Quotes About Lobbying

To me, a very basic political principle is that you cannot take on the establishment when you take their money.

Many of my friends and allies - not to mention my critics - lobbied me to spend on worthy causes. Who cares about a rainy-day fund when times are good? There are raises to give and projects to fund!

You don't get real reform by pandering to every special interest. With cap and trade we wound up with a bill that didn't accomplish much, was enormously complicated and expensive.

The American Republican Party is the last political bastion of the fossil fuel industry - now so in tow to the fossil fuel industry that it cannot face up to the realities of carbon pollution and climate change.

I have long since thrown in the towel on the Democratic and Republican parties because they are really a front group for the 1%, for predatory banks, fossil fuel giants, and war profiteers.

Every single dollar spent lobbying a legislator on behalf of oil and gas is a toxic dollar that undermines public health and safety laws that protect Americans. That's contamination of the political system.

Just as twenty-first century masters of the universe exploit workers, lobby for tax loopholes, and devise or reap profits from predatory business practices, [Thomas] Jefferson and his peers found it very hard to give up the unearned advantages of systems of exploitation.

In the US, for instance, a former member of Congress will lobby Congress for whatever company or country will pay him; meanwhile in a poor country, a politician pockets an illegal bribe.

Why is tort reform not included in the health-care bill?" "It's really quite simple," he replied. "The Trial Lawyers Association gives us [the Democratic Party] a great deal of money, and they don't want it in there.

Both political parties, Republicans and Democrats, are dependent on the same private interest groups for campaign funds, so both parties dance to the same masters.

If drug development becomes the domain of government researchers, it's a sure bet that political lobbying will eventually trump scientific promise and commercial viability when it comes to investment decisions.

Our criteria is that it's okay to invest in companies so long as they stop lobbying in Washington, stop exploring for new hydrocarbons, and sit down with every one else to plan to keep 80 percent of the reserves in the ground.

This is one of the major problems we have. By the way, it was endorsed by leadership on both sides of the aisle and both ends of the Capitol, by the NRA and also by the gun control groups.

Well, I don't think most Americans are playing the super-PAC game. I think what you have is elites on both sides playing the super-PAC game.

The transition of the National Rifle Association is a perfect parable: over a couple of decades, it evolved from a gun-safety education organization to a thuggish gang that rewards those at the top with millions of dollars based on proven ability to muscle elected officials into doing what they mostly know is wrong.

If you put your politicians up for sale, as the US does (alone in this among industrialized democracies), then someone will buy them--and it won't be you; you can't afford them.

Either you're for ending Citizens United, or you're not. So, if you're for ending Citizens United, then act like you are against corporations influencing our democratic process.

Here in Maine, we know that the system of special interests influencing elections runs contrary to our democratic values.

Well, my view is that the insurance companies have done awfully well and spent a lot of money on a lot of things that don't have anything to do with health care.

There is this concept of politics as a dirty game. It's a difficult game, but it doesn't have to be dirty. I think this is what we need to bring to politics. I think politics around the world has very often been captured by big interests - 'lobbies' they call them in the States.

What corruption is for poor countries, lobbying is for rich ones, a means of obtaining political influence through the expense of money.9 No other country has anything like the number of American lobbyists who load up legislation with interest group bargains.

there is little reason to think that interest group pressure is invariably benign, where a concentrated rich group (e.g., an industry association) competes against a dispersed and poorly organized group (e.g., consumers).

Some ISPs are blocking all BitTorrent traffic, because BitTorrent can be used to share files in a piratical way. Hollywood lobbying groups are trying to pass laws which would force ISPs to block or degrade BitTorrent traffic, too. Personally, I think this is like closing down freeways because a bank robber could use them to get away.

The demand that school finances be transferred away from local school districts to the state and/or federal government has been a long-time favorite of the educationist lobbies.