William Greider Quotes
Year after year we do not get reform as a result of scandals; we simply get more scandals.
William Greider, Journalist & Editor, Speech, National Archives, July 27, 1992
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Referring to the Supreme Court 5-4 decision—Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission--that allows corporations and rich individuals to spend unlimited amounts of money campaigning to the advantage of particular candidates.
The House Majority Leader Tom Delay, with a history of ethics violations, got caught in some very serious ones and convinced the House majority leadership to change the rules of the Ethics Committee to prevent the minority from initiating any investigations or inquiries. The Ethics Committee was the only House committee that has an equal number of majority and minority members and before this change, either side would initiate an inquiry.
Norquist was a modern day Party Boss. He controlled a number of large PACS conservative lobbyists. His “issue” at the time was that no one should allow Congress to do anything unless it was agreed that under no circumstances that would there be taxes of any kind passed and no tax loopholes would be closed. He required Republican candidates and members to sign a pledge before he would give them any campaign money. About 90% did. A generally agreed bad law was a tax subsidy for farmers who grew corn for ethanol. Most Americans wanted to repeal it. Norquist sent letters to the Republicans telling them that voting for repeal was ok and he would not see it as violating their pledge. See Norquist’s response {623265} .
Actually, Clinton was historically wrong. There have been several occasions in American history where an unelected party boss was able to control and veto the Congressional actions of members of their own party. However. The earlier occasions were in the 19th century—Norquist was the first of the party bosses to amass that kind of control in modern times.
The George W. Bush administration had a strong penchant for loyalty and would not fire Republican officials who had proved incompetent or unethical. In the midst of a disastrous Iraq War, there was a sex scandal in the House of Representatives whereby a Republican member was making homosexual advances to young pages. The House Republican leadership had tried to cover it up rather than protect the pages. Yet no one was fired even after the Congressman resigned and admitted it.
William Harold Greider was an American journalist and author who wrote primarily about economics.
