Quotes About Congress

Be assured that, as certain as Congress transcends its assigned limits and usurps powers never conferred, or stretches those conferred beyond the proper limits, so surely will the fruits of its usurpation pass into the hands of the Executive. In seeking to become master, it but makes a master in the person of the President.

I know that there is a near unanimous view in Congress that state or local taxes on Internet access would directly deter the ability of consumers to obtain and utilize the Internet. If that is an accepted premise, as it should be, the same concept should apply to the net neutrality debate and its certainty to increase consumer bills.

The decision to use military force should always be one made with the utmost caution, with U.S. interests at stake, and with the consent of Congress.

It is the utmost necessity that this congress be a congress of unity.

It is utterly wrong for a president - any president - to shutter the government of the United States when he can't persuade the Congress and the American people to give him what he wants.

When Congress puts party labels aside, like we did on VA reform, we can accomplish some great things for the American people. But those occasions were far too rare.

An old theory holds that air conditioning ruined Congress. Members no longer had to flee the Washington heat to spend the summer back home. The long vacation forced them to bond with their constituents.

When I first arrived, I likened Congress to being back in school again as a freshman. Well, just like school, we have an 'August recess,' but don't let the name fool you - it's not even close to a vacation.

I am concerned that the vague guidelines and policies used by the NSA for intelligence collection and sharing, in conjunction with elusive direction from the Administration, have led to intelligence being collected on sitting members of Congress for political purposes.

Ignorance of the law is not a valid excuse for accused criminals, and it cannot be an excuse for members of Congress.

Promoting job creation and economic growth in the Hudson Valley is one of my top priorities in Congress.

In the future, 'the networked' will sometimes form alliances with the Silicon Valley companies against Congress, but sometimes we are going to want and need to target our campaigns for change at the companies themselves.

California's redistricting process creates a historic opportunity for Valley Latinos to have a strong and unified voice in Congress for the first time. The opportunity to be the Valley's first Latino Congressional representative is humbling, and I'm proud that so many diverse leaders have come together to support this campaign.

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.

From fully funding nutrition programs to protecting children from liquid nicotine poisoning, I have focused many of my efforts in Congress on advocating for polices that invest in our most valuable resource - our children.

I have always worked well within the federal agencies to ensure New Mexicans have the resources and tools they need to succeed and cultivated valuable, bi-partisan relationships over my time in Congress in order to ensure continued full funding of New Mexico's state of the art national defense facilities and labs.

After the heavily politicized 2007 Iran NIE, many of us in Congress found it hard to take some intelligence analysis at face value.

The sheer magnitude of Speaker Pelosi's spending spree is mind boggling. Most of us do not use the number 1,000,000,000,000 in our daily lives, so it is difficult to attach tangible value to the figure.

I was reading in the paper today that Congress wants to replace the dollar bill with a coin. They've already done it. It's called a nickel.

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

Congress is unable to do the work of the American people because too many politicians believe that compromise means capitulation.

Usually the president is kind of the initiator of the idea, then Congress makes it work.

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.

And I want to work with this Congress, to make sure Americans already burdened with student loans can reduce their monthly payments, so that student debt doesn't derail anyone's dreams.