Government Checks Quotes

The Senate cannot confirm an individual... who would support a scheme that violates our Constitution, eviscerates congressional authority.

The intoxication of power rapidly sobers off in the knowledge of its restrictions and under the prompt reminder of an ever-present and not always considerate press, as well as the kindly suggestions that not infrequently come from Congress.

The Senate's role is to advise and consent. Very little advice has been sought and consent has thus been a problem.

Bureaucrats, dunderheads and knaves have always denounced congressional oversight.

I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.

I think the Supreme Court has, as an equal branch of government, the ability to overrule Congress and the president. But I also feel it's the role of the Congress and the president to push back. I mean I think it's important that they are understood as equal branches of government.

There's a lot of people out now around America who depend on checks from their fellow taxpayers being in the mailbox every day.

Too many Americans now believe that the checks they receive every month from the unemployment office - like the checks they get from the welfare office, from Medicare, from Social Security - are inalienable rights. They are not.

We must save the Constitution from the [Supreme] Court and the Court from itself.

What are we to do? Sit back and let the President police himself?

Our system of government works best when there are checks and balances led by independent entities that are empowered to conduct fair and rigorous oversight. These are the same principles enshrined in the founding document of our country - our Constitution.

In Washington, particularly, the loyal opposition has a job to be the opposition. But you can't stop there.

The difference between them and us is that we want to check government spending and they want to spend government checks.

If the Republicans get control back of the United States Senate, we will no longer have a check and balance on the White House, on the Republican Congress.

No Man would be so daring as to place a veto on a Law that had passed with the assent of the Legislature

The president actually is there to complement the government in power. If they have done something that is not proper, it is the duty of the president to... discuss and to come to some common ground.

Power intoxicates men …. The Supreme Court must be curbed.

By their own admission, leaders of the Republican Revolution of 1994 think their greatest mistake was overlooking the power of the veto. They gave the impression they were somehow in charge when they weren't.

Public opinion: May it always perform one of its appropriate offices, by teaching the public functionaries of the State and of the Federal Government, that neither shall assume the exercise of powers entrusted by the Constitution to the other.

Presidents have the right to nominate their own cabinet secretaries. But their nominees don't have a right to confirmation. Senators have a constitutional duty to advise and consent to the appointment of all Cabinet officials. They should take that duty seriously.

It's like a golden rule in the pawn business: never cash a government check.

[R]efusing or not refusing to execute a law to stamp it with its final character . . . makes the Judiciary department paramount in fact to the Legislature, which was never intended and can never be proper.

President’s don’t have the authority to go to war.

The most eminent Senators would have received as a personal affront a private message from the White House expressing a desire that they should adopt any course in the discharge of their legislative duties that they did not approve. If they visited the White House, it was to give, not to receive advice.

When you have a gutless Congress a lawless president can do pretty much what he chooses.