Quotes about congressman

A collection of quotes on the topic of congressman, presidency, president, making.

Quotes about congressman

Kurt Vonnegut photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Krist Novoselic photo

“I voted last week, and everything I voted for was defeated. I voted for less police station money and against adding more courtrooms. The guy I voted for, a congressman, lost big time because he's totally anti-military. He wanted to cut the CIA budget! He's really cool. But he lost.”

Krist Novoselic (1965) Croatian-American rock musician

As quoted in "Take The Money and Run", Sounds (27 December 1990), interviewed by Keith Cameron on 23 September 1990<sup> http://www.livenirvana.com/interviews/9009kc/index.html</sup>

Jefferson Davis photo
Jawaharlal Nehru photo

“Many a Congressman was a communalist under his national cloak.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Autobiography (1936; 1949; 1958)
Context: Many a Congressman was a communalist under his national cloak. But the Congress leadership stood firm and, on the whole, refused to side with either communal party, or rather with any communal group. Long ago, right at the commencement of non-co-operation or even earlier, Gandhiji had laid down his formula for solving the communal problem. According to him, it could only be solved by goodwill and the generosity of the majority group, and so he was prepared to agree to everything that the Muslims might demand. He wanted to win them over, not to bargain with them. With foresight and a true sense of values he grasped at the reality that was worthwhile; but others who thought they knew the market price of everything, and were ignorant of the true value of anything, stuck to the methods of the market-place. They saw the cost of purchase with painful clearness, but they had no appreciation of the worth of the article they might have bought. <!-- p. 136

Lyndon B. Johnson photo
Francis Escudero photo

“Agriculture development is an activity very close to my heart because my father, now congressman Sonny Escudero, served as Secretary of Agriculture under 2 presidents.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

Ron Paul photo

“Neil Cavuto: Yeah but, you can't, Congressman, we've got a pretty good economy going here, right? We've got productivity soaring. We've got retail sales that are strong. We've got corporate earnings that for, what, the 19th quarter, are up double digit? We've got a market chasing highs, I mean, this isn't happening in a vacuum, right?
Ron Paul: Yeah, that's nice, but when you have to borrow, you know… My personal finances would be very good if I borrowed a million dollars every month. But, someday, the bills will become due. And the bills will come due in this country, and then we'll have to pay for it. We can't afford this war, and we can't afford the entitlement system.
Neil Cavuto: Look, Congressman, did you say this 10 years ago, when the numbers were similarly strong…
Ron Paul: Go back and check.
Neil Cavuto: …and we were still borrowing a good deal then.
Ron Paul: That's right, that means the dollar bubble is much bigger than ever.
Neil Cavuto: So what's gonna happen?
Ron Paul: We've had the NASDAQ bubble collapse already. We have the housing bubble in the middle of a collapse, so the dollar bubble will collapse as well. We have to live within our means. You can't print money out of the blue, and think you can print your money into prosperity.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Your World with Neil Cavuto, FOX News, May 15, 2007 http://www.newshounds.us/2007/05/16/rep_ron_paul_tells_fox_newsrepublicans_the_truth_they_dont_like_hearing_it.php http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU2RK0TNbXk
2000s, 2006-2009

Ron Paul photo
Charles Simic photo
Ron Paul photo

“Q: "Congressman Paul, you've questioned the fiscal conservatism of all these candidates, but particularly Senator Santorum. You have a new television ad calling him a fake. Why?"”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

A: "Because he's a fake. I find it sort of fascinating how when people are running for office they're really fiscally conservative. When they're in office, they vote for something different, and then when they explain themselves they say "Oh! I want to repeal that." So the Senator voted for No Child Left Behind. He voted for it, but now he's running on the effort to get rid of it!.....This loses credibility." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZPexbzJUU4
2012

Marco Rubio photo

“The most important job we have is not congressman or senator or governor. It's family and mother and husband and wife.”

Marco Rubio (1971) U.S. Senator from state of Florida, United States; politician

'Faith and Freedom' fundraiser event in Anderson, South Carolina , quoted in * 2014-8-25
2014-08-29
In South Carolina, Rubio heals wounds on the right
Peter
Hamby
CNN
2010s, 2014
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/26/politics/rubio-sc-fundraiser/index.html?hpt=po_t1

Jackie Speier photo
Newt Gingrich photo

“The idea that a congressman would be tainted by accepting money from private industry or private sources is essentially a socialist argument.”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

1989
October
The Real Ethics Debate
D. B.
Mother Jones
0362-8841
31
http://books.google.com/books?id=EecDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA30
1980s

Marsha Blackburn photo
Larry Hogan photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ambassador Goldberg, distinguished Members of the leadership of the Congress, distinguished Governors and mayors, my fellow countrymen. We have called the Congress here this afternoon not only to mark a very historic occasion, but to settle a very old issue that is in dispute. That issue is, to what congressional district does Liberty Island really belong; Congressman Farbstein or Congressman Gallagher? It will be settled by whoever of the two can walk first to the top of the Statue of Liberty. This bill that we will sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives, or really add importantly to either our wealth or our power. Yet it is still one of the most important acts of this Congress and of this administration. For it does repair a very deep and painful flaw in the fabric of American justice. It corrects a cruel and enduring wrong in the conduct of the American nation. Speaker McCormack and Congressman Celler almost 40 years ago first pointed that out in their maiden speeches in the Congress. And this measure that we will sign today will really make us truer to ourselves both as a country and as a people. It will strengthen us in a hundred unseen ways.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Remarks at the signing of the Immigration Bill (1965)

Joseph Massad photo
Ron Paul photo

“Boy, it sure burns me to have a national holiday for that pro-communist philanderer Martin Luther King. I voted against this outrage time and time again as a Congressman. What an infamy that Ronald Reagan approved it! We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

1990
February
The Coming Race War
Ron Paul Political Report
7
http://www.tnr.com/sites/default/files/February1990.pdf, quoted in * 2012-01-08
Ron Paul Did Not Vote for MLK Day
Ta-Nehisi
Coates
The Root
http://www.theroot.com/buzz/ron-paul-did-not-vote-mlk-day
Disputed, Newsletters, Ron Paul Political Report

Richard Behar photo
Richard Viguerie photo

“McCain ran an aggressive, hard-hitting campaign against former Congressman J. D. Hayworth. If he had taken this same kind of principled conservative and ‘take no prisoners’ campaign against Barack Obama in 2008, he’d now be in the second year of his presidency.”

Richard Viguerie (1933) American writer

Richard Viguerie: McCain beats Hayworth; Tea Party wins; Welcome back to the GOP, Senator McCain http://www.conservativehq.com/blog_post/show/755

John McCain photo
Condoleezza Rice photo

“Condoleezza Rice: I think that these historical circumstances require a very detailed and sober look from historians and what we've encouraged the Turks and the Armenians to do is to have joint historical commissions that can look at this, to have efforts to examine their past and, in examining their past, to get over their past.
Adam Schiff:… you come out of academia… is there any reputable historian you're aware of that takes issue with the fact that the murder of 1.5 million Armenians constituted genocide?
Condoleezza Rice: Congressman, I come out of academia, but I'm secretary of state now and I think that the best way to have this proceed is for the United States not to be in the position of making this judgment, but rather for the Turks and the Armenians to come to their own terms about this.
Adam Schiff:… Why is it only this genocide? Is it because Turkey is a strong ally? Is that an ethical and moral reason to ignore the murder of 1.5 million people? Why is it we don't say, "Let's relegate the Holocaust to historians" or "relegate the Cambodian genocide or Rwandan genocide?" Why is it only this genocide that we should let the Turks acknowledge or not acknowledge?
Condoleezza Rice: Congressman, we have recognized and the president recognizes every year in a resolution that he himself issues the historical circumstances and the tragedy that befell the Armenian people at that time…
Adam Schiff:… You recognize more than anyone, as a diplomat, the power of words. And I'm sure you supported the recognition of genocide in Darfur, not calling it tragedy, not calling it atrocity, not calling it anything else, but the power and significance of calling it genocide. Why is that less important in the case of the Armenian genocide?
Condoleezza Rice: Congressman, the power here is in helping these people to move forward… And, yes, Turkey is a good ally and that is important. But more important is that like many historical tragedies, like many historical circumstances of this kind, people need to come to terms with it and they need to move on.
Adam Schiff:… Iran hosts conferences of historians on the Holocaust. I don't think we want to get in the business of encouraging conferences of historians on the undeniable facts of the Armenian genocide.”

Condoleezza Rice (1954) American Republican politician; U.S. Secretary of State; political scientist

Appropriations hearing before the Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs http://schiff.house.gov/news/press-releases/schiff-presses-secretary-of-state-rice-on-armenian-genocide-recognition, March 21, 2007.

Priscilla Presley photo

“Yes. I came to Washington to lobby Senators and Congressmen to co-sponsor in support of the PAST Act and I'm hoping by making this public people will join me to help me get this bill passed. Links are available for them to contact their Congressman saying they support the PAST Act. That's all they have to do. You would think this is a no-brainer, that this would pass but there IS opposition. The law was passed in 1970 to stop soring but Horse Industry (HIOs) found loopholes and continued soring. USDA is charged with enforcement of the Horse Protection Act, but as the result of a 1976 amendment to the act, the USDA has for decades certified the horse industry organization to conduct the majority of inspections at horse shows. This self regulation scheme has failed miserably and has to be abolished. USDA inspectors are threatened by exhibitors at horse shows and must be frequently accompanied by security. If they had nothing to hide (like covering the scarred legs with paint or taking off other paraphernalia when USDA inspectors are around) why aren't they welcomed? That's why being their own inspectors is not working.”

Priscilla Presley (1945) actress and businesswoman from the United States and former wife of Elvis Presley

Priscilla Presley On The Cause She's So Passionate About And The First Time Elvis Took Her Breath Away http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pat-gallagher/priscilla-presley_b_4933783.html, 12 March, 2014.

Alveda King photo

“I pray that all polar opposites learn to Agape Love, live and work together as brothers and sisters — or perish as fools. While I voted for Mr. Trump, my confidence remains in God, for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Prayers for President-elect Trump, Congressman Lewis, and everyone including leaders.”

Alveda King (1951) American, civil rights activist, Christian minister, conservative, pro-life activist, and author

Alveda King, MLK’s niece: ‘I voted for Mr. Trump’ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/16/alveda-king-mlks-niece-i-voted-for-mr-trump/ (January 16, 2017)

Lewis Black photo
Michael Grimm photo

“From my days as a Marine in combat, to my tenure working undercover in the FBI, to my service as a Congressman representing the hardworking families on Staten Island and Brooklyn, I have spent my entire life fighting on behalf of the People with honor and integrity. The past 24 hours haven’t changed a thing, and I plan to work harder than ever for the people I am exceedingly proud to represent. To my constituents, let me be absolutely clear: the trumped-up charges against me are false and after my peers see the truth, justice will prevail. And while this groundless witch hunt proves there are powerful forces dedicated to tarnishing my reputation as part of a political vendetta, I’ll tell you what it doesn’t do: It doesn’t take back the billions of dollars in Superstorm Sandy aid I fought for in Congress, it doesn’t undo my flood insurance reform bill that will spare millions of Americans from skyrocketing premiums and home foreclosures, and it doesn’t negate the countless success stories of my office helping constituents with difficult challenges, from losing health coverage thanks to Obamacare, to being denied veteran survivor benefits, to helping our seniors deal with multiple daily struggles, simply put…the lives my staff and I have touched for the better are innumerable. And that’s why I am so heartened by the outpouring of love and support – I am truly humbled to work for the most salt of the earth people in the world. Which is why I am back working hard and doing what I’ve done from day one, relentless trying to improve their quality of life through old fashioned hard work and determination.”

Michael Grimm (1970) American politician

Facebook (29 April 2014) https://www.facebook.com/repmichaelgrimm
2010s

Zero Mostel photo
Ferdinand Marcos photo

“Elect me as your congressman today, I promise you an Ilocano president in 20 years.”

Ferdinand Marcos (1917–1989) former President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986

Election speech as candidate for Congress, 1949
1949

Henry Adams photo
Ron Paul photo

“Chris Matthews: Let me ask you this: the '64 civil rights bill. Do you think a [em]ployer, a guy runs his shop down in Texas has a right to say, "If you're black, you don't come in my store". That was the libertarian right before '64. Was it the balanced society?
Ron Paul: I believe that property rights should be protected. Your right to be on TV is protected by property rights because somebody owns that station. I can't walk into your station. So right of freedom of speech is protected by property. The right of your church is protected by property. So people should honor and protect it. This gimmick, Chris, it's off the wall when you say I'm for property rights and states' rights, therefore I'm a racist. I mean that's just outlandish. Wait, Chris. Wait, Chris. People who say that if the law was there and you could do that, who's going to do it? What idiot would do that?
Chris Matthews: Everybody in the South. I saw these signs driving through the South in college. Of course they did it. You remember them doing it.
Ron Paul: Yeah, I but also know that the Jim Crow laws were illegal and we got rid of them under that same law, and that's all good. Government —
Chris Matthews: But you would've voted against that law.
Ron Paul: Pardon me?
Chris Matthews: You would've voted against that law. You wouldn't have voted for the '64 civil rights bill.
Ron Paul: Yes, but not in — I wouldn’t vote against getting rid of the Jim Crow laws.
Chris Matthews: But you would have voted for the — you know you — oh, come on. Honestly, Congressman, you were not for the '64 civil rights bill.
Ron Paul: Because — because of the property rights element, not because it got rid of the Jim Crow law.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

2011

George W. Bush photo
Sunil Dutt photo

“I have been a lifelong Congressman because I believe in the party's philosophy.”

Sunil Dutt (1929–2005) Hindi film actor

We all are one, whichever religion we belong to

Eleanor Holmes Norton photo

“Unidentified Congressman: Will the gentleman yield?
Norton: I will not yield, sir! The District of Columbia has spent two hundred and six years yielding!”

Eleanor Holmes Norton (1937) non-voting Delegate to to the United States Congress for the District of Columbia

During a speech before the U.S. Congress, April 19, 2007
[DC Vote, CBS Evening News, 1 June 2006]

H.L. Mencken photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“I recommend that you provide the resources to carry forward, with full vigor, the great health and education programs that you enacted into law last year. I recommend that we prosecute with vigor and determination our war on poverty. I recommend that you give a new and daring direction to our foreign aid program, designed to make a maximum attack on hunger and disease and ignorance in those countries that are determined to help themselves, and to help those nations that are trying to control population growth. I recommend that you make it possible to expand trade between the United States and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. I recommend to you a program to rebuild completely, on a scale never before attempted, entire central and slum areas of several of our cities in America. I recommend that you attack the wasteful and degrading poisoning of our rivers, and, as the cornerstone of this effort, clean completely entire large river basins. I recommend that you meet the growing menace of crime in the streets by building up law enforcement and by revitalizing the entire federal system from prevention to probation. I recommend that you take additional steps to insure equal justice to all of our people by effectively enforcing nondiscrimination in federal and state jury selection, by making it a serious federal crime to obstruct public and private efforts to secure civil rights, and by outlawing discrimination in the sale and rental of housing. I recommend that you help me modernize and streamline the federal government by creating a new Cabinet-level Department of Transportation and reorganizing several existing agencies. In turn, I will restructure our civil service in the top grades so that men and women can easily be assigned to jobs where they are most needed, and ability will be both required as well as rewarded. I will ask you to make it possible for members of the House of Representatives to work more effectively in the service of the nation through a constitutional amendment extending the term of a Congressman to four years, concurrent with that of the President. Because of Vietnam we cannot do all that we should, or all that we would like to do. We will ruthlessly attack waste and inefficiency. We will make sure that every dollar is spent with the thrift and with the commonsense which recognizes how hard the taxpayer worked in order to earn it. We will continue to meet the needs of our people by continuing to develop the Great Society. Last year alone the wealth that we produced increased $47 billion, and it will soar again this year to a total over $720 billion. Because our economic policies have produced rising revenues, if you approve every program that I recommend tonight, our total budget deficit will be one of the lowest in many years. It will be only $1.8 billion next year. Total spending in the administrative budget will be $112.8 billion. Revenues next year will be $111 billion. On a cash basis—which is the way that you and I keep our family budget—the federal budget next year will actually show a surplus. That is to say, if we include all the money that your government will take in and all the money that your government will spend, your government next year will collect one-half billion dollars more than it will spend in the year 1967. I have not come here tonight to ask for pleasant luxuries or for idle pleasures. I have come here to recommend that you, the representatives of the richest nation on earth, you, the elected servants of a people who live in abundance unmatched on this globe, you bring the most urgent decencies of life to all of your fellow Americans.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

H.L. Mencken photo

“Every such wet-nurse of letters has sought fatuously to make me write in a way differing from that in which the Lord God Almighty, in His infinite wisdom, impels me to write — that is, to make me write stuff which, coming from me, would be as false as an appearance of decency in a Congressman.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Source: 1920s, Prejudices, Third Series (1922), Ch. 3 "Footnote on Criticism", pp. 85-104
Context: Upon the low value of "constructive" criticism I can offer testimony out of my own experience. My books have been commonly reviewed at length, and many critics have devoted themselves to pointing out what they conceive to be my errors, both of fact and of taste. Well, I cannot recall a case in which any suggestion offered by a "constructive" critic has helped me in the slightest, or even actively interested me. Every such wet-nurse of letters has sought fatuously to make me write in a way differing from that in which the Lord God Almighty, in His infinite wisdom, impels me to write — that is, to make me write stuff which, coming from me, would be as false as an appearance of decency in a Congressman. All the benefits I have ever got from the critics of my work have come from the destructive variety. A hearty slating always does me good, particularly if it be well written. It begins by enlisting my professional respect; it ends by making me examine my ideas coldly in the privacy of my chamber. Not, of course, that I usually revise them, but I at least examine them. If I decide to hold fast to them, they are all the dearer to me thereafter, and I expound them with a new passion and plausibility. If, on the contrary, I discern holes in them, I shelve them in a pianissimo manner, and set about hatching new ones to take their place. But "constructive" criticism irritates me. I do not object to being denounced, but I can't abide being schoolmastered, especially by men I regard as imbeciles.

Robert H. Jackson photo
Ernest Becker photo

“When we appreciate how natural it is for man to strive to be a hero, how deeply it goes in his evolutionary and organismic constitution, how openly he shows it as a child, then it is all the more curious how ignorant most of us are, consciously, of what we really want and need. In our culture anyway, especially in modern times, the heroic seems too big for us, or we too small for it. Tell a young man that he is entitled to be a hero and he will blush. We disguise our struggle by piling up figures in a bank book to reflect privately our sense of heroic worth. Or by having only a little better home in the neighborhood, a bigger car, brighter children. But underneath throbs the ache of cosmic specialness, no matter how we mask it in concerns of smaller scope. Occasionally someone admits that he takes his heroism seriously, which gives most of us a chill, as did U.S. Congressman Mendel Rivers, who fed appropriations to the military machine and said he was the most powerful man since Julius Caesar. We may shudder at the crassness of earthly heroism, of both Caesar and his imitators, but the fault is not theirs, it is in the way society sets up its hero system and in the people it allows to fill its roles. The urge to heroism is natural, and to admit it honest. For everyone to admit it would probably release such pent-up force as to be devastating to societies as they now are.”

The Recasting of Some Basic Psychoanalytic Ideas
The Denial of Death (1973)

Harry Truman photo

“Your old friend Congressman Hartley of the Taft Hartley team … has written a book … The title of this book is Our New National Labor Policy, the Taft-Hartley Act and the Next Steps.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Get that: "The Next Steps" … They're going even further! … The Republicans favor a minimum wage — the smaller the minimum the better.
Harry Truman at Akron (11 October 1948), Good Old Harry

Barney Frank photo

“The single most important thing you can do politically for gay rights is to come out. Not to write a letter to your congressman but to come out.”

Barney Frank (1940) American politician, former member of the House of Representatives for Massachusetts

Quoted in "The Path to Gay Rights: How Activism and Coming Out Changed Public Opinion" by Jeremiah J. Garretson, chapter 9, pg 229.

James P. Gray photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“When I was a Congressman I never realized how important Congress was, but now I do.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

“What's the difference between a whore and a congressman? A congressman makes more money.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)