Bernie Sanders Quotes

You've got to just follow the money [in Washington]. You see it. There's no countervailing power.

Well I think money has been going into political campaigns for a very long time.

Republicans are being loyal to their donors. They're being loyal to the paymasters, if you will. And it's squandering an opportunity.

There's issue of a corrupt campaign finance system, where big money interests and Wall Street are trying to buy elections.Those are the issues that are resonating.

To my mind, if we do not get a handle on money in politics and the degree to which big money controls the political process in this country, nobody is going to bring about the changes that is needed in this country for the middle class and working families.

Barack Obama's large contributor was Goldman Sachs - same thing on the Republican side. If you go to both their conventions, you see the same lobbyists paying off both sides so they win either way.

All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law.

Whenever the media asked me how much I have received in campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry, my unapologetic answer was, 'Not enough.'

Hillary Clinton is totally controlled by Wall Street and all these people that gave her millions.

Most presidents have been controlled by forces that control money and special interests. When Donald Trump refused their money, he refused their control. This made him dangerous.

Most Republicans are not prepared to stand up to the fossil fuel industry because they get a lot of their campaign funds from the Koch brothers and other people in the fossil fuel industry. That tells me why we have to reform our campaign finance system.

The Republican Party has steadfastly sided with its donors and its lobbyists, and this is why we're where we are.

There's no doubt that in the last two to three decades, American democracy has been hacked. It was based on the regular harvesting of the wisdom of crowds, but now big sources of special interest money are able to prevent the passage of almost any meaningful reform that's aimed at the public interest.

Change the way we fund campaigns. Until we do, Wall Street will always be able to blackmail the Dems and GOP to giving them what Wall Street wants.

The scandalous question that hangs over modern government and excites perpetual outrage is about political money and what it buys. What exactly do these contributors get in return for the hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars they funnel to the politicians?

Money is becoming one of the most corrosive elements of politics.

There are three major political organizations in this country: the Republican Party, the Democratic Party and the Koch Brothers Party. With billions to spend on campaigns. think tanks and 'educational' organizations, the Koch brothers are the most powerful. We must overturn Citizens United, move to public funding of elections and pass real tax reform.

Corporations are not people. They shouldn't be funding. They shouldn't be funding campaigns at all.

Until the public demands otherwise, the policy makers will continue to serve their financiers.

The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists.

Why, over her political career has Wall Street been a major - the major campaign contributor to Hillary Clinton? You know, maybe they're dumb and they don't know what they're going to get, but I don't think so.

I think we have to look at the whole way campaigns are financed. The No. 1 problem is PAC and special-interest money.

In reality, everybody in Congress is a stand-in for some kind of lobbyist. In many cases it's difficult to tell whether it's the companies that are lobbying the legislators or whether it's the other way around.

All elections revolve around and are often resolved by who raises the most money. That's unfair. I'd like to see that process changed, but it seems once you win and get to Congress, that doesn't happen.

Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.