No president, not the smartest, best human being in the world can do it alone. You cannot take on this, the power that is in Washington, to billionaires and lobbyist, the military industrial complex, all of this money and power, you can`t do it. You need a mass movement of American who are looking in congress and we say directly.
— Bernie Sanders
Sensitive Congress And The President quotations
I take the Constitution very seriously.
The biggest problems that we're facing right now have to do with [the president] trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that's what I intend to reverse when I'm President of the United States of America.
There have been high crimes and misdemeanors, but they have been committed by the special prosecutor and the Congress, not the president.
The President's call for more math and science students is not being heeded by his party's leaders in Congress. They are cutting over $10 billion from student aide while refusing to fully fund No Child Left Behind. Something doesn't add up.
The problem is, is that President Bush and the Republican leadership in the Congress have resisted attempts to increase dramatically our fuel economy standards over the last five years.
Today the path of total dictatorship in the United States can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by the Congress, the President, or the people. Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system, another body representing another form of government - a bureaucratic elite.
There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress than I had any conception of, before I became President of the U.S.
The President can exercise no power which cannot be fairly and reasonably traced to some specific grant of power in the Federal Constitution or in an act of Congress passed in pursuance thereof. There is no undefined residuum of power which he can exercise because it seems to him to be in the public interest.
It's a shame that we have to use whatever leverage we have in Congress to get the president to deal with the biggest problem confronting our future. And that's our excessive spending.
I'm a lobbyist and had a career lobbying.
The guy who gets elected or the lady who gets elected president of the United States will immediately be lobbying. They would be advocating to the Congress, they'll be lobbying our allies and our adversaries overseas. They'll be asking the business community and labor unions.
It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.
In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.
The presidents against Congress, the Senate is against the House, people are against politicians, and I'm against cats in the house.
Clean air is a basic right. The responsibility to ensure that falls to Congress and the president.
The American Constitution is a written instrument full and complete in itself.
No Court in America, no Congress, no President, can add a single word thereto, or take a single word threreto. It is a great national enactment done by the people, and can only be altered, amended, or added to by the people.
It is folly to believe that Congress and the president, on their own, will make the necessary and difficult decisions to address the impending financial debacle. After all, they and their predecessors engineered the approaching tsunami. As the situation becomes direr, the federal government's actions will grow more oppressive.
...several of the first presidents, including Jefferson and Madison, generally refused to issue public prayers, despite importunings to do so. Under pressure, Madison relented in the War Of 1812, but held to his belief that chaplains shouldn't be appointed to the military or be allowed to open Congress.
Dear Mr. President: ... We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraq sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.
President's personal staff has a unique role.
They're his intimate personal advisers, and the tradition and the precedent has been, even when I was national security adviser, that people in that position do not testify before the Congress. They talk to the Congress. They have meetings with the Congress.
Presidents have absolutely gone against the will of Congress.
Congress hasn't declared a war since December 7, 1941, and yet we've been at war ever since with somebody or other in order to justify the war machine. Now we have alienated almost the entire earth
I have a great deal of concern for any president and the amount of power they accumulate versus congress. I'm a stickler about the idea of separation of powers.
The dirty little secret is that both houses of Congress are irrelevant.
... America's domestic policy is now being run by Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve, and America's foreign policy is now being run by the International Monetary Fund [IMF]. ...when the president decides to go to war, he no longer needs a declaration of war from Congress.
It is plain that, when it comes to inferior officers, Congress itself can pass a law sending these nominees to the President with him having the authority to put them on the bench without the advice and consent of the Senate.
I have the authority to address the threat from Isil, but I believe we are strongest as a nation when the president and Congress work together. So I welcome congressional support for this effort in order to show the world that Americans are united in confronting this danger.
Every citizen of this country should be guaranteed that their vote matters, that their vote is counted, and that in the voting booth, their vote has a much weight as that of any CEO, any member of Congress, or any President.
It's abominable, and it's a disgrace to a great democracy to see what's happened in our country. The main reason for that has been the enormous infusion of high quantities of money to campaigns - governors, Congress, president and the U.S. Senate.
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!
Since President Bush took office in 2001, this Congress has supported an agenda of democracy, freedom and expansion of rights for all peoples throughout the world.
A majority of Americans oppose partial-birth abortion, and Judge Hamilton's decision flies in the face of Congress passing and President Bush signing legislation banning such horrible acts of violence.
It is irresponsible for this Congress to not investigate the President's lack of an exit strategy, and the fraud, waste, and abuse of U.S. tax dollars.
Despite the previous efforts of Congresses, our addiction to foreign oil, as the President stated, is greater today than ever before. That dependency is a threat to our national security, and we must address that threat.
The Democrats' plan for 2006? Take the House and Senate and impeach the president. With our nation at war, is this the kind of Congress you want?
It's pretty clear that over the last three months the economy has paused.
And it's also pretty clear the American people are still demanding and asking the question, 'Where are the jobs?' And the reason we don't have new jobs is because of the job-killing agenda pursued by President Obama and his allies in the Congress.
You want to balance the budget in this country? We change the salary structure for Congress and the President. Every year they don't balance the budget, we don't pay them.
You should see what our Founding Fathers used to say to each other and in the early part of our nation. But what they were able to do, especially in Philadelphia in 1787, four months, they argued about what a House should be, what a Senate should be, the power of the president, the Congress, the Supreme Court. And they had to deal with slavery.