Grant Shapps Quotes

Americans are used to the clatter of campaign promises hitting ground as they are thrown out the window.

Who is in charge? Is it taxpayers or is it the special interest groups?

The message is pretty clear: Americans are sick and tired of the doubletalk coming out of Washington, of us going home and saying we're conservative and then coming up here and voting for 10,000 earmarks. We can't fool America anymore; the media is too good. They're reporting what we're really doing.

Five years ago, when I was elected, I had the feeling that the president doesn't have much to do. I've realized, though, that this is not a rubber-stamp position.

If you chose to serve in Congress or on a congressional staff, you should be barred for life from working for any company, organization, or association which lobbies the federal government.

It is hard for the Chinese to understand that our policies are in great part the result of a number of random actions of different domestic pressure groups and not part of an overall plan.

In my experience, only third-rate intelligence is sent to Legislatures to make laws, because the first-rate article will not leave important private interests go unwatched to go and serve the public for a beggarly four or five dollars a day, and a miserably trivial distinction

With every new class of representatives that comes to Congress, there is a greater recognition of the perils of private financing of campaigns. I believe that by pulling back the curtain on the daily pressures faced by members of Congress, we can show the public how critical this reform is to the salvation of our democracy.

The good and the bad news is that politicians rarely do what they say they are going to do when they campaign.

In my position as prime minister, I bear the highest responsibility for decisions.

My thesis is that government is not, in fact, broken. It's just listening to the wrong people, and it's listening to all of this quiet influence. So it's a very robust operation that operates kind of under the surface.

There is always a gap between what candidates say in the heat of the campaign, when they are not constrained by the realities of governance, and how they act after being sworn into office.

In the time I've spent in public life, one of the things I've learned is that some issues look a lot different when you're actually in office compared to when you're on the campaign trail.

Politicians are wonderful people as long as they stay away from things they don't understand, such as working for a living.

I suspect that a lot of the frustration people feel about government would feel a lot better if we had corporate influence out of our politics and were running a democracy like the founding fathers intended.

The Federal Communications Commission needs to listen and serve the American people, not special interests.

I find the Democratic party overall, on a macro level, to be institutionally corrupt.

I've been able to see some very impressive people that are in politics, and I've been able to see a lot more people that are much less impressive that I don't know if I'd want to spend my life working with. When I see sort of how the sausage is made, it's not very pretty.

We do ourselves as politicians no favours if we are seen to peddle unachievable moonshine.

Big money and corporate interest drown out a lot of voices.

Money is at the root of most that is wrong in American politics.

I've been concerned about ethics in government for a long time. And the problems we've had under President Trump are only indicative of the longer-term problem of the erosion of public office and government.

I'm seeing too much power being concentrated in the executive branch, and so our system of government is really in jeopardy, and more importantly, the overwhelming issue that we've had for a long time is money in politics. I see that problem getting worse.

The average guy doesn't have an army of lobbyists and lawyers working on his behalf every day in the White House.

We've had enough career politicians in Helena who think the people are here to serve them. It's supposed to be the other way around.