political finance Quotes

If the publicly passed campaign finance laws had not been struck down by the Supreme Court, Club for Growth Action would be illegal, and Heritage Action wouldn't have the SuperPAC threat to back up its small ad purchases.

There has never yet been, among political men, any real and serious attempt to prevent [election] bribery, because there has been no real desire that elections should not be costly. Their costliness is an advantage to those who can afford the expense, by excluding a multitude of competitors.

In this country, politicians of desperate private fortunes always find the means of keeping themselves above water as public men.

Politicians need money at election time and money to get the vote. Well, more than half of money in election comes from corporate interests whose interests are in polluting the Chinese environment and making products.

You can't take money from the taxpayers out of the treasury to give it to pay off your political donors. That's corruption to do that.

Mitt Romney had a fundraiser in Israel with a bunch of diamond merchants, we don't know the names of them.

Whether you are on the Right or the Left, everyone can agree that there are a lot of outside influences in American politics that are not good for the system. There's just too much money.

Not since the gilded age has our politics been opened so wide to corporate contribution and donations from secret sources.

Money has always been in politics. And I'm not sure you'd want money to be completely out of politics.

Representative government has broken down. Our politicians represent not the people who vote for them but the commercial interests who finance their election campaigns. We have the best politicians that money can buy.

I've been a politician and so I'm sometimes cynical about what politicians won't do. When I hear a politician say something that makes no sense whatsoever, I think there's one of two things there: There's money or the promise of money.

I don't take PAC money. I don't take special interest money.

Political activities in Russia should be as transparent as possible. Financing political activities from abroad is something the state should keep an eye on.

Donald Trump's campaign has raised about $100,000 in donations during the second quarter. Which raises an important question: Who is giving Donald Trump money? That's like giving your money to a pile of money.

In fact, corporate and union moneys go overwhelmingly to incumbents, so limiting that money, as Congress did in the campaign finance law, may be the single most self-denying thing that Congress has ever done.

If we must have campaign contributions, this is the way to raise them. If you would start this method now, you would begin a tremendous reform.

The identity of political donors should be disclosed and bureaucratic rules should not circumvent the original intent of federal law or interfere with the public's ability to hold these organizations accountable.

To limit money is to limit political power.

Donald Trump disproved the notion that there is a direct dollar-for-dollar correlation between how much money you had in your traditional war chest and what your election outcome was going to be.

The realistic way to reduce the amount of money in politics is to reduce the amount of politics in money -- the importance of government in allocating wealth and opportunity.

Campaign finance and ethics reform only works if it curtails all special interest groups equally and does not carve out any exceptions to benefit one party or another. 'Pay to play' reform was passed to limit the influence of big spending contractors over the public officials from whom they are trying to obtain work.

It is campaign money that calls the tune, a fact recognized by every politician within a few minutes after getting into politics.

He [Barack Obama] is been boffo at fundraising - 220 fundraisers, and he raised something approaching $1 billion.

I don't think anyone's pushing for spending limits in the campaign.

America has the best congress money can buy.