Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I don't know if I can live up to those words, but I certainly appreciate them. I was the ranking member on this committee, and I was chair at one point. We have had this bill over the years. It is indeed a monkey wrench or a monkey in the wrench, as John McCain might have said. It will mess up the entire system that we have of Congress passing laws, delegating, giving the executive the ability to enact them in ways that make them functional and appropriate and come up with the details that the Congress does not have enough expertise to do. The other side refers constantly to people that prepare these rules-- which take many, many years and have much, much input--as bureaucrats, as if it is some type of pejorative. Bureaucrats are government employees who have expertise in certain areas and who study an area and become so much more expert than we are on the subject that they can come up with fine-tuned laws that are checked and balanced to make sure that the laws are implemented in the way that Congress intends. If Congress doesn't like it, Congress can pass a bill by both House and Senate to repeal it. We have already got that possibility. Under this unique approach, either one of the houses of Congress can stop a regulation, a rule from going into effect because both Houses would have to approve a rule and the President would have to sign it before it could go into effect. That gives one House the ability to veto, basically, an executive action.…”