Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I know that the American people are watching what is happening in Washington these days with a little more than a passing interest. I am sure they wonder sometimes about where is the truth because they hear folks on one side of the aisle saying one thing and folks on the other side of the aisle saying another thing. When I talk to people at home, I do my best to explain the situation in Washington right now. I try to point out the fact that we have deep philosophical differences in this body and in the Senate. We do have two parts of our legislative branch of government--the House and the Senate. The philosophical differences are pretty strong in both bodies. They really stem from the beginning of the country. Our Founders felt very strongly--the majority of them, though--that the Federal Government should be weak. We, obviously, had just come off of getting our independence from Britain and we wanted to not have a king and we wanted not to have a strong central Government. I think the Founders were right. The Founders in the Constitution outlined the duties of our respective branches of government. They enumerated them. People will talk about enumerated powers. They made those powers very few for the Federal Government. They emphasized that with the 10th Amendment. It said: If we didn't tell the Federal Government to do this in the Constitution, then we don't want the Federal Government to do it.…”