Repeal Quotes & Sayings

The idea of not being able to control my own fertility genuinely terrifies me. That one mistake might change your life. That everything I am, and do, could be ended by the repeal of laws our mothers fought so hard for, that women had waited for the entire span of humanity to come about. — Caitlin Moran

I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution. — Ulysses S. Grant

Our Congress should stay in session all summer - camp out in D.C., and turn off the AC. Put on their stuffiest powdered wigs and sweat it out, until they give in and put their John Hancocks (and their Nancy Pelosis and their John Boehners) on at least one meaningful law that no one wants to repeal. — Kevin Bleyer

Ask yourself how many people you have met who grumbled at a thing as incurable, and how many who attacked it as curable? How many people we have heard abuse the British elementary schools, as they would abuse the British climate? How few have we met who realized that British education can be altered, but British weather cannot? ... For a thousand that regret compulsory education, where is the hundred, or the ten, or the one, who would repeal compulsory education? ... At the beginning of our epoch men talked with equal ease about Reform and Repeal. Now everybody talks about reform; nobody talks about repeal. — G.K. Chesterton

All children should be welcomed into the world and protected by the law. As President, I would immediately repeal President Clinton's five executive orders that promote abortion. I support a human life bill that defines unborn children as persons under the 14th Amendment. I will vigorously defend the pro-life plank in the Republican platform. — Gary Bauer

When a law is in its nature a contract, when absolute rights have vested under that contract, a repeal of the law cannot divest those rights. The people can act only by their agents and, within the powers conferred upon them, their acts must be considered as the acts of the people. — John Marshall

To those who say it would be too difficult to repeal and replace Obamacare, I say it's a two step process. We repeal the Pelosi Congress in 2010 and replace the Obama Administration in 2012. — Mike Pence

I don't want to weaken the Patriot Act. I want to repeal it. — Jon Tester

We need to repeal Dodd-Frank [act]. It is eviscerating small businesses and small banks. — Marco Rubio

Unlike high tax rates, you can't repeal totalitarianism if it turns out to be a mistake. — Anonymous

Did you know that Puritanism went hand in hand with dirt, that Oliver Cromwell put a 100 per cent tax on soap and that the repeal of the soap tax was one of the most popular acts of Charles II at his Restoration? — Robertson Davies

I talk about the three R's, that jobs equals three R's: Repeal Obamacare. Reform our tax-and-spend policies to make us the most competitive in the world. And relight America with American energy. — Keith Rothfus

Obviously the first thing we need to do is repeal "Obamacare." That's one entitlement that we can get rid of. And that's a couple trillion dollars in spending over the next 10 years. — Rick Santorum

Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners ... Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them. — Benjamin Franklin

I've called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act to help end discrimination to help end discrimination against same-sex couples in this country. Now, I want to add we have a duty to uphold existing law, but I believe we must do so in a way that does not exacerbate old divides. And fulfilling this duty in upholding the law in no way lessens my commitment to reversing this law. I've made that clear. — Barack Obama

The rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right. — Thomas Jefferson

Thirty-six House incumbents with ratings from the AFL-CIO's Committee on Political Education of seventy-five or higher were defeated - especially traumatic since Republicans had filibustered labor's fondest legislative wish: a repeal of the right-to-work provision of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. Union members voted for politicians who weakened their unions because the Democrats supported civil rights. — Rick Perlstein

I support repeal, but I think we ought to also spend time on the replacement side of that. The Republican approach has never been, 'Let's get rid of this,' but, 'Let's replace it with something that does deal with a very real problem in our healthcare system.' And that is the entry's cost and lack of coverage. — Rob Portman

A good place to start a more civil dialog would be for my Republican colleagues in the House to change the name of the bill they have introduced to repeal health care reform. The bill, titled the "Repeal the Job Killing Health Care Law Act," was set to come up for a vote this week, but in the wake of Gabby's shooting, it has been postponed at least until next week. Don't get me wrong - I'm not suggesting that the name of that one piece of legislation somehow led to the horror of this weekend - but is it really necessary to put the word "killing" in the title of a major piece of legislation? — Chellie Pingree

The repeal of racist language in the Constitution of Alabama was and still is a necessary step in the state's ability to progress. — Artur Davis

Our capitol punishment system is haunted by the demon of error- error in determining guilt, error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die ... The legislation couldn't reform it. Lawmakers won't repeal it. I won't stand for it. I had to act ... I am commuting the sentences of all death row inmates. — George Ryan

Hadn't been able to avoid hearing about the Tea Party, a recrudescence of the far right sooner than I would've hoped. Depending on whom you ask, the Tea Party formed either as a spontaneous grassroots protest against the government's massive interventions in the economy after the financial collapse of 2008, an hysterical backlash against our first black president, or just a hasty rebranding of the Republican Party now that the name Republican had taken on the same stigma as the Pinto, DC-10, and other products that reliably self-destruct. Their platform was the usual Republican wish list - cut taxes, gut the government, repeal the last century and revoke the social contract - and happened to coincide with the financial interests of their billionaire backers. They were widely regarded, on the left,* as dingbats. But today I was going to resist the impulse to sneer and feel superior and instead try, for once, to listen. — Tim Kreider

The Republicans want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, I want to improve it. I want to build on it, get the costs down, get prescription drug costs down. Senator Sanders wants us to start all over again. This was a major achievement of President [Barack] Obama, of our country. It is helping people right now. — Hillary Clinton

Obama's statements also use a narrative structure, complete with heroes and villains: Ending the estate tax is a threat to the most vulnerable people - taking away money for what they desperately need. They are the victims. The villains are those who would take it from them - conservative legislators and some of the nation's wealthiest families, who have spent tens of millions to lobby for the repeal of this tax. The hero, the rescuer, is you, the voter, who can change the course of the nation. Persuade your legislators to vote for what is moral, and turn them out of office if they refuse to do the right thing. The — George Lakoff

Repeal the Missouri Compromise - repeal all compromises - repeal the Declaration of Independence - repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It will be the abundance of man's heart that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak. — Abraham Lincoln

Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal. Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood by all, but which the wise, and great, and good interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

No man has a right to disturb the public peace, by personally resisting the execution of a law however bad. He ought to acquiesce, using at the same time the utmost powers of his reason, to promote its repeal. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

I say we need to repeal Obamacare as fast as we can. — John Raese

[Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964], many governments in southern states forced people to segregate by race. Civil rights advocates fought to repeal these state laws, but failed. So they appealed to the federal government, which responded with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But this federal law didn't simply repeal state laws compelling segregation. It also prohibited voluntary segregation. What had been mandatory became forbidden. Neither before nor after the Civil Rights Act were people free to make their own decisions about who they associated with. — Harry Browne

Care for us! True, indeed! They ne'er cared for us yet: suffer us to famish, and their storehouses crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily to chain up and restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear us. — William Shakespeare

Over the objections, where they sound like squealing pigs, over the objections of Romney and all his allies, we passed some of the toughest Wall Street regulations in history, turning Wall Street back into the allocator of capital it always has been and no longer a casino. And they want to repeal it. — Joe Biden

Peace is the natural state of man, war the temporary repeal of reason and virtue. — Hans F. Sennholz

For those of us who originally disagreed with ObamaCare and now disagree with the majority opinion of the SCOTUS, the challenge remains the same as it would have been had the Court ruled otherwise. We need to elect Mitt Romney and House and Senate majorities that will repeal ObamaCare and replace it with free-market, pro-liberty solutions. — Bob Beauprez

It is not wise for us to permit a few people on the Federal Reserve Board to have life and death power over our economy. My recommendation for reducing some of that power is to repeal legal tender laws and eliminate all taxes on gold, silver and platinum transactions. That way there would be money substitutes and the government money monopoly would be reduced and hence the ability to tax - some people would say steal from - us through inflation. — Walter E. Williams

Now is not the time to compromise on the economy. Instead, we should be doing everything in our power to support long-term economic growth. Permanent repeal of the death tax will mean more high-quality, high-paying jobs for Americans. — Todd Tiahrt

He has called for a repeal of the Fifth Amendment as it affects the right of private property. — Dixie Lee Ray

Owing its ratification to the law of a State, it has been contended that the same authority might repeal the law by which it was ratified. However gross a heresy it may be to maintain that a party to a compact has a right to revoke that compact, the doctrine itself has had respectable advocates. The possibility of a question of this nature, proves the necessity of laying the foundations of our National Government deeper than in the mere sanction of delegated authority. The fabric of American Empire ought to rest on the solid basis of the consent of the People. The streams of National power ought to flow immediately from that pure original fountain of all legitimate authority. — Alexander Hamilton

One hundred percent of the bishops who oppose the repeal of anti-abortion laws are men and one hundred percent of the people who have abortions are women. — Mary Daly

You can't ever win the war on crime, or the war on terror. You can't repeal human nature. — Robert Harris

I am 100 percent supportive of the stand-alone bill to repeal 'don't ask, don't tell' that Sens. Lieberman and Collins have now proposed, and indeed I will co-sponsor that legislation. It is time for this discriminatory policy to end, and I am willing to pursue any effective legislative path that could lead to that result. — Carl Levin

The nativism behind the push to repeal or amend the Fourteenth is ugly and obvious. — Eric Liu

Unless we repeal the illegal Byrd amendment, American exports will be vulnerable to retaliation, and the U.S. will continue to face a difficult task convincing other countries to make their laws comply with international rules. — Jim Ramstad

Our challenge, our opportunity is to pass common-sense solutions ... that repeal ObamaCare and replace it with patient-centered reforms that will help our constituents have better access to high-quality health care in America. — John Boehner

The medical device tax repeal is the only proposal that had the most bipartisan votes coming out of the House and has the opportunity in the Senate to gain tractions, and it fixes a part of ObamaCare in terms of repealing an awful tax. And it's got bipartisan support. — Erik Paulsen

I voted to repeal the individual mandate in Obamacare ... I think people appreciate the fact that they know where you stand. — David Jolly

Why, when the economist gives advice to his society, is he so often cooly ignored? He never ceases to preach free trade, and protectionism is growing in the United States. He deplores the perverse effects of minimum wage laws, and the legal minimum is regularly raised each 3 or 5 years. He brands usury laws as a medieval superstition, but no state hurries to repeal its law. — George Stigler

The new Republican Congress should move full speed ahead to repeal and replace Obamacare. It would be unwise to wait for the Supreme Court to perform this service for the American people. — Deroy Murdock

Obama wants people, as many people as he can get, covered by the government, exchanges, however you want to phrase it, and the more the better, and the sooner, the better, making it impossible to take it away. Meaning, making it impossible to repeal Obamacare. — Rush Limbaugh

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - two bloated and corrupt government-sponsored programs - contributed heavily to the crisis.In order to prevent another crisis, we need to do what we should have done years ago - reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We also need to repeal Dodd-Frank, the Democrats' failed solution. Under Dodd-Frank, 10 banks too big to fail have become five banks too big to fail. Thousands of community banks have gone out of business. — Carly Fiorina

But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations. — John McCain

I campaigned in 2012 all over this country for months: 'Repeal and replace Obamacare.' That was not the mandate of the voters. If they wanted to repeal Obamacare, the 2012 election would have been probably significantly different. — John McCain

I voted to repeal the government takeover of health care that raises costs, increases taxes, spends trillions of dollars that we don't have, cuts Medicare by $500 billion, and destroys jobs. — Robert Hurt

I don't know what's going to happen specifically on votes on Obamacare. I suspect we'll vote to repeal early to put on record the fact that we Republicans think it's a bad policy, and we think it's hurting our constituents, and we think health care cost should be going down, not up. — Rob Portman

The Republican agenda is, and always has been, to repeal Roe v. Wade, and at the very least, erode it to the greatest extent possible. — Madeleine M. Kunin

We need to repeal and replace Dodd-Frank. We need to make America fair again for all businesses, but especially those being run by small business owners. — Marco Rubio

We know there are states, like Alaska, where there are not a lot of providers. How do we work on issues like that? How do we work on making sure that the small-business part of this works better? ... And if people have [alternate] plans, let's compare them and see. Access, affordability, and quality - that's what this is about. [But] "repeal" is a symbol of something that I don't think is connected to the substance of what's happening. Do you want to take away care from people who have preexisting conditions? [Repeal] takes you backward. — Sylvia Mathews Burwell

I want, we're going to repeal and replace Obamacare. Obamacare is a total and complete disaster. It's going to be gone. — Donald Trump

As a general rule, governments are unlimited in their powers. All free governments, perhaps all other governments, are entitled in some shape or other to make laws and to repeal or amend them. — Samuel Freeman Miller

The Republican party must break with its long-established instinct for caution and make a bold stand for first principles of freedom and constitutional limitations on government - from full repeal of Obamacare to rolling back multitrillion-dollar deficits. This is not so much a reproach of past Republican conduct as it is a recognition of new opportunities. — Tony Blankley

Resurrecting American democracy is vital to averting climate catastrophe. We must first repeal the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, which has flooded elections with billions of oily petrodollars from carbon tycoons. — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

I will not agree to have this bill [to repeal DADT ] go forward, because our economy is in the tank. — John McCain

It is easy to talk about tax simplification, and we all know it is very difficult to accomplish; but for the last three Congresses, I have offered a tax simplification bill that would include a paid-for repeal of alternative minimum tax. — Richard Neal

You can't repeal human nature by an Act of Congress. — Bernard Baruch

But how is it now? All we get is orders; and the laws go out of the state. Them legislators set up there at Austin and don't do nothing but makes laws against kerosene oil and schoolbooks being brought into the state. I reckon they was afraid some man would go home some evening after work and light up and get an education and go to work and make laws to repeal aforesaid laws. — O. Henry

It was not death, for I stood up,
And all the dead lie down;
It was not night, for all the bells
Put out their tongues, for noon.

It was not frost, for on my flesh
I felt siroccos crawl,
Nor fire, for just my marble feet
Could keep a chancel cool.

And yet it tasted like them all;
The figures I have seen
Set orderly, for burial,
Reminded me of mine,

As if my life were shaven
And fitted to a frame,
And could not breathe without a key;
And I was like midnight, some,

When everything that ticked has stopped,
And space stares, all around,
Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns,
Repeal the beating ground.

But most like chaos,--stopless, cool,
Without a chance or spar,--
Or even a report of land
To justify despair. — Emily Dickinson

I'm certainly when it comes to health care - I mean, we want to repeal and replace "Obama care." We're going to repeal - "Obama care" is a total disaster for this country, a total and complete disaster. We're going to come up with plans, and there are lots of alternatives. We're going to come up with plans that are far less expensive, better for the people and better for the country. — Donald Trump

Bull markets and Bear markets can obscure mathematical laws, they cannot repeal them. — Warren Buffett

We ought to be judged on how many laws we repeal. — John Boehner

What I want to do is to make sure that we fully repeal Obamacare. This will be one of the largest spending initiatives we will ever see in our country. And also, it will take away choice from the American people. — Michele Bachmann

I opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. It should be repealed and I will vote for its repeal on the Senate floor. I will also oppose any proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gays and lesbians from marrying. — Barack Obama

Reduced employment opportunities is one effect of minimum wage legislation. The minimum wage law has imposed incalculable harm on the disadvantaged members of our society. The only moral thing to do is to repeal it. — Walter E. Williams

On 'don't ask, don't tell' I was always the same. I said we needed a complete review of the impact on morale and battle effectiveness of 'don't ask, don't tell' before we repeal it. That's my position now. Now they're trying to ram through a repeal without a - any kind of really realistic survey done. — John McCain

I support ensuring that committed gay couples have the same rights and responsibilities afforded to any married couple in this country. I believe strongly in stopping laws designed to take rights away and passing laws that extend equal rights to gay couples. I've required all agencies in the federal government to extend as many federal benefits as possible to LGBT families as the current law allows. And I've called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and to pass the Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act. — Barack Obama

There is no better way to return the matter of taxation to full public discusssion than to repeal the withholding taxes on wages and salaries. Only when the American people are confronted with the enormous excesses of government in a personal and direct way - by an annual bill for services rendered - will they be able to make an informed judgment about which services they want and which ones they can do without. — Karl Hess

I took the repeal of the Corn Laws as light amusement compared with the difficult task of inducing the priests of all denominations to agree to suffer the people to be educated. — Richard Cobden

When President Obama passed health care reform, it was personal! And when Governor Romney says he would repeal Obamacare and put insurance companies back in charge of a woman's health, that's personal too. — Debbie Wasserman Schultz

The president has declared that the debate over government-controlled health care is over. That will come as news to the millions of Americans who will elect Mitt Romney so we can repeal Obamacare. — Paul Ryan

No subject was more important in the 2014 elections than healthcare, and Republicans in Congress should waste no time in taking decisive action in response to the voters'€ demands. Obamacare has escalated costs, disrupted coverage, and introduced bad incentives throughout our healthcare system. Congress must repeal Obamacare and send the president a replacement package of reforms that protects freedom and focuses on the real problem with American healthcare -€" affordability. — Bobby Jindal

All you have to do, is to see whether the law takes from some what belongs to them in order to give it to others to whom it does not belong. We must see whether the law performs, for the profit of one citizen and to the detriment of others, an act which that citizen could not perform himself without being guilty of a crime. Repeal such a law without delay ... [I]f you don't take care, what begins by being an exception tends to become general, to multiply itself, and to develop into a veritable system. — Frederic Bastiat

Clinton vetoed the repeal of the marriage tax. I guess Bill figures if he's married, then we all have to suffer. — Jay Leno

We cannot restore traditional American freedom unless we limit the government's power to tax. No tinkering with this, that, or the other law will stop the trend toward socialism. We must repeal the Sixteenth Amendment. — Frank Chodorov

What politicians do not understand is that [Ian] Wilmut discovered not so much a technical trick as a new law of nature. We now know that an adult mammalian cell can fire up all the dormant genetic instructions that shut down as it divides and specializes and ages, and thus can become a source of new life. You can outlaw technique; you cannot repeal biology.
Writing after Wilmut's successful cloning of the sheep, Dolly, that research on the cloning of human beings cannot be suppressed. — Charles Krauthammer

If the House Republicans want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they should make their case to the American people and elect a president and a majority in both Houses of Congress prepared to do that. — Jerrold Nadler

Violent crime is a solved problem - all they have to do is repeal the laws that keep those intelligent, capable, and responsible men and women from arming themselves, and violent crime evaporates like dry ice on a hot summer day. — L. Neil Smith

On one of the most personal matters of our lives, our health care, President Obama would turn decision making over to government bureaucrats. He forced through Obama-care and I will repeal it. — Mitt Romney

Any law too often subject to infraction is bad; it is the duty of the legislator to repeal or to change it, lest the contempt into which that rash ruling has fallen should extend to other, more just legislation. — Marguerite Yourcenar

It's time ... the Republican Party end the war on women they started. Whether it's the Blunt-Rubio amendment, personhood or attempts to repeal Roe v. Wade, we aren't going to let extremist politicians dictate to women what we can or cannot do with our bodies. — Debbie Wasserman Schultz

The Republican-controlled House voted to repeal the healthcare bill. If that goes well, they'll see what they can do about this whole 'women voting' thing. — Conan O'Brien

We must proceed with a full realization that no statute enacted by man can repeal the inexorable laws of nature. — Warren G. Harding

[A] partial repeal, or, as the bon ton of the court then was, a modification, would have satisfied a timid, unsystematic, procrastinating Ministry, as such a measure has since done such a Ministry. A modificatio is the constant resource of weak, undeciding minds. — Edmund Burke

If I'm elected president, we will repeal every word of Obamacare. — Ted Cruz

I think the first and principle objective is to repeal Obamacare before it does lasting, fundamental damage to our health care system, to our individual liberty, to the relationship each of us has with his or her doctor. — Ted Cruz

A Progressive is one who is in favor of more taxes instead of less, more bureaus and jobholders, more paternalism and meddling, more regulation of private affairs and less liberty. In general, he would be inclined to regard the repeal of any tax as outrageous. — H.L. Mencken

I still strongly support a full repeal of Obamacare. — James Lankford

ObamaCare (modeled almost precisely on RomneyCare) is wrong; it was bad medicine; it's bad for the economy, and I will repeal it. — Mitt Romney

We need to repeal and replace Obamacare. It is the largest tax in U.S. history, has proven to be a job-killer, and has driven up the cost of healthcare. — Joni Ernst

When everything that ticked has stopped, and space stares, all around, or grisly frosts, first autumn morns, repeal the beating ground. — Emily Dickinson

The decrees of the Sovereign Ordainer, as related to fate and predestination, are of two kinds. Both are to be obeyed and accepted. The one is irrevocable, the other is, as termed by men, impending. To the former all must unreservedly submit, inasmuch as it is fixed and settled. God however, is able to alter or repeal it. As the harm that must result from such a change will be greater than if the decree had remained unaltered, all, therefore, should willingly acquiesce in what God hath willed and confidently abide by the same. — Baha'u'llah

The prudent capitalist will never adventure his capital ... if there exists a state of uncertainty as to whether the Government will repeal tomorrow what it has enacted today. — William Henry Harrison

Newt Gingrich wants to repeal child labor laws. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the man that we need to lead us into the 18th century. — David Letterman