Quotessence
Home / Topics / Lobbying Quotes

Lobbying Quotes

Browse 80 quotes about Lobbying.

Related topics

LobbyistsPeopleLawThinkingGovernment

Lobbying Quotes

“Landed interets also successfully staged a fightback around this time by reviving the language of stewardship, and by claiming to be the voice of rural Britain. Older organisations like the NFU and CLA were joined by new lobby groups such as the Moorland Association and Countryside Alliance. These lobbyists still claim to speak for the countryside, despite most of them representing only tiny numbers of people with huge power and wealth: the 27,000 members of the CLA who own around a third of the land of England and Wales; the 150 or so grouse moor estates that that own at least half a million acres of the English uplands Even the 45,000 members of the NFU and the 100,000 who belong to the Countryside Alliance comprise but a small fraction of the rural population. By shouting loudly, they have occluded the fact that farming, forestry and fishing make up just 7 percent of employment even in rural areas of England. Across the UK as a whole, agriculture generates just 0.5 per cent of GDP and employs only 1.5 per cent of the workforce, yet takes up 71 per cent of the land. Land use decisions remain disproportionately dominated, therefore, by a small number of people.”

WealthEnglandAgricultureStewardshipLobbyingLand UseLand OwnershipLanded Interests
Book:The Lie of the Land
Create image

“So it's 2019. I'm gonna say the right thing to do is for the US to declare bankruptcy (Trump can do it… done it before…), and dismantle the criminal state of Israel as it exists today. Unfortunately, politicians are so full of shit and AIPAC money, and the economy is so addicted to war, and the US population is so fucking stupid... that we’ll probably have to go and try to fuck up another two or three countries before moving on to a decent, honest life.”

WarGovernmentPoliticsEducationCorruptionCommon SenseLobbyingIsraeli Palestinian Conflict
Author:Dmitry Dyatlov
Create image

“rising income inequality. not for nothing did Thomas Piketty’s ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’ become a New York Times bestseller. Piketty made the strong claim that the rate of return on capital was, in the absence of wars and revolutions, always likely to be higher than the rate of economic growth. the implication was simply that the already well-off, basically those with no shortage of capital, would steadily get richer”

WarPoliticsEconomyCorruptionPrivate SectorCapitalBusiness LeadersLobbyingIncome DisparityWeapons Industry
Book:Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History
Create image

“After living more than a decade in America now, I have come to accept that most of my fellow American citizens are as powerless as I am in influencing the American foreign policy, especially in the Middle East. Even more discouraging is that, by pointing out this reality, one is immediately labeled as ‘un-American’, ‘anti-American’, or other misleading adjectives and accusations to silence any voices seeking to change this bleak reality.”

PropagandaForeign PolicyAmerican PoliticsWarsLobbyistsMilitary Industrial ComplexLobbyingMiddle East Conflict
Author:Louis Yako
Create image

“The Democratic Party would like to be re-elected so that they can continue to uphold almost no Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) whistle-blower complaints, enforce hardly any police internal affairs allegations, and corrupt corporations with lobbyists can continue operating outside of the law.”

LawPoliticalPoliticsPoliticianPoliceElectionDemocraticCorruptionCorporationsOshaComplaintsLaw EnforcementEnforcementPoliticiansPolitical PhilosophyPolitical SciencePolice BrutalityPolicemenElectionsSheriffCorruptPolice OfficerPolice CorruptionPolice StateAffairsLobbyistsOutsideCorruption QuotesCorruption PoliticsPolitics Of The United StatesLobbyingAllegationsInternalPolicemanPolice ReformPolice ProceduralPolice ServiceWhistleblowerContinueWhistleblowersParty PoliticsWhistleCorrupt LeadersCorruptedElectCorrupt PoliticsElectedUpholdBlowerDemocratic Party United StatesOperatingEnforceCorruption And AttitudeHardlyEnforcedWhistle BlowerWhistleblowingLobbyistWhistle BlowersWhistle BlowingCompliant
Author:Steven Magee
Create image

“The Citizens United decision profoundly changed American politics. The Court’s ruling effectively lifted any limitations on American corporations’ political expenditures. The ruling permitted for-profit corporations to use corporate funds for campaign contributions to support candidates and issues. It also permitted wealthy and well-connected individuals to form corporations as vehicles to solicit, collect, and disperse funds, with little to no transparency.”

CorporationsFirst AmendmentLobbyingCampaign FinanceCitizens UnitedCampaign ContributionsCorporate Law
Book:The Capitalist and the Activist: Corporate Social Activism and the New Business of Change
Create image

“Reading The Wealth of Nations as an attack against lobbying from special interest groups and cronyism suggests that for Smith the violence and inefficiencies of rent seeking mercantilist policies cause harm and are unjust. For Smith, rent seeking and state capture by special interest groups is not only inefficient, but uses the (actual) "blood and treasure" of fellow citizens to enrich a few merchants under the false pretence of enriching the country. The Wealth of Nations can therefore be read as a moral condemnation of mercantilist policies: unjust policies are also inefficient policies.”

LobbyistsLobbyingSpecial Interest GroupsAdam SmithCronyismRentier ClassMercantilismState Capture
Book:Adam Smith: The Kirkcaldy Papers
Create image

“The UK needs a post Brexit US trade deal like a hole in the head. Given America's out-of-control opioid crisis, fuelled by prescription drug addiction, along with an obesity epidemic like the world has never seen, why on earth would the UK want to open its doors to US healthcare companies ? So that they can wreak untold havoc and destroy our National Health Service ? No thanks !”

TradeHealthcareLobbyistsLobbyingBrexitForeign RelationsInternational TradeUs PoliticsSpecial RelationshipUk Politics
Book:Lines & Lenses
Create image

“political order, and political decay, presciently drawing attention to perceived faultlines in American society. the American political system has decayed over time because its traditional system of cheques and balances has deepened and become incessantly rigid. with sharp political polarisation, this decentralised system is less and less able to represent majority interests, but gives excessive representation to the views of interest groups and activist organisations that collectively do not add up to a sovereign American people.”

PoliticsEconomyCorruptionDebtSelfishnessLobbyingPolicy MakersPolarisation
Book:Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History
Create image

“This longstanding bipartisan revolving door between government and business reflects the inconvenient realities of life in a capitalistic democratic republic. On the one hand, when work- ing well, this revolving door allows businesses and government to draw on talented, ethical individuals from the private and public sectors to serve the interests of both shareholders and citizens. On the other hand, this revolving door can lead to corrosive cronyism and corruption that eats away at the integrity of both business and government as narrow interests are served, to the detriment of shareholders and citizens.”

InfluenceCorruptionLobbyingSpecial Interest GroupsCronyismCrony CapitalismRevolving DoorSpecial Interest
Book:The Capitalist and the Activist: Corporate Social Activism and the New Business of Change
Create image

“James Ed smiled. “We should start a cuddling movement. Cuddling would solve most of the world’s problems. I can just see our bumper stickers. Have you cuddled today?”

DeterminationDebateAccountabilityGovernanceSchool SystemGrassrootsLobbyingPolitical CampaignsChange AgentsTeaching Practices
Book:James Ed Hoskins and the One-Room Schoolhouse: The Unprosecuted Crime Against Children
Create image

“Finance capital subordinates the Canadian State more and more directly to its interests and control. State-monopoly capitalism — the integration or merging of the interests of finance capital with the state — is a new stage in the extension of corporate control to all sectors of economic and political life. The government, while seemingly independent of specific corporate interests, has become predominantly the political instrument of a small group comprising the top monopoly capitalists for exercising control over the rest of society. Finance capital uses the state to provide orders, capital and subsidies, and to secure foreign markets and investments. Monopoly capital supports the expansion of the state sector — both services and enterprises — when that serves its interests, and at other times it uses the state to cut back and privatize. The state is also used to redistribute income and wealth in favour of monopoly interests through the tax system, and through legislation to drive down wages and weaken the trade union movement. State-monopoly capitalism undermines the basis of traditional bourgeois democracy. The subordination of the state to the interests of finance capital erodes the already limited role of elected government bodies, federal, provincial and local. Big business openly intervenes in the electoral process on its own behalf, and also indirectly through a network of pro-corporate institutes and think tanks. It uses its control of mass media to influence the ideas and attitudes of the people, and to blatantly influence election results. It corrupts the democratic process through the buying of politicians and officials. It tramples on the political right of the Canadian people to exercise any meaningful choice, thereby promoting widespread public alienation and cynicism about the electoral process.”

CorruptionLobbyingGerrymanderingElectoralismBase And Superstructure
Book:Canada's Future Is Socialism Program of the Communist Party of Canada
Create image

“Our laws governing lobbying and campaign contributions have struck the right balance between the wishes of the people and those of private industry, so why are we so quick to doubt that the same great results can be achieved by putting the government's justice-dealing branch on the same market-based course?”

PeopleGovernmentLawCoursesWishJusticeResultsDoubtIndustryBalanceCampaignsBranchesContributionGoverningLobbyingGreat ResultsCampaign Contributions
Author:Thomas Frank
Create image

“The Los Angeles Air Pollution Control Board is established in 1946 in an effort to discover the cause of the brown cloud hanging over the city and decide how to combat and disperse it. In 1949, after intense lobbying from both the automobile and oil industries, and against the recommendations and position of the Los Angeles Air Pollution Control Board, the public rail system, which at one time was the largest in the world, and still serves a majority of the city's population, is decommissioned and torn out. It is replaced by a small fleet of buses.”

WorldStillsCausesEffortCitiesAirPositionIndustryMajorityCloudsPopulationOilIntenseBoardsBrownLos AngelesBusCombatOne TimePollutionReplacedTornAutomobileRailRecommendationsLobbyingAir PollutionOil IndustryPollution Control
Book:Bright Shiny Morning
Create image

“Home schoolers do not wish to force other parents to home school. Gun owners do not insist that others buy guns, or that hunting be promoted as an alternative lifestyle. It is not the National Rifle Association out lobbying to have government schools read books entitled 'Heather Has Two Hunters' to preschoolers. It is, in fact, the Left that now strives to use state power to impose its morality by forcing all taxpayers to pay for abortions and public "art" that mocks people of faith. It is the Left that forces parents to pay for government schools where they do not wish to send their children.”

PeopleChildrenArtTwoBookStatesFactsUseHomeGovernmentSchoolLeftForceWishParentPayMoralityGunStriveLifestyleAlternativesAbortionOwnersAssociationHuntingEntitledStrifeHuntersTaxpayersRiflesLobbyingGun OwnersHeathersPublic Art
Author:Grover Norquist
Create image

“The lobbying over China most favored nation trading status was disgusting. There's no way in hell that MFN would have passed in '95, '96, '97, '98, '99, 2000 if all these companies hadn't come in flooding and making campaign contributions and ask for people's support. That drove the debate. Every year was the allure of corporate dollars flooding into members' bank accounts.”

PeopleIfsWayYearsAsksNationsCompanySupportHellMembersAccountsDollarsChinaCampaignsDebateCorporateContributionDisgustingTradingBank AccountsFloodingAllureLobbyingCampaign Contributions
Author:Mark Shields
Create image

“ACORN, you may recall, is the left-wing activist group with longtime ties to community organizer-turned-President Barack Obama. The nonprofit, which now takes in 40 percent of its revenues from American taxpayers after four decades on the public teat, has a history of engaging in voter fraud, corporate shakedowns, partisan bullying and pro-illegal immigration lobbying. The Democrats' stimulus proposals could make the group - and its lesser known but even more radical ideological allies - eligible for upward of $5 billion in new public cash.”

MayLeftPresidentCommunityKnownFourGroupsPercentWingsDemocratDecadesBillionsImmigrationRadicalBarackCorporateTiesIllegalActivistVotersBullyingAlliesFraudCashRecallsEngagingRevenueProposalTaxpayersStimulusIdeologicalPartisansPresident Barack ObamaLeft WingIllegal ImmigrationOrganizerNonprofitsAcornsLobbyingVoter FraudLesser Known
Author:Michelle Malkin
Create image

“Well, it's pretty ironic to get an artist achievement award from the same foundation that disavowed one of my artistic achievements (that they had also earlier funded). It's a goddamn brainteaser. The Endowment had reinforced the worst bullying tactics of powerful lobbying groups and had created a less-secure environment for their own funded project to do its work in”

WellsArtistPowerfulEnvironmentGroupsWorstAchievementProjectsFoundationSecureArtisticAwardsBullyingIronicTacticsEndowmentLobbying
Author:Jon Rubin
Create image

“You become an anti-Semite. And as powerful as the Israeli lobby is, the Saudi lobby is just as powerful. In fact, the Saudis probably have more money to throw around, and they suborn former U.S. intelligence officials, former ambassadors, former generals to support them from within by lobbying the Congress and other American institutions.”

FactsPowerfulSupportInstitutionsCongressFormerOfficialsMore MoneyIsraeliSaudisAmbassadorsLobbying
Author:Michael Scheuer
Create image

“The Grocery Manufacturers Association is behind the bills which have been trying to pre-empt states' labeling laws in the Senate. And they have a lot of money and power in Washington. So it's a classic David versus Goliath story, where corporate lobbying outweighs consumers' rights.”

TryingHas BeensStatesStoriesLawBehindsRightsBillsConsumersCorporateClassicAssociationSenateLots Of MoneyVersusGroceriesLabelingMoney And PowerLobbyingGoliath
Author:Zoe Lister-Jones
Create image

“I, for one, despite being a pretty solid climate hawk, I am extremely sympathetic to West Virginia and its coal-country needs. I lived there for a year. I've seen it. And the same for Wyoming, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky. They all have parts of their state where that really matters. And I think that home-state constituency issue is a pretty constant one. And I think the problem of extreme lobbying by the corporate sector, which runs about $30-to-$1 compared to everybody else in the world, and the constituent aspect combines to give those industries a consistent advantage.”

ThinkingWorldNeedsGivingYearsCountryMatterStatesProblemHomeRunningIssuesIndustryAdvantageAspectConstantWestClimateExtremesDespiteCorporateConsistentCoalSympatheticVirginiaOhioConstituentsHawksPennsylvaniaKentuckyLobbyingWest VirginiaWyomingHome State
Author:Sheldon Whitehouse
Create image

“Lobbying, protesting, letter-writing, American media, civil disobedience, and preaching pacifism ad nauseum, along with EDUCATION is the most effective way to enlighten the masses. Welfare concessions/campaigns, are counterproductive and simply ineffective in this day and age.”

WayWritingAgeMediaMassLettersCampaignsWelfareThis DayAdsPreachingEnlighteningDisobedienceCivil DisobedienceConcessionsPacifismCounterproductiveLobbyingLetter WritingAmerican Media
Author:Gary Yourofsky
Create image

“Often vastly more important, international agreements are not routinely published in draft form or publicly debated, and civil society organizations and ordinary citizens often learn of important global institutional design decisions only after they have already been finalized and adopted. The only reliable way to be kept informed and to exert timely influence is by lobbying and paying the politicians and their negotiators.”

WayImportantFormDecisionInfluenceDesignCitizensPoliticianOrdinaryOrganizationInternationalAgreementAdoptedCivil SocietyTimelyLobbyingOrdinary Citizens
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image

“Domestic and supranational regulatory capture leads to two things: on the one hand, to an inequality spiral where the rich get richer because they can influence rulemaking and rule application in their favor; on the other hand, it also leads to instability. This is so because the relatively few organizations capable of influencing supranational rulemaking through the lobbying of major governments have diverse interests. This will, in some cases, lead to compromises. But it will also lead to spheres of influence.”

TwoHandsGovernmentInterestCasesRichInfluenceMajorsCapableOrganizationFavorsCompromiseInequalityTwo ThingsCaptureApplicationSpheresDiverseGet RichSpiralsInstabilityLobbyingSphere Of Influence
Author:Thomas Pogge
Create image

“I run a taxpayer group - the most powerful guy in D.C., nonsense. OK? There are buildings with thousands of people in them, all lobbying for more spending and higher levels of spending and more government commitments. And there are a handful - a handful of groups that fight for less spending.”

PeopleGovernmentRunningGuyFightingLevelsPowerfulGroupsBuildingHigherCommitmentSpendingNonsenseMost PowerfulHandfulTaxpayersHigher LevelLobbying
Author:Grover Norquist
Create image