One of the litmus tests for judicial conservatism is the idea of judicial restraint - that courts should give substantial deference to the decisions of the political process. When Congress and the president enact a law, conservatives generally say, judges should avoid 'legislating from the bench.'

Jeff Greenfield

#2. You want to balance the budget in this country? We change the salary structure for Congress and the President. Every year they don't balance the budget, we don't pay them.

Daniel Keys Moran

#3. We need to send a message to Congress and the president that we want them to take the actions that are needed to preserve climate for young people and future generations and all life on the planet.

James Hansen

#4. 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

#5. Clean air is a basic right. The responsibility to ensure that falls to Congress and the president.

Thomas Carper

#6. A territory cannot become a state or a nation unless Congress approves legislation and the president signs it.

Pedro Pierluisi

#7. President Obama can talk about having no grand schemes and making no big gains, but the reality is he can't get anything of significance through Congress.

Robert Dallek

#8. When it comes to pay raises, Congress always plays the role of Grinch. The bill extends an existing pay freeze for Vice President Joe Biden, specifically, and senior political appointees broadly.

Susan Davis

#9. Though no one wants war, Congress needed to give the President the authority he needs to protect America while encouraging the use of diplomacy and negotiations to try and arrive at a peaceful solution to this problem.

Allen Boyd

#10. Congress, of course, is not bound to accept the president's budget figures, but the House has the sole power to appropriate funds for spending, and it is a duty that should not be ignored.

Marsha Blackburn

#11. 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

#12. Well, I don't think so, because the president and members of Congress and governors have the same constituents. It's the American people who are hurting.

James Douglas

#13. There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress than I had any conception of, before I became President of the U.S.

James K. Polk

#14. I think voters want somebody who understands their problems. You're right that they don't expect the president to fix everything. When he's wrestling with Congress and Wall Street and the rest of the world, they hope he'll be looking at things from their vantage point.

Gail Collins

#15. As president of Common Cause, I joined a coalition of groups ranging from the Christian Coalition to Consumers Union, and we went to Congress with over a million signatures asking that Net Neutrality be made law.

Chellie Pingree

#16. If the president is failing to disclose material facts with regard to legislation being presented to the Congress on a question as important as war and peace, I think it does impair the level of trust that the House and the Senate have for this administration.

John Dingell

#17. It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time. Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control.

Margaret Atwood

#18. If I get to be president, what can I do anyway? With Congress and the press, what chance do I have to make basic changes?

Robert Kennedy

#19. Practically, administrative agencies often work out of the public's eye to implement the laws passed by Congress and the executive orders signed by the president.

Joel B. Teitelbaum

#20. We shouldn't be debating whether to deal with the current code by allowing it to be extended or not. We should have a president who shows leadership and comes to Congress and says: 'You know what? We need to reform this whole tax code.'

Rob Portman

#21. Every day President Bush and Congress refuse to fulfill their obligation to special ed is another day Wisconsin property taxpayers are stuck with the bill. It's unfair, irresponsible and must stop.

Jim Doyle

#22. If a hurricane strikes, we can blame the president for not being there; we can blame Congress and FEMA; we can blame the state governments; but in the end, it's the mayors and the local city governments that have to be prepared for emergencies and be prepared to act.

Michael Bloomberg

#23. In the wiretapping, despite all the momentum for a more assertive Congress, you're seeing Congress backing down, because there are many Republicans and even Democrats who are afraid of being seen as preventing the president from protecting the nation.

Bill Vaughan

#24. The goal isn't, and shouldn't be, to block Hillary Clinton. The goal is to make sure a potential President Clinton is beholden to a better Congress and a better Democratic Party.

Alex Pareene

#25. The President and the Congress are all very well in their way. They can say what they think they think, but it rests with the Supreme Court to decide what they have really thought.

Theodore Roosevelt

#26. 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.

Chester A. Arthur

#27. Guns are part of the Constitution, and no one is willing to have that tough conversation with Congress and the Senate and the president to say maybe that's got to change. People talk about it - but I mean actual change.

George Stroumboulopoulos

#28. If there ever is government-run health care, the first ones to sign up should be the president and every member of Congress, including myself. You should be able to keep the insurance you've got today, if you like it, and always choose your own doctor.

Mike Ross

#29. There is but one way for a president to deal with Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. If it is really going to work, the relationship has got to be almost incestuous.

Lyndon B. Johnson

#30. I think that Goldman Sachs and the Pentagon determine more of America's outcome then any president or any congress, that sounds a bit cynical, but I think I am right.

Henry Rollins

#31. President [Barack] Obama and Hillary Clinton are proposing bringing tens of thousands of Syrian refugees to this country when the head of the FBI has told Congress they cannot vet those refugees.

Ted Cruz

#32. President Clark rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. "This is really something," he said. " Just days until I address Congress and the nation. What am I supposed to say? 'Ladies and gentlemen, the state of the union is...infected.',

Marc Cameron

#33. The law, in this country, is dead. The Supreme Court doesn't follow the Constitution, Congress doesn't follow the Constitution. The President doesn't even want to follow the Constitution. And yet we're the ones called radical.

Matt Shea

#34. The mayor has got to work closely with a wide variety of people, his city council, state legislature, governor, business community, labor community, president and the congress in order to be able to do this.

Marc Morial

#35. Health care for all Americans is the most pressing domestic issue today. It's far past time for the President and Congress to deliver health care to everyone.

Russ Feingold

#36. During the Reagan years, government shut down eight different times under a Democrat Congress. The president and Congress worked together and got things straightened out. Under the Carter years, again a Democrat Congress, the government shut down five times.

Mitt Romney

#37. It's abominable, and it's a disgrace to a great democracy to see what's happened in our country. The main reason for that has been the enormous infusion of high quantities of money to campaigns - governors, Congress, president and the U.S. Senate.

Jimmy Carter

#38. The Democrats' plan for 2006? Take the House and Senate and impeach the president. With our nation at war, is this the kind of Congress you want?

Ken Mehlman

#39. What I want the Congress of the United States to do, and frankly what I would like to see the President of the United States of America do, is speak a word of support to the people of Iran.

Mike Pence

#40. During President George W. Bush's two terms, you couldn't drive far without seeing a particular bumper sticker: Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. Now that Democrats control the White House and Congress, the left treats dissent as the lowest form of treason.

Monica Crowley

#41. There have been high crimes and misdemeanors, but they have been committed by the special prosecutor and the Congress, not the president.

Donella Meadows

#42. It is irresponsible for this Congress to not investigate the President's lack of an exit strategy, and the fraud, waste, and abuse of U.S. tax dollars.

Russ Carnahan

#43. The President and the Democrats on Congress have exploited the financial crisis to advance their socialist big government tax, spend and borrow agenda.

Bradley A. Blakeman

#44. It's a shame that we have to use whatever leverage we have in Congress to get the president to deal with the biggest problem confronting our future. And that's our excessive spending.

Mitch McConnell

#45. I think what people are looking for right now is not the kind of pizzazz and pop that perhaps we thought we got in 2008. Certainly, President Obama offered that. What they want now is someone who can work closely with Congress and get things done.

Rob Portman

#46. You might think otherwise, but it doesn't naturally follow that because a law has been passed by Congress and signed by the president, said law actually has to be implemented.

Matt Taibbi

#47. I always said I would vote for a resolution that gave the president the leverage to go to the United Nations, and then come back to the Congress for the authority to go to force.

Wesley Clark

#48. I believe we [americans] are strongest as a nation, when the president and Congress work together.

Barack Obama

#49. Whenever Congress was in session, we were in Washington. So four months out of the year we were in Tennessee and the rest of the time in Arlington, which is where my mom grew up. Then, of course, in 1992 we moved into the vice president's house in D.C. I was 15 then.

Kristin Gore

#50. 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

#51. Today was opening day for the new Congress in Washington. And Vice President Joe Biden swore in the new batch of White House fence jumpers.

David Letterman

#52. A majority of Americans oppose partial-birth abortion, and Judge Hamilton's decision flies in the face of Congress passing and President Bush signing legislation banning such horrible acts of violence.

Marc Racicot

#53. Year after year, President Bush has broken his campaign promises on college aid. And year after year, the Republican leadership in Congress has let him do it.

Sherrod Brown

#54. 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

#55. I had hoped to hear the President tonight tell the Congress and the American people exactly how he plans to tackle some of the important issues facing this country, unfortunately I did not.

Frank Lautenberg

#56. 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

#57. The Congress of the United States, in recognition of the unique contribution of the Bible in shaping the history and character of this Nation, and so many of its citizens, has by Senate Joint Resolution 165 authorized and requested the President to designate the year 1983 as the 'Year of the Bible.'

Ronald Reagan

#58. I don't care what party you belong to or what your background is. If you believe we are headed in the wrong direction, and believe there needs to be a check and balance on the President and Congress, then join my campaign.

Timothy Griffin

#59. 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.

Jay Carney

#60. 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

#61. I think that the responsibility that the Democrats had may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress, or by me when I was President, to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

William J. Clinton

#62. 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

#63. Thanks to Progressives such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, we are now living under a system where the president is forced to step in to stop a regulatory agency from promulgating regulations that Congress refused to enact.

Andrew P. Napolitano

#64. I'm disappointed ... that the president has not done more to demand that Congress and other federal agencies make the same sacrifices millions of Americans are already making. There is no charity without sacrifice.

Tom Coburn

#65. Nearly one in ten Americans are still out of work. And still, the President and Congress are focused on ramming through their health-care bill, whatever it takes, whatever the cost.

Scott Brown

#66. Now that we have the line-item veto there is no excuse for Congress to put pork in and no reason for the president not to line-item veto it out.

John McCain

#67. But it would be a tragedy to get the right president, the right Congress, and the wrong Christ.

Russell D. Moore

#68. 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

#69. If the president uses executive orders to legislate new laws, that would be an example of him subverting legislative power from Congress, and might be considered a gross perversion of the Constitution.

Gary Hansen

#70. President Obama is so much smarter and a better communicator than members of Congress in either party. The contrast, side by side, is almost ridiculous ...

Jonathan Chait

#71. When President Obama asked Congress to raise the debt ceiling $2 trillion and offered sequestration as an offset, I opposed it. I did not believe we should put the country $2 trillion deeper in debt and impose irresponsible massive cuts to our national security.

Mike Turner

#72. Every citizen of this country should be guaranteed that their vote matters, that their vote is counted, and that in the voting booth, their vote has a much weight as that of any CEO, any member of Congress, or any President.

Barbara Boxer

#73. 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

#74. It was President [Bill] Clinton and the United States congress in 1998 which said that the regime has to be changed because the regime would not give up its weapons of mass destruction. We came into office in 2001 and kept that policy because Saddam Hussein had not changed.

Colin Powell

#75. I have the authority to address the threat from Isil, but I believe we are strongest as a nation when the president and Congress work together. So I welcome congressional support for this effort in order to show the world that Americans are united in confronting this danger.

Barack Obama

#76. '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

#77. MILWAUKEE- President Barack Obama went to Milwaukee on Monday to talk up an improving economy and push Congress to boost the minimum wage.

Anonymous

#78. We have, or have had women presidents or prime ministers in Liberia, Chile, Germany, Great Britain ... and yet the US of A still hasn't had a women president. It's just beyond my thinking. Look at Congress ...

Billie Jean King

#79. The reason given by the President in asking Congress to declare war against Germany is that the German government has declared certain war zones, within which, by the use of submarines, she sinks, without notice, American ships and destroys American lives.

George William Norris

#80. The President's call for more math and science students is not being heeded by his party's leaders in Congress. They are cutting over $10 billion from student aide while refusing to fully fund No Child Left Behind. Something doesn't add up.

Jim Clyburn

#81. I have voted against only one of President Obama's nominees: Michael Froman, a Citigroup alumnus who is currently storming the halls of Congress as U.S. Trade Representative pushing trade deals that threaten to undermine financial regulation, workers' rights, and environmental protections.

Elizabeth Warren

#82. The problem is, is that President Bush and the Republican leadership in the Congress have resisted attempts to increase dramatically our fuel economy standards over the last five years.

Ed Markey

#83. If the House Republicans want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they should make their case to the American people and elect a president and a majority in both Houses of Congress prepared to do that.

Jerrold Nadler

#84. Here the system is creating an industry around the drug issue when it does nothing to stop the corrupt military that moves the drugs, and the big banks that are all in cahoots with the President and the big shots in the Congress.

Jerry Brown

#85. [Congress] is not the British Parliament, and I hope it never will become the British Parliament ... Are we going to bring the president in here and have a question period like the prime minister has in Great Britain?

Trent Lott

#86. Last time I checked, Congress was created to uphold the values of the Constitution, not the Bible and its biased teachings. 'All men (including women) are created equal' and are afforded unalienable rights. Way to go, Mr. President! Stand up for what you believe and for the people of this country.

Barack Obama

#87. America is living through the third economic revolution and our country doesn't really have a plan on how to deal with it, and when it does - like the president sort of outlined when he first got here - we have a Congress who seem incapable of acting on it.

Andy Stern

#88. That's one of the major lessons: no president should ever take this nation to war without full public debate in the Congress and/or in the public.

Robert McNamara

#89. Many of us in Congress have been calling on the Administration to articulate a bold mission for NASA. It seems that the President is answering that call. I wholeheartedly support his vision for going back to the moon, and from there to worlds beyond.

Sheila Jackson Lee

#90. If Congress can move President's Day, Columbus Day and, alas, Martin Luther King's Birthday celebration for the convenience of shoppers, shouldn't they at least consider moving Election Day for the convenience of voters?

Andrew Young

#91. A hastily written "Civil Rights Act" was rushed through Congress. President Andrew Johnson immediately vetoed it, noting that the right to confer citizenship rested with the several states, and that "the tendency of the bill is to resuscitate the spirit of rebellion".

Eustace Mullins

#92. Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern this Nation. This difficult effort will be the moral equivalent of war, except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not to destroy.

Jimmy Carter

#93. We put together a one-sentence petition asking Congress to censure President Clinton and move on to other pressing issues. We sent it to under 100 friends and family, and within a week we had 100,000 people sign the petition.

Joan Blades

#94. It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

#95. I really think the Patriot Act violates our Constitution. It was, it is, an illegal act. The Congress, the Senate and the president cannot change the Constitution.

Peter Camejo

#96. Love it or hate it, Obamacare is the law of the land. It was passed by Congress, signed into law by President Obama, declared constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court and ratified by a majority of Americans, who reelected the president for a second term.

Hank Johnson

#97. The president and Republicans in Congress have repeatedly promised to revisit Social Security privatization after November. But Americans have already said, loud and clear, that they don't want Social Security to be privatized or dismantled.

Jim Clyburn

#98. The choreographed standing and clapping of one side of the room - while the other side sits - is unbecoming of a serious institution and the message that it sends is that even on a night when the president is addressing the entire nation, we in Congress cannot sit as one, but must be divided as two.

Mark Udall

#99. Our Constitution wisely assigns both joint and separate roles to each branch of the government; and a President and a Congress who hold each other in mutual respect will neither permit nor attempt any trespass.

John F. Kennedy

#100. I don't know how you make a record on liberal and conservative these days. We've had a conservative Republican Congress, so to speak, and a conservative president, and we've run up one of the most astounding deficits in the history of our nation.

Sam Nunn