Federal Overreach Quotes

Washington is out of control, and it's time for Texans to stand up and stop them.

This is a unique legal loophole in the U.S.: If a non-native comes on a reservation and commits any crime, the non-native should be prosecuted by a federal court. Tribal law can arrest and hold someone for a year, but tribal law cannot prosecute non-natives. So since the federal courts are so overloaded, some of the cases get tossed out.

If the Tenth Amendment were still taken seriously, most of the federal government's present activities would not exist. That's why no one in Washington ever mentions it.

For states' rights advocates, the Constitution is like a contract that is openly violated by one party with impunity. On paper, the states remain sovereign powers, while in reality the federal government appears able to dictate everything from the ingredients of school lunches to speed limits. Congress now routinely collects taxes in order to return the money to the states with conditions on their conforming to federal demands.

Here's the problem with Common Core. The Department of Education, like every federal agency, will never be satisfied. They will not stop with it being a suggestion. They will turn it into a mandate.In fact, what they will begin to say to local communities is, you will not get federal money unless do you things the way we want you to do it. And they will use Common Core or any other requirements that exists nationally to force it down the throats of our people in our states.

If Obamacare is allowed to stand - and Congress is allowed to make the purchase of government-endorsed health insurance compulsory - there will be no meaningful limit on Washington's reach into the lives of the American people. That is certainly not what the Founders intended.

For too long, unfunded federal mandates have drained the budgets of states and communities. The strength and vitality of our communities must be restored.

The Obama administration came into Utah and said, 'We're not going to listen to what the U.S. Supreme Court said. 'We, the federal government, are going to recognize marriages in the state of Utah and Utah state law explicitly does not recognize as marriage,' and that was really, in my view, an abuse of power.

We are way overstepping bounds as federal legislators.

We don't want Arizona to be dependent on the whims of Barack Obama and the federal government.

If the federal government had been around when the Creator was putting His hand to this state, Indiana wouldn't be here. It'd still be waiting for an environmental impact statement.

In the rush to become all things to all people, the federal government has lost sight of its core responsibilities. As a result we're stuck in this frustrating paradox where Washington actually neglects things it's clearly supposed to be doing, while interfering in other areas where they are neither welcome nor authorized.

The Obama administration has abused the executive power, enforcing Common Core on the states. It has used race to the top fans to effectively blackmail and force the states to adapt Common Core. But in one silver lining of Obama abusing executive power is that everything done with executive power can be undone with executive power and I intend to do that.

My battles have been against federal actions that exceed the powers our Founders granted to the federal government in the constitution.

But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm . . . But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity.

We don't need unelected federal agency bureaucrats in Washington telling our states what they can and can't do with respect to protecting their limited taxpayer dollars in private enterprises.

Federal overreach from agencies like the EPA is hurting family farms. I will fight against these crippling regulations, and always side with the hard working farmers and ranchers of Missouri.

The fact is there are a lot of things happening at the federal level that are absolutely beyond the jurisdiction of the Constitution. This is power that should be shifted back to the states, whether it's the EPA - there is no role at the federal level for the Department of Education.

It is impossible to manage the health care requirements of tens of millions of American citizens at the federal level. It is impossible to manage all of the permutations of people's economic aspirations and lives through a complex tax code. It is impossible to try to second-guess the market. It is impossible, from a managerial standpoint, for the federal government to do the things it is trying to do today.

And it's absolutely hypocritical for the political party that talks about states rights, to suddenly ignore states rights, that say that the federal government or federalism has no business in this kind of business.

I don't like to have the federal government start pushing its weight deeper and deeper into our schools. Let the states and localities do that.

The fact is there are a lot of things happening at the federal level that are absolutely beyond the jurisdiction of the Constitution. This is power that should be shifted back to the states.

The last thing we need in Washington is more federal hubris.

Does the U.S. Constitution stand for anything in an era of government excess? Can that founding document, which is supposed to restrain the power and reach of a centralized federal government, slow down the juggernaut of czars, health insurance overhaul and anything else this administration and Congress wish to do that is not in the Constitution?

Bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., shouldn't know how to better educate my kids than I do.