Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj Quotes

I have heard in highest places the shameless doctrine avowed by men grown old in public office that the true way by which power should be gained in the Republic is to bribe the people with the offices created for their service.

What people fail to appreciate is that the currency of corruption in elective office is, not money, but votes.

Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.

I just received the following wire from my generous Daddy; Dear Jack, Don't buy a single vote more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide.

Farmers who are legislators are the easiest to buy and seduce.

... he [Thomas E. Dewey] is a political streetwalker accosting men with "come home with me dear.

With money we will get partisans, with partisans votes, and with votes money, is the maxim of our political pilferers.

There's so many politicians who have given politics a pretty poor name... their actions have been demonstrated to be part of their over-enthusiasm to get reelected.

Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale.

President Johnson had a habit of throwing dollars at a question and the question would disappear.

William Andrews Clark was caught in a bribery scandal during a campaign for the U.S. Senate - he was said to describe the Montana legislators this way: 'I never bought a man who wasn't for sale.'

Politics is the most corrupt profession on Earth, no matter where you are.

Honest Graft

I will devote none of my time to developing laws to increase my own patronage and multiply canvassers [electors] in my favor.

Those guys [congressmen] lived on the basis of getting their little tidbits and their perks.

There are seats in the Senate for sale.

What we affirm is that the theory which regards places in the public service as prizes to be distributed after an election, like plunder after a battle, the theory which perverts public trusts into party spoils, making public employment dependent on favor and not on proved merit, necessarily ruins the self-respect of public employees, destroys the function of party in a republic, prostitutes elections into a desperate strife for personal profit, and degrades the national character by lowering the moral tone and standard of the country.

Some governments are corrupt but are known for their competency in running the city. Others are incompetent but are considered "clean." [Washington] DC's government is scandalously corrupt and hopelessly incompetent.

Congressmen are not bribed anymore. They simply have a lot of friends who are willing to help them out whenever they find it necessary.

The Mexican government has been corrupt for 140 years.

Friendship is the most corrupting influence in politics.

As long as government exists, corruption will exist. It is an illness of government and can only be cured by the people.

CBC: Corrupt Bastard’s Club

We have witnessed for more than a quarter of a century the struggles of the two great political parties for power and plunder, while grievous wrongs have been inflicted upon the suffering people. We charge that the controlling influences dominating both these parties have permitted the existing dreadful conditions to develop without serious effort to prevent or restrain them.

All governments are more or less corrupt.