Campaign Money Quotes
The Supreme court ruled that monetary campaign contributions were a form of political speech and as such could not be limited. The result was that the richest people and the largest corporations could pay any politician any amount of money if the called it a campaign contribution. Under the Congressional rules at the time there were ways that the so called campaign contributions could be used for the legislator’s personal and family benefit and when members of Congress retired there were ways that they could take their “unspent” campaign funds with them for personal use. The resultant system was what Senator McCain called “bribery”, which before the Supreme Court rendered this decision was a felony. That which had been unethical and criminal became legal.
His unusual theory was that if government could or did not do much to affect the economy, there would be no reason for a large corporation to invest money in electing a particular party or candidate. Therefore the way to get the influence of big money out of politics is to reduce the role of government drastically. Paul was one of the very few Conservative politicians who would publicly state that the reasons that corporations made campaign contributions was to buy political favors, favorable legislation or tax treatment. If corporate investments did not pay off for the company, shareholders would not tolerate spending investment money for a particular political philosophy as most companies have shareholders representing the range of American political opinion and their investments should pay off to the bottom line—profits.
In Lincoln’s age there was a serious ethical debate as to whether it was right for a candidate to use any money at all in a campaign regardless of source.
