Political Quotes

“while I am waiting for Senator McCain to come to the floor before I speak about the specific unanimous consent request I am going to make, I would like to point out, in a very general way, that the pursuit of what we are doing, in so many other ways, is part of Congress's constitutional responsibility and constitutional authority under the checks and balances of government to make sure the laws are faithfully executed. There are several different tools that are used in that direction. They can be individual Senators. Any time an individual Senator wants to ask questions of whether the laws are being faithfully executed, that Senator can do it, that Member of the House of Representatives can do it, through the particular committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives, through both letter as well as open hearings about certain subjects of whether money being spent by the executive branch is according to Congressional intent or whether laws are being carried out the way Congress intended. That is all part of congressional oversight, but there has also been seen a need, over a course of many years, for other ways to make sure it is done. One of those was the setting up of the Government Accountability Office that has authority, at the request of committees and request of individual Members of Congress, to investigate and do research on certain problems we have in the executive branch of government.…”