Barack Obama Quotes

President Obama made far-reaching, unilateral changes to our nation's immigration policy despite saying on over 22 different occasions that he did not have the authority to do so.

I've got a pen, and I've got a phone, and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive action. I've got a pen to talk executive actions where congress won't. Where congress isn't acting, I'll act on my own. I have got a pen and I got a phone. And that is all I need.

Since the enactment of the War Powers Act in 1973, which I supported then and support now, Congress has been reluctant to assert its authority when presidents decide to send American soldiers into harm's way.

Getting members of Congress to do things they don’t want to do is a crucial part of being President.

I don’t know if President (George W.) Bush understood how extreme some of the arguments were about executive power that some people in his administration were making.

We have a major crisis in the system. the Preisdent is so powerful that he overehelms the rest of the Government. .... This has been going on for over 50 years. Each president adds more and more power.... Congress is crippled and cowardly .... They don't use their appropriations power. They have been passing continuing resultions for 20 years.

In Barack Obama's second term, with his legislative agenda dead in a Republican-controlled Congress, the president turned to executive unilateralism on an innovative scale.

It should be remembered that the president cannot, by executive order, do things that affects the public at large unless there is some Congressional basis for it.

The president began this program by executive order. He should immediately end it by executive order. For over a year now, he has said the program is illegal, and yet he does nothing.

With gridlock the norm, Congress's approval rating is below 10 percent and the public has lost faith in its national leadership.

Obama is a tyrant the same way FDR was a tyrant. He has a view of presidential power that states: the government is in control of the country, and the president is in charge of the government. He's taken an imperial view of the presidency.

The administration of George W. Bush, emboldened by the Sept. 11 attacks and the backing of a Republican Congress, has sought to further extend presidential power over national security. Most of the expansion has taken place in secret, making Congressional or judicial supervision particularly difficult.

That's the good thing about being president, I can do whatever I want.

If Mr. Obama wants to get things done, he must recognize that in Washington only the president has the power to make the first big move.

If Mr. Roosevelt can do what he likes without consulting Congress, and we give him our boys, God alone knows what he will do with them.

Without the authority of Congress, the President cannot fire a hostile gun in any case except to repel the attacks of the enemy.

A man who understands the power of the Presidency, who understands the potential of the Presidency, can get almost anything accomplished.

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 office of the President is not such a very difficult one to fill, his duties being mainly to execute the laws of Congress. Should I be chosen for this exalted position, I would execute the laws of Congress as faithfully as I have always executed the orders of my superiors.

A president in his first year has a mandate and some political capital. When he picks an issue, he can practically roll any Congress.

What a President says and thinks is not worth five cents unless he has the people and Congress behind him. Without the Congress I'm just a six-feet-four Texan. With the Congress I'm President of the United States in the fullest sense.

I am well aware of what three past presidents have said, but that will not be worth five cents if the people and the Congress do not support their president now.”

The power to make war is vested in Congress and not in the President. Congress has no constitutional authority to grant such authority to the president.

We have not found a way to give Congress control without depriving the President of essential power.

… with the stroke of a pen.