Political Quotes

“A year and a half ago, the President of the United States came to give his State of the Union address here in the House Chamber and stood at the podium just below where you're standing right now. He had a long list of legislative items he wanted the Congress to pass. At the conclusion of it he said, If you don't do it, I will. I'm paraphrasing, of course. The question that many of us had was: By what authority in the United States Constitution does the President of the United States have the ability to do something that he has come to the Congress to ask to be passed legislatively and to tell us, if we don't do it, he's going to do it himself in the executive branch? Well, the way he does it, when he's not stopped by lawsuits and other means, is he simply has regulations passed to accomplish those objectives. You know what? Thousands of regulations are passed every Congress compared to a few hundred laws that are passed. All we're asking here today is that for those regulations that cost the American people $100 million or more, that they have to come back here and be approved by the Congress rather than have executive fiat control that. This is the representative democracy here in the House of Representatives and in the United States Senate. This is the people's House. We have the authority to pass laws, and we definitely are concerned about the welfare and well-being of our American people.…”