Congressional Oversight Quotes

I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election

Holding Congressional hearings is the purview of the majority, and during the first years of the Obama administration, Democrats could not be bothered.

I consulted the President [Jefferson Davis] whether it was best for the country that I should submit to unmerited censure or reveal to a Congressional Committee our poverty and my utter inability to supply the requisitions of General Wise, and thus run the risk that the fact should become known to some of the spies of the enemy, of whose activity we were well-assured. It was thought best for the public service that I should suffer the blame in silence and a report of censure on me was accordingly made by the Committee of Congress.

Snowden and NSA leaders should be brought together face-to-face for questioning in public by a congressional investigatory committee, with both parties allowed to make their points and to counter the assertions of the other. If Snowden is lying, it will come out. If the NSA is lying, it will come out.

Congress does investigations better than they do any thing else. Let them do that…. The people of Louisiana don’t want anyone’s head. They want everyone’s help.

Congress shall not have power, without the concurrence of two-thirds of both Houses, to interdict the commercial intercourse between the United States and any foreign nation or the dependencies thereof.

The Secretary of State exists only to recognize the existence of a world which Congress would rather ignore ... Since the first day the Senate existed, it has always intrigued against the Secretary of State ...

If Adam Schiff is able to review covert operations and intelligence, and if we have to be able to rely on his representations, our whole system is broken.

The House [of Representatives] has become not so much a legislative assembly as a huge panel from which committees are selected.

I think you have to be concerned about any presidential executive order because it has the power of law until it's knocked down by an act of Congress or a court.

Congress leaks. That’s a fact of life.

The federal government is currently operating on a budget passed in the dead of night just before Christmas. It comprised three massive documents, ran to a staggering 3,296 pages, weighed in at a hefty 43 pounds, and had a price tag of $650 billion. Congress had about three hours to look at it before voting on it.

I don't think anybody, regardless of tragic circumstances, can expect to come to a congressional hearing and take it over with a series of interruptions.

The Military Industrial Complex. President Eisenhower had it wrong. It’s the Military Industrial Congressional Complex.

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

As a member of Congress, I believe Congress must provide oversight of actions by the Executive Branch as our system of checks and balances requires.

This reporter approaches the matter with rather fresh memories of friends in Austria, Germany and Italy who either died or went into exile because they refused to admit the right of their government to determine what they should say, read, write or think…. Movies should be judged by what appears on the screen, newspapers by what appears in print and radio by what comes out of the loudspeaker. The personal beliefs of the individuals involved would not seem to be a legitimate field of inquiry. When bankers, or oil or railroad men are hauled before a congressional committee, it is not customary to question them about their beliefs.

I have been told for years by among others, some of my own family, that this is exactly what the Bureau was doing all the time, and in my great wisdom and high office, I assured them that ... it just wasn't true. It couldn't happen. They wouldn't do it .... The trick now ... is for this Committee to be able to figure out how to persuade the people of this country that indeed it did go on. And how shall we insure that is will never happen again?

But make no mistake, the President will find in our new majority the voice of the American people as they've expressed it tonight: standing on principle, checking Washington's power and leading the drive for a smaller, less costly, and more accountable government.

I have had national security background, 10 years on the Intelligence Committee, the last two years as chair.

You run Washington DC though the House. The Senate gets in the way. The President gets in the way.

Unfortunately, since its passage in 1973, the War Powers Resolution has been stripped of its original purpose and has instead served as a temporary, de facto authorization for the executive branch to use military force whenever it deems it necessary.

If the president is failing to disclose material facts with regard to legislation being presented to the Congress on a question as important as war and peace, I think it does impair the level of trust that the House and the Senate have for this administration.

The Pentagon today will not allow any of these people who work for the Pentagon, to talk to the media. They have gagged them from talking to members of Congress.

When you're the president of the United States, you have no money unless the Congress says, 'Here's what you can spend it on.'