If we have Senators and Congressmen there that can't protect themselves against the evil temptations of lobbyists, we don't need to change our lobbies, we need to change our representatives.more Will Rogers quotes |
That's what a Congressman or a Senator is for -- to see that too much money don't accumulate in the national Treasury.more Will Rogers quotes |
|
You see, in Washington they have these bodies, Senate and the House of Representatives. That is for the convenience of the visitors. If there is nothing funny happening in one, there is sure to be in the other, and in case one body passes a good bill, why, the other can see it in time and kill it.more Will Rogers quotes |
|
Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?more Will Rogers quotes |
All one has to do to get one's stuff in the Congressional Record is to find a stenographer that can stay awake long enough to take it down. Then you mark in the 'Applause' and 'Laughter' parts yourself.more Will Rogers quotes |
|
It sure did kick up some excitement in the Senate when one Senator called the other Senators 'sons of Wild jackasses.' Well, if you thought it made the Senators hot, you wait till you see what happens when the jackasses hear how they have been slandered.more Will Rogers quotes |
This stuff they are talking here in Congress costs the people of the United States $44 a page. That's beside what it costs to ship it to the asylums where it's read.more Will Rogers quotes |
Tomorrow is Labor Day, I suppose set by Act of Congress. Everything we do nowadays is either by, or against, Acts of Congress. How Congress knew anything about Labor is beyond us.more Will Rogers quotes |
|
We cannot afford to differ on the question of honesty if we expect our republic permanently to endure. Honesty is not so much a credit as an absolute prerequisite to efficient service to the public. Unless a man is honest, we have no right to keep him in public life; it matters not how brilliant his capacity.more Theodore Roosevelt quotes |
The blame for [the national debt] lies with the Congress and the President, with Democrats and Republicans alike, most all of whom have been unwilling to make the hard choices or to explain to the American people that there is no such thing as a free lunch.more Warren Rudman quotes |
The basic problem is simply that the Congress has become professionalized. It has interest much higher than ever existed before in remaining in office. It has a bureaucracy that is serving it. It is much more subject to the power of individualized pressure groups as opposed to the unorganized feelings of the majority of the citizens.more Justice Antonin Scalia quotes |
Americans find it intolerable that one constitutional right should have to be surrendered in order to assert another. America is the land of the free and home of the brave -- we don't need a Patriot Act, because we are already patriots. We know freedom means responsibility, but I am not sure Congress and its domestic enforcement agencies do. More often than not, new security measures enacted by the government have resulted in more violations of the citizenry than terrorists have ever done. The terrorists want us to be afraid -- well, we are not afraid. Stop wasting dollars on this program -- it is not good for America. To give up essential liberty for a little security provides neither. The right to be left alone from government intrusion is the beginning of all freedoms.more Eric Schaub quotes |
Can you imagine working at the following Company? It has a little over 500 employees with the following statistics: 29 have been accused of spousal abuse. 7 have been arrested for fraud. 19 have been accused of writing bad checks. 117 have bankrupted at least two businesses. 3 have been arrested for assault. 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit. 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges. 8 have been arrested for shoplifting. 21 are current defendants in law suits. 84 were stopped for drunk driving in 1998 alone. Can you guess which organization this is? Give up? It's the 535 members of your United States Congress. The same group that perpetually cranks out hundreds upon hundreds of new laws designed to keep the rest of us in line.more Jack Sharp quotes |
Give them a corrupt House of Lords, give them a venal House of Commons, give they a tyrannical Prince, give them a truckling court, and let me have but an unfettered press. I will defy them to encroach a hair’s breadth upon the liberties of England.more Richard Brinsley Sheridan quotes |
It is necessary that the powers vested in government should be precisely defined, that the people may be able to know whether it moves in the circle of the Constitution. Article I, Section 8 is intolerably vague. The Federal government will push its taxing power to the limit. It is a general maxim that all governments find a use for as much money as they can raise. Indeed, they have commonly demands for more. Hence it is that all as far as we are acquainted are in debt. I take this to be a settled truth that they will all spend as much as their revenue. That is, will live at least up to their income. Congress will ever exercise their powers to levy as much money as the people can pay. They will not be restrained from direct taxes by the consideration that necessity does not require them.more Melancton Smith quotes |
Congress will ever exercise their powers to levy as much money as the people can pay. They will not be restrained from direct taxes by the consideration that necessity does not require them.more Melancton Smith quotes |
Not surprisingly, the federal judiciary nearly always rules in favor of the federal government. Judicial review, contrary to the assurances of its advocates, has hardly restrained Congress at all. Instead it has progressively stripped the states of their traditional powers, while allowing federal power to grow unchecked.more Joseph Sobran quotes |
|
|
|
|
Our system is changing and [Congress] is the one branch that must act if we are to reverse those changes. We are seeing the emergence of a different model of government, a model long-ago rejected by the framers. ... A dominant presidency has occurred with very little congressional opposition. Indeed, when President Obama pledged to circumvent Congress, he received rapturous applause from the very body that he was proposing to make practically irrelevant. Now many members are contesting the right of this institution to even be heard in federal court. ... This body is moving from self-loathing to self-destruction in a system that is in crisis. The president's pledge to effectively govern alone is alarming, and what is most alarming is his ability to fulfill that pledge. When a president can govern alone, he can become a government unto himself, which is precisely the danger the framers sought to avoid.more Jonathan Turley quotes |
|
For in a Republic, who is "the country?"
Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle?
Why, the Government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant;
it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong,
and decide who is a patriot and who isn't.
Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.more Mark Twain quotes |
I am different from Washington; I have a higher, grander standard of principle. Washington could not lie. I can lie, but I won't.more Mark Twain quotes |
|
All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.more Mark Twain quotes |
|
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.more Mark Twain quotes |
|
|
When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.' more Unknown quotes |
In this country sovereignty resides in the people, and Congress can exercise no power which they have not, by their Constitution, entrusted to it: All else is withheld.more U.S. Supreme Court quotes |
|
|
I never liked the atmosphere of Washington. I early saw that it was impossible to build up a race of which the leaders were spending most of their time, thought and energy in trying to get into office, or in trying to stay there after they were in.more Booker T. Washington quotes |
No power but Congress can declare war, but what is the value of this constitutional provision, if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war?more Daniel Webster quotes |
No power but Congress can declare war; but what is the value of this constitutional provision, if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war? ... [T]hese remarks originate purely in a desire to maintain the powers of government as they are established by the Constitution between the different departments, and hope that, whether we have conquests or no conquests, war or no war, peace or no peace, we shall yet preserve, in its integrity and strength, the Constitution of the United States.more Daniel Webster quotes |
Another source of power in government is a military force. But this, to be efficient, must be superior to any force that exists among the people, or which they can command; for otherwise this force would be annihilated, on the first exercise of acts of oppression. Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.more Noah Webster quotes |
Why not include a provision that everybody shall, in good weather, hunt on his own land and catch fish in rivers that are public property and that Congress shall never restrain any inhabitant of America from eating and drinking, at seasonable times, or prevent his lying on his left side, in a long winter's night, or even on his back, when he is fatigued by lying on his right.more Noah Webster quotes |
