The Congress Quotes

#1. Absolutely, federal health care options in Congress should mirror those offered in the private sector. If these options are not available in the private sector, then folks working for the federal government should not have them either.

Rob Woodall

#2. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is committed to policies that promote maximum employment and price stability, consistent with our mandate from Congress.

Janet Yellen

#3. To her mind the Senate was a place where people went to recite speeches, and she naively assumed that the speeches were useful and had a purpose, but as they did not interest her she never went again. This is a very common conception of Congress; many Congressmen share it.

Henry Adams

#4. If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonable experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations.

Henry David Thoreau

#5. The laws of Congress are restricted to a certain sphere, and when they depart from this sphere, they are no longer supreme or binding.

Alexander Hamilton

#6. Democrats in Congress whipped up fears of Soviet missiles and attacked the Eisenhower administration for allowing the United States to fall behind. The

Eric Schlosser

#7. Congress, after years of stalling, finally got around to clearing the way for informal discussions that might lead to possible formal talks that could potentially produce some kind of tenative agreements ...

Dave Barry

#8. 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

#9. There is not a subject in which I take a deeper interest than I do in the development of Alaska, and I propose, if Congress will follow by recommendations, to do something in that territory that will make it move on.

William Howard Taft

#10. Every proper exertion has been made and will be continued to carry out the wishes of Congress in relation to the tobacco trade, as indicated in the several resolutions of the House of Representatives and the legislation of the two branches.

Martin Van Buren

#11. It would not be for the public good to have [a majority in Congress of one party] greater [than] two to one.

Thomas Jefferson

#12. The reality is is that Congress is a very male-gendered oriented institution. Out of the, you know, more than 10,000 people who've ever been elected to Congress, you know, only about 250 of them have ever been women.

Gwen Moore

#13. As one of the most conservative members of Congress and a staunch supporter of the 2nd Amendment, I am constantly under attack for my values and beliefs.

Paul Broun

#14. In Congress the majority governs, but the minority rules.

Evan Esar

#15. President Bush will go down in history as the torture president. He has now defied a majority of Congress to allow the use of interrogation techniques that any reasonable observer would call torture.

Jennifer Daskal

#16. When everyone is part of the people's congress, what need is there for an opposition? Opposition to what? You oppose a government! If there is no government, and the people govern themselves on their own, what are they going to oppose? Something that isn't there?

Muammar Al-Gaddafi

#17. You can't consider a president weak because he will have a Congress that Mexican voters have wanted to be co-responsible in the decisions to be taken ... It will be through the leadership that I will exercise that we will be able to build the agreements in Congress.

Enrique Pena Nieto

#18. We cannot go up on a wire. We cannot do a search without a judge on the FISA Court approving it and determining that we have met the standard that has been set forth by Congress in order to utilize these techniques.

Robert Mueller

#19. The truth is that at the White House and in Congress, you are as likely to find sympathy for animal issues among Republicans as among Democrats.

Matthew Scully

#20. If we are wondering why only 19 percent of the American people feel that the Congress is in tune with their priorities, the cuts in Amtrak is one blatant reason why.

Corrine Brown

#21. Since the '86 amnesty, the number of illegal immigrants has quadrupled. That should teach Congress a very important lesson: Amnesty 'bends' the rule of law. And bending the rule of law to reach a 'comprehensive' deal winds up provoking wholesale breaking of the law.

Edwin Meese

#22. Why would I want to run for Congress and continue to get tainted with all the things that people get tainted with as they come along the system.

Benjamin Carson

#23. 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

#24. Joining the Bipartisan Policy Center is a natural extension of my efforts to achieve results throughout my tenure in Congress, and it provides an ideal means for developing strategies that can garner the broad support necessary to achieve real solutions to the challenges confronting our nation.

Olympia Snowe

#25. 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

#26. 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

#27. The Congress fights not with violent but with nonviolent means, however imperfect, however crude the nonviolence may be.

Mahatma Gandhi

#28. Certainly, the president is expected to safeguard the Constitution by vetoing unconstitutional acts of Congress. This is especially true because many laws can only be brought before the courts in a collateral way, if at all.

Charles A. Beard

#29. I will not deny that there are men in the district better qualified than I to go to Congress, but, gentlemen, these men are not in the race.

Robert A. Caro

#30. There aren't a whole lot of people out of 300 million who could elected to the Congress.

Jim Moran

#31. The inside operation of Congress - the deals, the compromises, the selling out, the co-opting, the unprincipled manipulating, the self-serving career-building - is a story of such monumental decadence that I believe if people find out about it they will demand an end to it.

Bella Abzug

#32. This is a basic function of Congress to keep the government running. And so, what we ought not to do is play politics with those who have been affected by disasters.

David Plouffe

#33. 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

#34. Take your hallowed halls of Congress or the littered floor of the Stock Exchange, America is built on its pancake houses!

Michael Paterniti

#35. When talking of political addresses in Bihar, two of them stand out. One is that of Sadaqat Ashram, the famous Congress address of yore, and the other that of Patna house of the three-time Congress chief minister, Dr Jagannath Mishra, perhaps the last vestige of the grand, old party in Bihar.

Santosh Singh

#36. The goal for me is to be as expansive as possible, and the Library of Congress offers so many resources.

Juan Felipe Herrera

#37. 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

#38. Some members of Congress are among the best actors in the world.

Shirley Chisholm

#39. If you chose to serve in Congress or on a congressional staff, you should be barred for life from working for any company, organization, or association which lobbies the federal government.

Jack Abramoff

#40. I'm happy to be a card-carrying member of the ANC.

Nadine Gordimer

#41. In my judgment, while it is the duty of Congress to respect to the uttermost the conscientious convictions and religious scruples of every citizen ... not any ecclesiastical organization can be safely permitted to usurp in the smallest degree the functions and powers of the national government.

James A. Garfield

#42. In Congress, I'll work hard to encourage investment in education, particularly with respect to technology and bridging the digital divide.

Hakeem Jeffries

#43. And after September the 11th, the United States Congress also granted me additional authority to use military force against al Qaeda ...

George W. Bush

#44. 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

#45. Remember, the Congress doesn't get as many opportunities to make an impression with the public.

Nate Silver

#46. But women do not say 'We', except at some congress of feminists or similar formal demonstration; men say 'women', and women use the same word in referring to themselves.

Simone De Beauvoir

#47. 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

#48. Nobody can refuse a person who comes and asks for a job. Nobody can refuse a poor man when he goes and asks for food. Nobody can stop any Indian if he asks a question of his government. This is what the Congress party and the UPA have done over the last 10 years.

Rahul Gandhi

#49. The only way to make any sense of the United States Congress, our father told me once, is to view it as a two-hundred-year-long primate study.

Karen Joy Fowler

#50. As a member of Congress, I believe it is the responsibility of those elected to represent the people at every level of government to ensure that our government works to ensure that every person who wants gainful employment has it.

Leonard Boswell

#51. 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

#52. 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

#53. Congress should stop treating veterans like they're asking for a hand out when it comes to the benefits they were promised, and they should realize that, were it not for these veterans, there would be nothing to hand out.

Nick Lampson

#54. 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

#55. 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

#56. I think there are people in this Congress who actually believe that government does not have a benign role in the lives of the people, except as an engine to redistribute the wealth of the Nation upwards.

Dennis Kucinich

#57. Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States

Barry M. Goldwater

#58. Not until 1902, at an early meeting of the International Congress of Zoology, did naturalists begin at last to show a spirit of compromise and adopt a universal code. Taxonomy

Bill Bryson

#59. As a Member of Congress from one of the fastest growing States in the country, we hire close to 2,500 new teachers a year, close to 5,000 support staff and faculty.

Jon Porter

#60. What is ... disturbing to me is that many of these pro-Israeli lawmakers sit on the House International Relations Committee despite the obvious conflict of interest that their emotional attachments to Israel cause ... The Israeli occupation of all territories must end, including Congress.

Cynthia McKinney

#61. Obama acknowledges his overreach openly every time he argues that he intends to do the job of an obstinate Republican congress.

David Harsanyi

#62. Under our constitutional system, the executive executes the laws that Congress has passed. It should not be executing laws that Congress has rejected.

Charles Krauthammer

#63. The weak economy, widening income inequality, gridlock in Congress and a presidential election: Those were perhaps the dominant economic and political themes of 2012.

Steven Rattner

#64. The Chinese leadership hoped that the world would soon forget the Tiananmen Square massacre. Our job in Congress is to ensure that we never forget those who lost their lives in Tiananmen Square that day or the pro-democracy cause for which they fought.

Tom Lantos

#65. Most people do not realize that there was a paid chaplain in Congress even before the Revolutionary War ended.

Francis Schaeffer

#66. 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

#67. 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

#68. Over the last several days, we have heard from members of Congress who want their voices to be heard. I absolutely agree.

Barack Obama

#69. A one-hour work-week ... would minimize the damage that Congress can do.

Charles Krauthammer

#70. The atmosphere is different in Congress after September 11. Terrorism is no longer an abstract issue, but a real, tangible threat.

Howard Berman

#71. [The Library of Congress] is a multimedia encyclopedia. These are the tentacles of a nation.

Daniel J. Boorstin

#72. I support efforts to limit the terms of members of Congress, especially members of the House and members of the Senate.

Dan Quayle

#73. Now more than ever the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption.

James A. Garfield

#74. Congress may not get the Internet, but the Internet doesn't get Congress, either.

Rebecca MacKinnon

#75. Whether we like it or not, men have more of the offices, more of the higher jobs, more of the seats in Congress. Men need to re-examine what their power is. We need to understand how to use it.

James Hillman

#76. When you're elected to Congress, you take a vow to uphold the Constitution and its system of checks and balances. That vow doesn't say, 'Unless it's politically uncomfortable.'

Chellie Pingree

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

Franklin D. Roosevelt

#78. The region is altogether valueless. After entering it, there is nothing to do but leave.
-Lt. Edward Beale, Congress report on Arizona, 1858

Sean Condon

#79. On Tuesday, Utah Candidate Mia Love became the first black Republican woman elected to Congress. She's also a Mormon. Yeah, a black female Republican Mormon. Even unicorns are saying, 'Not buyin' it.'

Jimmy Fallon

#80. We're committed to working with Congress to doing what the president said he was always going to do, which is cut the deficit in half over the - over his first term.

Christina Romer

#81. Everything is about accountability to the American people, accountability of the executive branch ... [and] accountability of the oversight of the Congress

Jay Rockefeller

#82. The Supreme Court, in 2005, emphasized and contrasted the great power of Congress under the Commerce Clause to regulate interstate commerce versus much more limited federal power under the discarded Articles of Confederation.

Barbara Ann Radnofsky

#83. Everybody on this floor wants to send the same loud and clear message: that Congress is united in its opposition to terror and we are all deeply concerned about the future and security of our close friend and ally, Israel.

Earl Blumenauer

#84. Ever since I've been in Congress, various groups on the business side, those entities that are creating jobs out there, have felt that the Clean Air Act is really - that there are all sorts of presumptions in favor of the environmentalists.

Ed Whitfield

#85. Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution says Congress has the ability to coin money and regulate the currency and doesn't say anything about gold or silver.

Ron Paul

#86. I don't think it's the function of Congress to function well. It should drag its heels on the way to decision.

Barber Conable

#87. While Congress can't overturn the Supreme Court, we can provide carrots and sticks to prevent local governments from unfairly taking property from landowners.

Stephanie Herseth

#88. The budgets we work on in Congress are more than just fiscal documents; they are a reflection of our moral values as well. In choosing where to spend money, members of Congress choose what priorities they value.

Tim Walz

#89. I simply want to do what I can to have the best Congress possible representing the American people.

Jim Moran

#90. Congress is headed in the wrong direction with this bill which removes any and all incentives from the food industry to improve their products for children.

Bob Filner

#91. The English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human

Charles Dickens

#92. I could run for Congress. Why not? Good heavens, if Ronald Reagan can be president, I ought to make a great secretary of the treasury.

Sandra Dee

#93. Congress has scarcely any thing to employ them, and complain that the place [Washington, D.C.] is remarkably dull.

Thomas Jefferson

#94. Whenever Canada moves to protect its own industries and people, it is subjected to violent attacks in the U.S. Congress and to threats of economic retaliation.

Judy LaMarsh

#95. We in this Congress have a choice. The American people have a right to exercise a choice on this issue, as to whether our men and women will continue to fight and die in a war based on deception and fantasy, or to start bringing the troops home.

Raul Grijalva

#96. From the beginning, the Continental Congress had official chaplains, prayers, and days of fasting and Thanksgiving. When sessions opened in 1774, fear was voiced that the religious diversity of the country would make it hard to choose a form of worship.

M. Stanton Evans

#97. 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

#98. Earth Day gathered up those strands, and dozens more, and knitted them together in the public consciousness as "environmental" issues. The nation was pretty startled when 20 million people hit the streets. Congress, which had adjourned for the day to go back to its districts, was blown away.

Denis Hayes

#99. Reasons why members of Congress deserve a pay raise: Many big corporations are cutting back on bribes; nearly half the members have never been indicted.

David Letterman

#100. What practical conclusions may we now draw for our propaganda work among women? The task of this Party Congress must not be to issue detailed practical suggestions, but to draw up general directions for the proletarian women's movement.

Clara Zetkin