Congress Quotes

“Some statesmen go to Congress and some go to jail. It is the same thing after all.”

“Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.”

“The requirement for the United States to craft a national security strategy (NSS) document was first codified in the National Security Act of 1947, and amended by the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. The 1986 amendment requires the President to submit the document on an annual basis to Congress to provide a comprehensive report on U.S. national security strategy. Both pieces of legislation mandate that the strategy include a "comprehensive description and discussion of worldwide interests, goals, and objectives...that are vital to the national security of the United States." It would also address foreign policy, world wide military commitments, U.S. national defense capabilities, short- and long-term uses of the elements of national power, and the requirement to have the strategy transmitted to Congress in both classified and unclassified form. A number of national security strategies were developed over time prior to the Goldwater-Nichols legislation, to include what many believe was the most significant grand strategy of the era, NSC-68, the key containment strategy against Soviet and Chinese communism. All were crafted during the pre-Goldwater-Nichals Act period at the classified level.”

“I respect the Congress's oversight responsibility.”

“This Congress is simply not doing its job under Republican leadership.”

“Talk is cheap - except when Congress does it.”

“It is not the role of Congress to decide legal cases between private parties. That is why we have courts.”

“The jam is moving toward the Capitol where Congress sits in judgment on all the administrative agencies of Government.”

“I have seen in the Halls of Congress more idealism, more humanness, more compassion, more profiles of courage than in any other institution that I have ever known.”