Political Quotes

“I think it is a fact of modern history that declarations of war are gone. I think they are anachronistic. I do not think they will happen. Clearly the Constitution assigns the declarations of war function to Congress and only to Congress. But declaring war has consequences in a technologically advanced world that nobody wants to face. Had we declared war against Vietnam, the fear was China and Russia would have had to declare war against us. So you get into a cascading snowball situation. Instead what you do is you call it a police action, as we did in Korea, or you call it something else, but you do not formally take that giant leap of declaring war. So we are back to the President as Commander in Chief having the authority to move troops around but we always have the inescapable function of Congress, and that, too, is constitutional, to provide the appropriations. Without the appropriations, they cannot get a drink of water. Mr. Chairman, I just suggest that requiring consultation does not exhaust Congress's authority. We have the untrammeled authority to unappropriate, disappropriate funds. That is the key, and that makes us the king of the hill. I suggest that by repealing the foolish, nonsensical, unusable parts of the War Powers Resolution and requiring the President to keep us informed comprehensively, we enhance the use, ultimate use of our appropriation authority.”