Everett Dirksen
Everett Dirksen
Everett McKinley Dirksenwas an American politician of the Republican Party. He represented Illinois in the House of Representativesand the Senate...
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth4 January 1896
CityPekin, IL
law mad politics
Dirksen's Three Laws of Politics: 1. Get elected. 2. Get re-elected. 3. Don't get mad, get even.
balanced budget call catalog contains dealing discovered figures looks millions road royal time united
Mr. President, there is no royal road to a balanced budget. If there is, I have never discovered it in all the time I have been dealing with the millions of little figures that come to us in what looks like an unexpurgated mail-order catalog but what we call the budget of the United States, which contains some 1,100 pages.
ceiling closely constantly debt english finally formulate law parallels pierce public reach relating since spending whimsical
Mr. President, that whimsical English professor, Dr. Parkinson, should formulate another Parkinson's law relating to the public debt since it so closely parallels his law on bureaucratic growth. Just as spending will always reach and overtake revenues so the public debt will constantly pierce the ceiling and finally go into orbit.
behalf economy few government horse ourselves shall thrift ultimately words
Mr. President, economy is an old-fashioned thing. It savors of horse and buggy days. I am only too glad, however, to say a few words in behalf of economy, for in economy, in frugality, and in the thrift of our Government I think we shall ultimately find ourselves and our salvation.
began beginning bigness congress finally heard infectious itself succumbed thinking virus
I think the Congress finally has succumbed to the very infectious virus of bigness that began at the beginning of the century, when we first heard about big business. After a while we heard about big government. Then we began to hear about big labor. This whole bigness idea has intruded itself on the thinking of the country.
amendment door few huge increasing order scoop shovel taxes time treasury using
Here we are considering an amendment increasing an already huge appropriation by $1,000,000,000. It is like using a teaspoon in order to get a few taxes into the Treasury and at the same time at the back door using a scoop shovel to shovel them out.
mightier oil
The oil can is mightier than the sword.
force power powerful time whose
There is no force so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
political politics campaigns
During a political campaign everyone is concerned with what a candidate will do on this or that question if he is elected except the candidate; he's too busy wondering what he'll do if he isn't elected.
inspirational change funny-life
Life is not a static thing. The only people who do not change their minds are incompetents in asylums, and those in cemeteries.
becoming dollars billions
We are becoming so accustomed to millions and billions of dollars that 'thousands' has almost passed out of the dictionary.
past years agony
We have been through this is biennial convulsion four or five different times over the past 10 or 12 years, and now it appears that we are going through this quiet agony all over again.
wish alarms expansion
But the basic difficulty still remains: It is the expansion of Federal power, about which I wish to express my alarm. How easily we embrace such business.
moving house body
When a member of the House moves over to the Senate, he raises the IQ of both bodies.