Quotes About Oversight

We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.

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.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

We should ban banks from risk-taking because society is going to pay the price.

No prime minister, no government can expect to be unanswerable or unchallenged.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee can and should become the principal institution in Washington exercising foreign policy oversight and serving as an alternative voice for America to the world. I hope to make a significant contribution in that effort.

It is a fundamental principle that every institution must be accountable to an authority which is independent of that institution. Yet somehow, the judiciary has propagated a view that the judiciary can only be accountable to itself.

Our system of government works best when there are checks and balances led by independent entities that are empowered to conduct fair and rigorous oversight. These are the same principles enshrined in the founding document of our country - our Constitution.

We do many things at the federal level that would be considered dishonest and illegal if done in the private sector.

When we ask bureaucrats to identify who is responsible for fixing anything, they reassure us that there are 'procedures in place.'

The basic architecture of Dodd-Frank makes sense. At the same time, as a number of regulators and legislators have observed, the act was a complex effort that produced thousands of pages of rules.

I always feel that the best kind of producing - and frankly, it has to do with what I like to do - is you're the big-picture person.

Having a constant productive anxiety doesn't mean that people are miserable and wailing but that people know they will be held accountable if things do not go right.

When you're directing something, you absolutely have to be involved in all layers of the process.

When you're directing, you look around and you think, everything I see is my responsibility. From the catering being on time to whether the clouds are moving the way I need them to move to whether this actor is giving the performance I want to whether the costumes are what they should be.

The United States has so many laws, into the millions, that experts have lost track of just how many laws we have.

We took our eye off the ball as a company.

I think I took my eye off the ball. From about 2005, 2006, 2007, I was out of it. I thought I could oversee movies and have it done for me, so to speak.

The only way to make sure no bank is too big to fail is to make sure no bank is too big.

It's the FSA and its plethora of EU bodies that's failed.

Why would you pass another law when the administration fails to enforce the current laws that are on the books. Why pass another one that's not going to be enforced either?

I still lie awake at night thinking about everything that could have been, that wasn't done to stop 9/11. To the 9/11 families, I said, you deserve better from your entire government. All of us.

I think the over-militarization of local police forces is also true of the over-militarization of the federal government, so I don't really run and hide from the comment that I think there are 48 federal agencies that have SWAT teams.

It always makes me super nervous how many tech companies don't have data ethicists.