Peter Bienhart Quotes

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.

The rich are hijacking American democracy.

Maybe, just maybe, something is wrong when the greatest part of new money earned in our country goes to the top 1 percent.... There is something profoundly wrong then the millionaires and billionaires are running the politics of our country.... When billionaires are buying elections, that is not democracy.

I have the most reliable friend you can have in American politics, and that is ready money.

At the end of the day, money is just a proxy for votes. That is what makes politics so vulnerable to social media.

Eventually, money wins in politics.

Money distorts the democratic process in a fundamental way.

We're not a democracy. It's a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we're a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy.

Politics has become unbelievably and unfortunately way too much about how much money is involved rather than what kind of ideas are involved.

Washington is dominated by big money.

Now, the typical way you make good things happen in Washington is you find a bunch of wealthy companies who agree with you.

Money has too big an influence on our politics in Washington and somehow we need to do something about that.

Do the elected officials in Washington stand with ordinary Americans - working families, children, the elderly, the poor - or will the extraordinary power of billionaire campaign contributors and Big Money prevail? The American people, by the millions, must send Congress the answer to that question.

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?

People like Elizabeth Dole have given too much power to the special interests.

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 politics has been greatly impacted, for the worse, by big money and the concentration of big money.

The American polity is infected with a serious imbalance of power between elites and masses, a power which is the principal threat to our democracy.

The people of this country, not special interest big money, should be the source of all political power.

Campaign contributors are operating vicariously through the power of their purse rather than through the power of their ideas.

It matters not one iota what political party is in power or what President holds the rein of office. We are not politicians, or public thinkers; we are the rich; we own America; we got it, God knows how, but we intend to keep it if we can by throwing all our tremendous weight of our support, our influence, our money, our political connections, our purchased Senators, our hungry Congressmen, and our public-speaking demagogues, into the scale against any legislation, any political platform, any Presidential campaign that threatens the integrity of our estate.

Money speaks louder than words in Washington.

America’s super-elite has been particularly effective at using the tools of a political democracy to protect its minority privilege.

Our democratic system is slowly being corroded and eroded by the influence of PAC money.

We live in a country where Wall Street owns Washington.