Carl Paladino Quotes

Too often government responds to the whispers of lobbyists before the cries of the people.

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.

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

I believe in lower taxes. I believe in more efficient government. I believe in reducing bureaucracy. I believe that we shouldn't have lobbyists who can go in or former government workers who can come back and lobby.

You can't have it both ways. You can't tell me that you're taxed enough already, and that you want constitutional government and then in the next breath say, 'Bring me home some bacon.' The pig has been picked clean.

Congress seems to want to cure every ill known to man except unconstitutional government and high taxes.

We have come to expect campaigns to be mean and stupid and politicians to be unresponsive, self-seeking and for sale to the highest bidder. We make jokes about our vice president, and all we ask of a president is that he be likeable. We seem to have given up on the Pentagon's corrupt use of our tax dollars.

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

It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.

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

People are rapidly losing hope and trust. They believe their government has been captured by special interests and no longer cares about them, and they are right.

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.

If government were a product, selling it would be illegal.

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

I understand how bureaucracies work. And that's important because our government has become a vast, huge, bloated, corrupt bureaucracy.

When you have corporate influence on our government outweighing the influence of citizens, that's terrifying. This is something we have to make a big, big noise about.

I don't want to put words in Geithner's mouth, but I think he is generally against the revolving door of government officials taking jobs with companies that they have overseen or in roles that involve lobbying. At minimum, I'm pretty sure he felt that way about himself.

People are really upside down. They want a government they can trust. They want one that's not going to raise their taxes by $15 billion and not lay off one state employee.

I don't believe you can find any evidence of the fact that I have changed government policy solely because of a contribution.

Sadly we have government of the lobbyists, by the lobbyists, and for the lobbyists. That is no way to run the Senate.

Government isn't a religion. It shouldn't be treated as such. It's not God; it's humans, fallible people, feathering their nests most of the time.

Those guys [congressmen] lived on the basis of getting their little tidbits and their perks.

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.

There's an impression in the public that Congress takes care of its own.

Twenty years ago, outside income was a means of keeping the Congress a citizen legislature. Today, outside income is a corrupting influence.