Douglas K. Bereuter Quotes

Our whole history tells us that the national government has been far less corrupt and incompetent than state and local government … Time and time again the federal government has had to rescue people from the states and local governments. If we left it to the states, we would still have slavery.

Centrally, I cannot interfere in states.

I am the constitutionally and legitimately elected sheriff, and I absolutely refuse to surrender my responsibility to the federal government.

The greatest threats to North Dakota are policies coming out of Washington, D.C. I see it every day and feel a sense of responsibility to do something about it.

The fate of this government depends absolutely upon raising it above the state governments.

For 22 years [as a Senator] I worried about all the power at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Now [as Treasury Secretary] I worry about all the power at the opposite end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Congressional power has not so much been usurped by the Presidency as given up to the Presidency by Congress.

Congress has chosen to recognize that a president may be forced to pursue legitimate foreign policy objectives by covert means. Such recognition, however, does not mean it surrenders the right to be informed of covert measures so that it can express its views as to the legitimacy of the goals or the wisdom of seeking to achieve them.

The District [of Columbia] is the only place in America with and entire congressional committee and two subcommittees devoted soley to overseeing its affairs.

The present Congress have as complete authority to require of the States indefinite supplies of money for the common defense and general welfare, as the future Congress will have to require them of individual citizens; and the latter will be no more bound than the States themselves have been, to pay the quotas respectively taxed on them.

I am going to make Washington as irrelevant to your lives as possible

Every American war has brought a struggle between Congress and the Executive over war powers. The Constitution is somewhat annoyingly ambiguous on the point declaring that the President is Commander in Chief but empowering Congress to provide for the common defense, declare war, and raise and support armies.

The government bodies known to you have presented me a resignation demand. Taking into account that the execution of the constitutional power of the president in the situation that has been created could pose serious danger to the stability of the country, I accept that demand and announce my resignation.

Members of Congress goes before the cameras telling us that the immigration situation is a humanitarian crises, and then they leave town [having a Congressional vacation]. In a crisis I do my job. They should be here in Washington doing their jobs.

The Constitution gives the Congress absolute authority within the District of Columbia on any legislative issues whatsoever.

Quite as serious an error [of the French] is the failure to provide for local self-government. As this lies at the bottom of republican institutions, and should be, moreover, the first concern of democracy

I do not assert that a President and the Congress must on all points agree with each other at all times. Many times in history there has been complete disagreement between the two branches of the Government, and in these disagreements sometimes the Congress has won and sometimes the President has won.

I, for the time being, am at the head of a nation which is in great peril; and you are at the head of the greatest State of that nation. As to maintaining the nation’s life, and integrity, I assume, and believe, there can be no difference of purpose between you and me. If we should differ as to the means, it is important that such differences should be as small as possible—that it should not be enhanced by unjust suspicions on one side or the other. In the performance of my duty, the co-operation of your State, as that of others, is needed—in fact, is indispensable.

You can’t secure the country from inside the Beltway. The Federal government has got to trust the state Attorney’s General with critical information.

If I could solve these problems with passing laws in the Congress, I would do so.

Congress has the Constitutional responsibility to deal with the problem and Congress punted.

Mayors of cities have the political position to really change people’s lives.

The legislative branch acts for the future. Judges act by reflecting on the past. The President has to deal with the realities of today.

I do not know which is the more preferable, a government composed of several members but sovereign in the country, or a government of a single man with several inferior administrations all having the attributes of constitutional power…. The present government succeeds in combining the worst of both systems by having a infinity of governments all endowed with constitutional laws and separate powers, so that departmental (provincial) councils dispute with the government and the towns and the communes.

13 years after Indonesia began devolving power from the federal government to hundreds of sub provincial units, the link between local and national political interests have become extremely tenuous… although locally elected politicians may be delivering things that people want in their own back yards, they are not, collectively meeting the nation’s needs.