Jane Mayer Quotes

Money distorts the democratic process in a fundamental way.

Over the past few years special interests have had a larger and larger say over who gets what in America, and the voices of average citizens are being shut out.

Washington is dominated by big money.

The ability of the 1 percent to buy politicians and regulators is nothing new in American politics - just as inequality has been a permanent part of our economic system. This is true of virtually all political and economic systems.

In our political system, money is power. And that means a few can have a lot more power than the rest. That's bad news for everyone else - and for our democracy itself.

Politics is the gentle art of obtaining votes from the poor and campaign contributions from the rich by promising to protect each from the other.

This system stinks and every senator who participates in it knows it stinks. And the American people are right when they mistrust this system, when what matters most in seeking public office is not integrity, not ability, not judgment, not reason, not responsibility, not experience, not intelligence, but money …. Money dominates the system. Money infuses the system. Money is the system.

Today we have families that can buy a congressman and families that cannot buy food for the table.

Those who control the wealth of this society have an influence over political life far in excess of their number.

Washington is rigged to favor people who have an army of lobbyists.

Sadly, the system in this country is rigged in favor of wealthy elites who have purchased tremendous influence in our government.

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

The appalling reality in American politics today is that, when ideology and money mix, truth is a mere inconvenience.

With the people, for the people, by the people. I crack up when I hear it; I say, with the handful, for the handful, by the handful, cause that's what really happens.

The dirty little secret on Wall Street: Eighty percent of the Wall Street executives' and their spouses' donations go to Democrats. It's like they've got some kind of little sweet deal, where we'll call you fat cats and demean you and stuff, but you will get richer than your wildest dreams.

Washington's a cesspool of money.

'Plutocracy.' It has a perfect nuance: chilly, inaccessible, icy-rich.

Money often determines not only who gets elected, but what gets done. Which voices do lawmakers listen to, the banks or home owners, coal companies, or asthma sufferers, the CEOs or the unemployed?

Are my politics Democrat or Republican? I think both are horrific. And it doesn't matter anyway. Money runs America; money runs everywhere.

Obviously no one wants to give members of Congress a lot of money, because they barely do anything, and many of them are terrible, but a Congress that is made up of rich-but-not-super-rich people is going to be more corruptible than a Congress of really rich people.

Our tribunals — unlike those in the United States — have been traditionally subordinated to political power. Mexico has a history of corrupt elections where the will of the people has been subverted by the wealthy and powerful.

President Junior is the mascot of crony capitalism.

Laws go where money pleases.

When we have congressmen and top state politicians all working together with powerful interests, what have we got to fight against them? Not much, except to ask for justice.

People say law but they mean wealth.