Martin Van Buren Quotes

You can't take money from the taxpayers out of the treasury to give it to pay off your political donors. That's corruption to do that.

The hanky-panky in public service that really matters is about money and not sex.

Public corruption is the FBI's top criminal priority. The threat - which involves the corruption of local, state, and federally elected, appointed, or contracted officials - strikes at the heart of government, eroding public confidence and undermining the strength of our democracy.

The real cost of corruption in government, whether it is local, state, or federal, is a loss of the public trust.

We now know, without any shred of uncertainty, that billions of rands of public resources have been diverted into the pockets of a few.

Unfortunately, corruption is widespread in government agencies and public enterprises. Our political system promotes nepotism and wasting money. This has undermined our legal system and confidence in the functioning of the state. One of the consequences is that many citizens don't pay their taxes.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

Nothing is worse, or more of a breach of the social contract between citizen and state, than for government officials, bureaucrats and agencies to waste the money entrusted to them by the people they serve.

I didn't defraud the government by taking money that was not mine.

I knew President Yeltsin well. He would never have tolerated government officials demonstratively showing off the millions they acquired through corruption, the way it's done today.

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.

Well, I thought the deal was, when you went to work for the government you weren't supposed to make money!

The time has come to tell the truth about the corruption of the government employee unions in this country.

They have seized upon the government by bribery and corruption. They have made speculation and public robbery a science. They have loaded the nation, the state, the county, and the city with debt.

The Mexican government has been corrupt for 140 years.

One thing, and one thing only, prevents the establishment of a stable Central Government at Peking, and this is the insatiable greed of money which possesses every Chinese who attains to public office.

We have a lot of poverty and a great deal of money coming into the country. This is a recipe for corruption. We have just prosecuted high government officials for corruption for the first time in Afghan history.

Sex scandals, while embarrassing, are far less depressing than financial corruption. I would way rather have an important elected official who patronized prostitutes than one who spent $60,000 of the taxpayers’ money on sushi and lobster.

Corruption is when a politician uses public funds to deliver pistachio ice cream to his home and transfer garden furniture to his Caesarea villa, then requesting that the expenses be covered for the water in his pool and fights to get a private jet.

Corruption in Saudi Arabia is quite different from corruption in most other countries, as it is not limited to a 'bribe' in return for a contract, or expensive gift for the family member of a government official or prince, or use of a private jet that is charged to the government so a family can go on vacation.

Here is where you get into the danger zone, when the government official starts talking about U.S. government business and then also talking about what personal business favors they might want. And when the conversation goes down that road, it does risk crossing the line into solicitation of a bribe.

Corruption in government is an overwhelming problem.

The President should not be able to enrich himself and his family at taxpayer expense, period.

Nothing is easier than spending public money. It does not appear to belong to anybody. The temptation is overwhelming to bestow it on somebody.

Under our scheme of government the waste of public money is a crime against the citizen.