Bill Scott Quotes

The usual test under the Federal Election Campaign Act for whether something counts as a campaign expenditure is whether the obligation would have existed but for the campaign. If so, it is not a campaign expenditure.

The way campaign funds are distributed are all a matter of record.

People have their constitutional right to contribute to a campaign and if they have discretionary money that they want to contribute to a candidate, whether a Republican or a Democrat, they should be able to do so.

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

All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law.

Until we make campaigns affordable, then we're going to have too many members of Congress out rattling the cup with special interest groups.

My view on candidates on money is unless it's proven that the donor stole the money, the campaign keeps the money.

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

A million dollars in the presidential election is a spit in the ocean. It's not a lot of money.

Trying to take money out of politics is like trying to take jumping out of basketball.

I think we have to look at the whole way campaigns are financed. The No. 1 problem is PAC and special-interest money.

I also do not like the idea of soft money, these issue ads - people don't know where the money is coming from, millions and millions of dollars outside of the control of a candidate - there's no accountability.

All elections revolve around and are often resolved by who raises the most money. That's unfair. I'd like to see that process changed, but it seems once you win and get to Congress, that doesn't happen.

I'm convinced that unless you have some public financing of elections, you are never going to remove the power of wealthy interests over elected officials.

The American system of political spending is so unregulated that it might make Adam Smith rethink free markets.

Money in politics is a huge issue.

As long as we, in the United States, continue to insist that our politicians have to spend all of their time raising millions of dollars for television ads, it will be corrupt. If we leave it up to the politicians to clean up lobbying and finance reform, nothing is going to change.

Soft money will find its way and seep into the political system and corrode it, unless we plug every hole.

It is not that candidates who get the most money win, but that winning candidates get the most money.

Congressman are spending too much time raising money.

If the friends of the candidate choose to go to expense for committees and canvassing [campaigning] there are no means of preventing them; but such expenses out of the candidate’s own pocket, or any expenses whatever beyond the deposit of £50 (or £100), should be illegal and punishable.

Public [campaign] financing and free television time are the things that will diminish the high influence that money has on politics.

The most misguided, naïve, uninformed, egregious decision of the United States Supreme Court … in the 21st century. To somehow view money as not having a corrupting effect on an election flies in the face of reality. I just think that just one of the five had run for county sheriff. I guarantee you … there will be scandals. There is too much money washing around political campaigns today, and it will take scandals and maybe the Supreme Court will go back and revisit this issue

The evils of the use of corporate money in connection with political elections are so generally recognized that the committee deems it unnecessary to make any argument in favor of the general purpose of this measure.

History’s pendulum is now swinging back toward the day when political finances were only lightly regulated.