Horace Deets Quotes

This [political fundraising] is a very sophisticated system … This is a legalized bribery system where no one has to say anything. I don’t have to say what I want—you [the politician] know what I want.

Politicians can be bought and often are.

And when the guy [politician] says “Yes, I took money, but it didn’t influence my vote”? Oh, come on. The company that’s giving you the money thinks it is going to influence the vote. Why else would they give you the money?

What we have now is a situation where politicians get a whole bunch of money from mainly business interests. Then once they hold that office, they spend all their time in office paying back over and over again those campaign contributions through various favors and contracts and that sort of thing.

A $5,000 campaign contribution to a member of Congress will hardly get you a thank you these days.

Special interests and Congress are too closely connected and the ties that bind are the millions spent on campaigns.

Money in politics is like ants in your kitchen. You close all the holes and get them all out or they'll find their way in again.

Money in politics leads to bad things—and I am bipartisan in that view.

I have been around long enough to know that when large amounts of money are donated to politicians, something besides good government is expected in return.

Congress has become the center of legalized bribery/

The Federal campaign contribution limit of $2,500 is way too low. You can’t even buy a Democrat for $2,500.

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

Our current Supreme Court, in the Citizens United case, took that which had been named corrupt for over 200 years [gifts to politicians] and renamed it legitimate..

The use of billions of dollars to fund election campaign and pay lobbyists to author legislation is not politics. It is legalized bribery.

Big money has hijacked our politics.

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

You can't take a congressman to lunch for $25 and buy him a hamburger or a steak or something like that. But you can take him to a fund-raising lunch and not only buy him that steak, but give him $25,000 extra and call it a fund-raiser - and have all the same access and all the same interactions with that congressman.

Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale.

When one may pay out over two million dollars to presidential and Congressional campaigns, the U.S. government is virtually up for sale.

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

A contribution of $2,500 is not going to buy the reputation and decisions of an elected official.

Much of the money raised in politics does not come free of charge.

In many cases they [members of congress] go outside their district [to raise money.] They in effect trade policy positions for money. Then they go back to their districts and use the money to run campaigns on a nonpolicy basis.

Of all American politicians, the small-bore officials who run the states are the most greedy and the least scrupulous… Relatively paltry sums, if well placed, could bring the passage of helpful laws, the veto of harmful ones, and, in a pinch, the nullification of judicial opinions.

The spree of big money campaigning—and the corruption that goes with it—seems guaranteed to worsen …. Campaign money handlers will keep pushing the limits wherever and however they can—and the integrity of our electoral system will pay the price.