Richard Painter Quotes

The quicker we get rid of the lobby system the better for all of us. I don't think in this day and age it is tenable to have these nods and winks, and on-the-record and off-the-record briefings.

Objective journalism is one of the main reasons that American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long.

I'm not really into the political game as far as paying politicians and stuff like that, I'm not into that. You do your job, and I'll do mine.

I ask the vice president to stop dodging the issue with legalese, and acknowledge his continued ties with Halliburton to the American people.

The Philippines is a country in which a man of morals can't be president, in which a politician who hasn't been linked to any wrongdoing isn't assumed to be honest, but merely better at hiding his corruption.

Honorariums are really dishonorariums. So long as they continue, public trust in Congress will sink even below its minimal level today.... Public officials should have only one paymaster: the Government. When the Government pays too little, the temptation to find other paymasters becomes far harder to resist.

It's hard to make corruption a partisan issue because voters are cynical about everybody in politics.

We need to ban outside income for elected officials. Transparency alone is not enough; it doesn't solve the problem of creating outside dependencies.

I look at the corruption in Albany and we cannot accept that.

As Members of Congress, we should not be using public office for private gain.

I think the American government is now the most corrupt government in the world.

There can be no faith in government if our highest offices are excused from scrutiny - they should be setting the example of transparency.

People do not want politicians they know to be corrupt.

There are honest journalists like there are honest politicians - they stay bought.

An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.

Surely the President can agree with us, that theft from government is not good. I know it's bold. It's out on the edge. I know from a Chicago-Springfield background it's hard to fully grasp that honesty could be part of government.

I don't think that Washington is a fundamentally bad or corrupt place.

The hardest way to make a million dollars is to become a United States senator. Any vicious, impudent, brazen, shrewd, gifted person can think of an infinite number of better ways to become rich than to become a crooked politician.

Nobody is immune to corruption. The difference is in how the society responds to corruption. Are the corrupt in jail as they are in Israel and most democracies. Or are they leaders in the government as in Palestine under the PLO.

We need reform. We need more transparency between those who lobby us and ourselves in the Congress.

Next in importance to the maintenance of the Constitution and the Union is the duty of preserving the Government free from the taint or even the suspicion of corruption.

For Louisiana politicians, bribery is an occupational hazard. When I took the oath of office I didn't take an oath of poverty.

I am the only public servant and the only Mexican President ever who has made his finances public from before, during, and after public service.

Ethics and Washington DC. Are they mutually exclusive?

The problem comes from the lack of transparency and accountability of government.