Patronage & Pork Barrel Quotes

Never give less to your ally than your opponent is giving to that ally.

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

All patronage is perilous to men of real ability and merit. It aids only those who lack other claims to support.

Jimmy [Carter]'s still mad because I wouldn't take secretary of state. I want to be director of alcohol and firearms.

The military pork barrel spreads special privilege far beyond the confines of the arms contractors; it directly creates at least two million industrial jobs, every holder of which is all too dependent for his well-being on the well-being of the party oligarchs and the success of their corrupt policies. By virtue of the military budget, a large number of ordinary citizens have been given a direct stake in corrupt power.

When you’re spending 24 billion dollars in pork barrel transportation projects how can you go to the American people and talk about tax increases.

No man who ever held the office of President would congratulate a friend on obtaining it. He will make one man ungrateful, and a hundred men his enemies, for every office he can bestow.

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.

Politics are impossible without spoils.... You have to deal with men as they are ... you must bribe the masses with spoils.

The administration of government, like a guardianship ought to be directed to the good of those who confer, not to those who receive the trust.

Nothing brings out the lower traits of human nature like office seeking. Men of good character and impulse are betrayed by it into all sorts of meanness. Disappointment makes them unjust to the last degree.

The Senate has no army, no navy, no patronage, no lucrative offices, nor glittering honors to bestow. Around us there is no swarm of greedy expectants rendering us homage, anticipating our wishes, and ready to execute our commands. How is it with the President [Andrew Jackson]? Is he powerless? He is felt from one extremity to the other of this republic. By means of principles which he has introduced [the spoils system], and innovations which he has made in our institutions, alas! but too much countenanced by Congress and a confiding people, he exercises uncontrolled the power of the state. In one hand he holds the purse and in the other brandishes the sword of the country! Myriads of dependents and partisans scattered over the land are ever ready to sing hosannas to him and to laud to the skies what ever he does. He has swept over the government like a tropical tornado.

Every time you do a favor for a constituent, you make nine enemies and one ingrate.

[Martin] Van Buren says he considers it as a misfortune when any office to be filled by him becomes vacant, and thinks patronage rather a burden than a benefit.

For most Americans nepotism is first and last a class issue—a way for the rich to warehouse their unemployable offspring while keeping the lower classes in their place. In fact however systematic nepotism has been practiced more or less continuously by both the upper and the lower classes without ambivalence or apology. It was the middle class that pushed the merit principle, rising as it did through the institutions of the market and the state.

Our nation was founded on the pork barrel, and it has become great by political log-rolling.

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

Politics makes strange postmasters.

Major parties have lived more for patronage than principles; their goal has been to bind together a sufficiently large coalition of diverse interests to get into power; and once in power, to arrange sufficiently satisfactory compromises of interest to remain there.

Throughout most of Chicago's history, the Civil Service Commission has been enmeshed in partisan politics. Thousands of city employees were given temporary appointments and kept in this status, year after year, in order to keep them loyal partisan political workers.

Judgeships normally are rewards for political service … politics does play a large role in federal judicial selection …. Few judges in our history are thought to have performed with great distinction.

Too many pigs; two few teats.

If you have a job in your department that can't be done by a Democrat, then abolish the job.

A minister’s family will expect him to do things that are impossible on a minister’s salary; they make spurious demands such as expecting them to buy a new car or take them on trips. Where does the money come from? When an honest aspirant for public office comes along, his village and his family will say, ‘No, not that one because he won’t eat and he won’t let us eat.’

After your first victory as New York Governor you gave jobs worth $3,000 to $20,000 per year to your friends and compatriots, and I returned to my garret and my crust, and my desperate battle with pecuniary obligations.