Henry Bonilla Quotes
We may not be able to control the Supreme Court... but we can control the money.
Bonilla, Henry. "Transportation, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, the District of Columbia, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, 2006." Congressional Record, vol. 151, Government Printing Office, 30 Jun. 2005.
His unusual theory was that if government could or did not do much to affect the economy, there would be no reason for a large corporation to invest money in electing a particular party or candidate. Therefore the way to get the influence of big money out of politics is to reduce the role of government drastically. Paul was one of the very few Conservative politicians who would publicly state that the reasons that corporations made campaign contributions was to buy political favors, favorable legislation or tax treatment. If corporate investments did not pay off for the company, shareholders would not tolerate spending investment money for a particular political philosophy as most companies have shareholders representing the range of American political opinion and their investments should pay off to the bottom line—profits.
The comment was prompted by FDR’s attempt to “pack” the Supreme Court.
In 1911 the Supreme Court upheld the monopoly conviction of Standard Oil Company but held that the Sherman Antitrust Act only applied to “unreasonable” monopolies and not to monopolies in general.
The “party” Wilson referred to was the lobbyists and corporations who would do almost anything to be in his good graces and they poured money into his campaign fund.
The “old man” was their father, Joseph P. Kennedy who was a very wealthy businessman, but an unsavory figure. He had made much of his money in bootlegging and smuggling, and although married, carried on notorious affairs with movie stars. When he had the opportunity to serve the country in a critical post, he supported Hitler and the Fascists and fought to keep America from assisting England in WWII. President Roosevelt fired him, and President Harry Truman literally came to blows with Kennedy. JFK wanted his father’s money, but didn’t want him anywhere near the campaign. Most people who voted for Kennedy, had no idea that his father was on the Fascist side in WWII. Ironically, JFK was a hero who fought against the fascists and his older brother was killed in Europe on a secret mission against Germany. The elder Kennedy accused President Roosevelt of ‘murdering” his son in a useless war.
conservative justices in the majority McCain held this view despite the fact that most other politicians applauded the decision since the large, wealthy corporations tended to support Republicans.
In 2013 Immigration Reform was being debated in the Senate. To get a substantial majority to support the bill, an amendment was added to add many billions of dollars for the creation of 20,000 additional Federal Border Patrol Agents, buying drones and other technology. Ironically, the Senators who supported the bill because of this amendment were all conservatives who generally opposed all government spending, but many of these funds would go to Defense Contractors, one of their constituency groups, and most of the money would be a stimulus for job creation in the borders states.
Henry Bonilla is a former congressman who represented Texas's 23rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. He was defeated in his bid for re-election by Ciro Rodriguez, a former Democratic member of Congress, in a special election runoff held on December 12, 2006. His term expired January 3, 2007 when the 110th Congress officially began.
