David Crockett Quotes

Where the public money runs deepest the hogs fight each other to get their snouts in the trough, and the big trough nowadays runs through the Pentagon.

I view roads as a source of boundless patronage to the executive, jobbing to members of Congress and their friends, and a bottomless abyss of public money. You will begin by only appropriating the surplus of the post office revenues; but the other revenues will soon be called into their aid, and it will be a source of eternal scramble among the members, who can get the most money wasted in their State

If you think that my job is to rob the Federal Treasury on your behalf, you have voted for the wrong man

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

It's wrong that members of Congress can purchase luxury airfare with taxpayer money when many families in my district and across the county are struggling to make ends meet.

Homeland Security money ought not to be allocated on a pork barrel basis.

I'm not going to deprive my constituents of money that's out there.

The host of contractors, speculators, stockjobbers, and lobby members which haunt the halls of Congress, all desirous ... to get their arm into the public treasury, are sufficient to alarm every friend of this country. Their progress must be arrested.

There is a seeming impropriety in leaving any set of men without control to put their hand into the public coffers, to take out money to put in their pockets.

Pork is the most visible malady of Congress from the public point of view.

There are hundreds and hundreds .... We've had the policy of protecting members and not exposing them, but we've taken a lot of abuse. There are members on the bandwagon of anti-spending, but they come and get their share.

When Congress opens the government’s purse, the benefits flow to special interests rather than the public interest.

Congress is not an ATM

Setting the state budget is one of the most important tasks we undertake at the state Capitol - because after all, it's the people's money - not the government's.

Public money ought to be touched with the most scrupulous consciousness of honor.

We must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not attempt to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right as individuals to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money.

There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income.

There's not an appropriations bill in the last 10 years that the-that Democrats passed in the Congress. We haven't spent any money of your taxes in the last decade.

The money the president wants to borrow for Iraq will come directly out of the American taxpayer wallets in the form of Medicare and Social Security receipts. That's your money.

Let me make it clear: The Disbursement Allocation Program is not pork barrel. Of the DAP releases in 2011 and 2012, only nine percent was disbursed for projects suggested by legislators. The DAP is not theft. Theft is illegal.

We need transparency in government spending. We need to put each government expenditure online so every Floridian can see where their tax money is being spent.

I've never understood the allure of putting your name on a building that was built with taxpayers' money.

Congress passes bills that appropriate money. Congress says, 'We're building this bridge or funding that defense project, and they cost this much.'

The taxpayers deserve accountability.

If a trip is worth taking, members of Congress should be prepared to justify paying for it out of their office accounts.