Quotes & Sayings About Special Interests

We pay a price when special interests win out over the collective national interest. — Chris Christie

People have their own interests and they want to play a certain kind of music. People want to play in orchestras. They want to play on Broadway. Those that want to play traditional jazz and have no interests in the ideas of improvisation. So in spit of the fact that there are fifty violin players, you might only narrow it down to ten and within those ten, there might only be three who have the right kind of background and credentials to deal with what you need to deal with. Everybody's got their own special thing that they are after and a lot of times you don't have time to be training people. — Henry Threadgill

Those individuals who refuse to join in the lies supporting the war are condemned as being unpatriotic, ill-informed, or friends of the enemy. If the propaganda doesn't silence them and they are seen as a sufficient threat to the war machine, the government will enact laws granting power to arrest and punish those refusing to succumb to the propaganda. This will be done not only to punish the direct targets. It will also be done to frighten others who may be considering boldly challenging the authoritarians supporting a war that will only benefit the special interests. — Ron Paul

Too often in Washington special interests urge us to fight one another just because we belong to different parties. It is time for this to stop and for Washington to focus on what needs to be done. — Ken Salazar

The precise point at which a tax deduction becomes a 'loophole' or a tax incentive becomes a 'subsidy for special interests' is one of the great mysteries of politics. — John Sununu

So when you go up against the Far Right you go up against the big financial special interests like the Halliburtons of the world, the big oil companies, the big energy companies who work so hard to rip us off. — Barbara Boxer

They're still a subject beholden to special interests, but at least they have a national constituency. At least they have to think about national majorities. — Mark Shields

The Lord gave the wonderful promise of the free use of His Name with the Father in conjunction with doing His works. The disciple who lives only for Jesus' work and Kingdom, for His will and honor, will be given the power to appropriate the promise. Anyone grasping the promise only when he wants something very special for himself will be disappointed, because he is making Jesus the servant of his own comfort. But whoever wants to pray the effective prayer of faith because he needs it for the work of the Master will learn it, because he has made himself the servant of his Lord's interests. — Andrew Murray

Our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics. — Theodore Roosevelt

I've decided to run for the U.S. Senate because I believe Wisconsin families need a senator who will work hard to deliver results for the middle class - a leader with the courage to do what's right, no matter how tough the odds or how powerful the special interests we have to fight. — Tammy Baldwin

I have fought against spending. I have fought against special interests. I have fought for reform. — Barack Obama

Why do Americans find government so baffling and irritating-even though many of us depend on public programs for a secure retirement, an affordable mortgage, or a college loan? In this timely and important book, political scientist Suzanne Mettler explains how the United States has come to rely on hidden, indirect policies that privilege special interests but puzzle regular citizens. American democracy can do better, and she shows how. Politicians and the public alike have much to learn from her brilliant and engaging analysis. — Theda Skocpol

Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government
in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player. — Milton Friedman

Self persuasion was a concept much loved by evolutionary psychologists. I had written a piece about it for an Australian magazine. It was pure armchair science, and it went like this: if you lived in a group, like humans have always done, persuading others of your own needs and interests would be fundamental to your well-being. Sometimes you had to use cunning. Clearly you would be at your most convincing if you persuaded yourself first and did not even have to pretend to believe what you were saying. The kind of self-deluding individuals who tended to do this flourished, as did their genes. So it was we squabbled and scrapped, for our unique intelligence was always at the service of our special pleading and selective blindness to the weakness of our case. — Ian McEwan

We need real campaign finance reform to loosen the grip of special interests on politics. — Tom Daschle

This year, we are going to take our government out of the hands of corporate special interests and put it back into the hands of Ohio families - where it belongs. — Sherrod Brown

The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others. — Edmund Morris

If they don't have the guts to come up here in front of you and say, 'I don't want to represent you, I want to represent those special interests, the unions, the trial lawyers ... if they don't have the guts, I call them girlie men. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Initiative and referendum make government more responsive to its citizens, neutralize the power of the special interests and stimulate public involvement in state issues. — George W. Bush

I do care about the mercury contamination which this country will be experiencing because of the attempted sellout by this administration to special interests which will result in more mercury in the blood of young children in America. — Jay Inslee

Of course, the economy has not been working for most Americans. Yes, of course, we have special interests that are unfortunately doing too much to rig the game. — Hillary Clinton

We don't lump people by groups or special interests. And let me add, in the party of Lincoln there is no room for intolerance and not even a small corner for anti-Semitism or bigotry of any kind. Many people are welcome in our house, but not the bigots. — Ronald Reagan

It would be deplorable if the special interests had the power to silence those voices in the media that they find uncomfortable. — Stieg Larsson

I strongly recommend that students with autism get involved in special interest clubs in some of the areas they naturally excel at. Being with people who share your interests makes socializing easier. — Temple Grandin

What historians will definitely wonder about in future centuries is how deeply flawed logic, obscured by shrewd and unrelenting propaganda, actually enabled a coalition of powerful special interests to convince nearly everyone in the world that CO2 from human industry was a dangerous, planet-destroying toxin. It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world - that CO2, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison. — Richard Lindzen

Men are not narrow in their intellectual interests by nature; it takes special and rigorous training to accomplish that end. — Jacob Viner

War is party-blind. It doesn't care who is in the Oval Office. The forces that drive us to war don't care whether it's Republican, Democrat, or other. The fact is, these parties are prey to special interests. That is something Eisenhower was afraid of. — Eugene Jarecki

Today financial capitalism is fraught with special interests, corporate monopolies, and an opacity that would have boggled Smith's mind. Let me be clear: despite my criticism of our existing model of financial capitalism, this book isn't anticapitalist. I am not in favor of a planned economy or a turn away from a market system. I simply don't think that the system we have now is a properly functioning market system. — Rana Foroohar

Journalism's ultimate purpose is to inform the reader, to bring him each day a letter from home and never to permit the serving of special interests. — Arthur Ochs Sulzberger

awareness of a problem does not mean much - particularly when you have special interests and self-serving institutions in play. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Do what is best for most people, not just a few. Prevent your elites and growing middle class, those who often benefit most from growth and development, from turning into a special interests group that blocks reforms. — Sri Mulyani Indrawati

The legislative job of the President is especially important to the people who have no special representatives to plead their cause before Congressand that includes the great majority. I sometimes express it by saying the President is the only lobbyist that one hundred and fifty million Americans have. The other twenty million are able to employ people to represent themand thats all right, its the exercise of the right of petitionbut someone has to look after the interests of the one hundred and fifty million that are left. — Harry S. Truman

No, there is no real Left now. If you are just counting heads, there are probably more people involved than in the 1960s, but they are atomized, committed to different special interests - gay rights, environmental rights, this, that. They don't coalesce into a movement that can really do things. — Noam Chomsky

The Account Representative bent back to the involved removal of his securely clamped helmet. He was preparing to feel that male and special feeling associated with the conversational imperative faced by any two men with some professional connection who meet in nighttime across an otherwise empty and silent but fragilely silent underground space far below the tall and vaguely pulsing site of a long and weary day for both: the obligation of conversation without the conversational prerequisites of intimacy or interests or concerns to share. They shared pain, though of course neither knew. — David Foster Wallace

Offering 'comprehensive' reform usually means years of arguing and horse-trading among pressure groups to get anything done. By the time all the special interests are appeased or bought off, the resulting elephantine legislation typically looks nothing like what was intended. In short, big-government medicine usually doesn't work on big-government sickness. If President Obama wants 'comprehensive' change, it would be better simply not to spend any more money we don't have. — Victor Davis Hanson

I don't think you could find any person in political life today who has been subjected to more attacks and had more money spent against her by special interests, among whom you have named a few, than I. — Hillary Clinton

I'm really glad that our young people missed the Depression, and missed the great big war. But I do regret that they missed the leaders that I knew. Leaders who told us when things were tough, and that we would have to sacrifice, and these difficulties might last awhile. They didn't tell us things were hard for us because we were different, or isolated, or special interests. They brought us together and they gave us a sense of national purpose. — Ann Richards

We don't need more of the same, typical politicians fighting for themselves and for special interests. We need someone to believe in our small-business owners again and someone to champion those folks who play by the rules. — Tim Walz

As it enters the twenty-first century, the United States is not fundamentally a weak economy, or a decadent society. But it has developed a highly dysfunctional politics. An antiquated and overly rigid political system to begin with - about 225 years old - has been captured by money, special interests, a sensationalist media, and ideological attack groups. The result is ceaseless, virulent debate about trivia - politics as theater - and very little substance, compromise, and action. A "can-do" country is now saddled with a "do-nothing" political process, designed for partisan battle rather than problem solving. By every measure - the growth of special interests, lobbies, pork-barrel spending - the political process has become far more partisan and ineffective over the last three decades. — Fareed Zakaria

Everybody says that they're against the special interests. I'm the only one the special interests don't give any money to. — John McCain

Interpretation that aims at, or thrives on, uniqueness can usually be attributed to pride (an attempt to "outclever" the rest of the world), a false understanding of spirituality (wherein the Bible is full of deeply buried truths waiting to be mined by the spiritually sensitive person with special insight), or vested interests (the need to support a theological bias, especially in dealing with texts that seem to go against that bias). — Gordon D. Fee

When libertarians deride the idea of social fairness as just one more nuisance, they unleash greed. The kind of unconstrained greed that is now loose in America is leading not to real liberty but to corporate criminality and deceit; not to democracy but to politics dominated by special interests; and not to prosperity but to income stagnation for much of the population and untold riches at the very top. — Jeffrey D. Sachs

Newspapers of the future, to be conducted successfully, must be divorced from "special privilege" and relieved from the subsidy of advertising. They must cease to be organs of propaganda for the interests which patronize their advertising columns. The type of newspaper which publishes scandal and lewd pictures will eventually go the way of all forces which debauch the human mind. These — Napoleon Hill

Bureaucrats want bigger bureaus. Special interests are interested in whatever's special to them. These two groups bring great pressure to bear upon politicians who have another agenda yet:
to cater to the temporary whims and fads of the public and the press. — P. J. O'Rourke

Policy decisions on climate change are being deliberated every day by those without full knowledge of the science, and often with intentional misinformation spawned by special interests. — James Hansen

When we are green, still half-created, we believe that our dreams are rights, that the world is disposed to act in our best interests, and that falling and dying are for quitters. We live on the innocent and monstrous assurance that we alone, of all the people ever born, have a special arrangement whereby we will be allowed to stay green forever — Tobias Wolff

Protectionism, socialism, all varieties of state favoritism and restrictions on competition, and the growth of bureaucracy and jobbery were the means by which special interests sought to exploit the public, the great mass of consumers and taxpayers. — Ralph Raico

Water is the most precious, limited natural resource we have in this country ... But because water belongs to no one - except the people - special interests, including government polluters, use it as their private sewers. — Ralph Nader

Career politicians do not have the courage to prioritize spending and say no to demanding special interest groups who do not reflect the best interests of the country. — Tom Coburn

Our politicians have sacrificed their principles on the altar of special interests; our corporate leaders have sacrificed their integrity on the altar of profits; and our media watchdogs have sacrificed the voice of dissent on the altar of audience competition. — Cornel West

While the word "republic" derives etymologically from the Latin "res publica" - which literally means "the people's thing," what a republic or a "republican form of government" is today remains debatable; but what it is not is clear: No matter its political composition, a government that does not adhere to the rule of law, is ruled by a president who dictates, courts that legislate, and a legislature that is elected by a minority, led by the few, and administered by members who fail to embody the will of the people, represent party caucuses and factious special interests, overlook executive overreach, transfer legislative powers, and maintain monarchic lengths of time in office - and all of this to the detriment of justice, the Union, and the Constitution - is not a republic or republican form of government but something else. — Anonymous

It is something radically different from them all. They are out for battle and extol violence; liberalism, on the contrary, desires peace and the ascendancy of ideas. It is for this reason that all parties, however badly disunited they may otherwise be, form a united front against liberalism.
The enemies of liberalism have branded it as the party of the special interests of the capitalists. This is characteristic of their mentality. They simply cannot understand a political ideology as anything but the advocacy of certain special privileges opposed to the general welfare.
One cannot look on liberalism as a party of special interests, privileges, and prerogatives, because private ownership of the means of production is not a privilege redounding to the exclusive advantage of the capitalists, but an institution in the interest of the whole of society and consequently an institution that benefits everyone. — Ludwig Von Mises

I think after Sandy Hook, when Obama went out, and he talked a lot about gun control and met with the parents, there was a sense that something was going to happen. But then, I guess, the power of special interests was greater than public sentiment. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

More than one-third of congressional staffers turn to a career in lobbying after leaving Capitol Hill. It's clear the staffer-turned-lobbyist's value to special interests depends on the robustness of his or her network on Capitol Hill. According to an August 2010 study, when a lobbyist's former boss on Capitol Hill left office, the lobbyist's salary declined by an average of 50 percent in the six months following the departure.27 Moving from Capitol Hill to K Street isn't limited to staffers: In 2010, 37 percent of the newly out-of-office members of Congress went to work for lobbying firms or clients. After losing his run for Senate in 2006, Tennessee Democrat Harold Ford Jr. moved to New York to take a job with Merrill Lynch with a guaranteed annual compensation of $2 million. At the time he had no experience in finance. What he was paid for were his networks: — Christopher L. Hayes

Third issue, and again I think it is important to note, anyone can make a mistake and any administration can make a mistake once in a while, but this is just a long train of abuses, an unbroken chain of following special interests rather than the health of the American people. — Jay Inslee

A particularly inspiring story was told by a mother whose autistic son just wanted to play with shapes and shadows. He was failing in his "Special Ed" program, where he was being forced to do things he didn't want to do. She found that the more she encouraged him to do what he enjoyed, the more his shell cracked open. And when she followed his interests and made resources available to him to support those interests, he began to talk and to thrive. When he was three years old, she was told that he would never talk. At eleven years of age, he enrolled in a university and began studying mathematics. — Anne Maxwell

The paramount duty of maintaining public order and defending the interests of our own people may require the adoption of measures of restriction, but they should not tolerate the oppression of individuals of a special race. — Grover Cleveland

Mr. President, the buzz saw that your healthcare bill ran into wasn't lobbyists and special interests it was tens of millions of American's who were saying, 'Stop!' — John Boehner

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

You've been off fighting the war in the Outer Rim. You don't know what it's been like, dealing with all the petty squabbles and special interests and greedy, grasping fools in the Senate, and Palpatine's constant, cynical, ruthless maneuvering for power - he carves away chunks of our freedom and bandages the wounds with tiny scraps of security. And for what? Look at this planet, Obi-Wan! We have given up so much freedom - how secure do we look? — Matthew Woodring Stover

The goal of immigration policy should be what is in the best interests of the American people as a whole. I would recommend limiting immigration to spouses and minor children of citizens, plus additional immigrants chosen for special skills needed in the U.S. — Jan C. Ting

The principle of real leadership ignored, the immortal objects of society forgotten, practical conservatism degenerated into mere laudation of private enterprise, economic policy almost wholly surrendered to special interests. — Russell Kirk

The plain truth is that labor is the chief representative force that keeps the real special interests from dominating American political life. — Lane Kirkland

We have weakened the parties and strengthened all the special interests. — Mark Shields

We need to be wise consumers of information in an age of artificially created reality, written by professional propagandists, bought and paid for by special interests who many times disguise themselves as grassroots movements but are nothing but AstroTurf. They'll give you turf burns and turf toe, but never the truth. — H.L. Wegley

When I have to choose between voting for the people or the special interests, I always stick with the special interests. They remember. The people forget. — Henry F. Ashurst

I'm not going to rule out running for a second term. But, I think you have to be psychologically prepared to walk away from the job after four years. It's the only way that you cannot be influenced by those special interests. — Dick Murphy

Those of us in positions of responsibility, we'll need to be less concerned with the judgment of special interests and well-connected donors, and more concerned with the judgment of posterity. — Barack Obama

Democracy entails a correlation between the public interest as expressed by a majority of the population and the governmental policies that affect them. The term encompasses various manifestations, including direct, participatory and representative democracy, but Governments must be responsive to people and not to special interests such as the military-industrial complex, financial bankers and transnational corporations. Democracy is inclusive and does not privilege an anthropological aristocracy. — Alfred-Maurice De Zayas

Academia is alas full of special interests and specialists who presumed it was possible to "leapfrog" over this or that entire line of development. These minds hoped to distance themselves from the pernicious vices of a whole way of thinking, but of course at the same time excluded all of its virtues too. Modern abstractivism in its simplex form (which does not preclude a high degree of articulate facility within the ambit of what is preconceived and accepted). — Kenny Smith

Any big organization can be subverted by governments or multinational special interests. They have the resources to cast doubt and fear over any group they feel threatened by. — Arlo Guthrie

For the past 10 years I have had the interesting experience of observing the development of Parkinson's syndrome on myself. As a matter of fact, this condition does not come under my special medical interests or I would have had it solved long ago. ... The condition has its compensations: one is not yanked from interesting work to go to the jungles of Burma ... one avoids all kinds of deadly committee meetings, etc. — Fuller Albright

The money needed to run for office, the money spent on lobbying by special interests, the ever-increasing economic disparity, and the well-funded legislative decisions, all favor corporate interests over the people. — Neil Young

I do a lot of referendums. They can't talk back. They don't have wives. They don't have friends who tell you how to run the campaign. They are supported by special interests, so there's a lot of money in them. — Roger Stone

The danger is that the compromises and special interests inherent in Kyoto-style targets and cap-and-trade will be accepted because of bureaucratic momentum. — James Hansen

Special interests and opponents have figured out how easy it is to disrupt town halls and get their own message out. The days of the truly free-form town halls may be over. — Mark McKinnon

I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are ... Not this time. Not now. — Barack Obama

realize that economic agents all represent special interests that typically interpret the situation according to their own interests or political views. — Jacob Lund Fisker

We fought the Revolutionary War for no taxation without representation, it seems to me that we are much worse off today, because we are heavily taxed, and only the king's corporations control this Country, together with mob rule, of the special interests. — James Montgomery

The Democratic Party had failed (in 1983)
'to remember waht got us this far and how we got here
moral indignation, decent instincts, a sense of shared sacrifice and mutual responsibility, and a set of national priorities that emphasized what we had in common.. The Party that was the engine of the national interest
molding our pluralistic interest into a compelling new social contract that served the nation well for fifty years
became perceived as little more than the broker of narrow special interests. Instead of thinking of ourselves as Americans first, Democrats second, and members of interest groups third, we have begun to think in terms of special interests first and the greater interest second.. We have let our opponents set the agenda and define what is at stake.
p. 140 — Joe Biden

Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousandfold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine - the special pleading of selfish interests. — Henry Hazlitt

(Howard Dean) is proving that the Internet is a better, cheaper, and faster way to raise money than the old glad-handing of special interests and fat cat donors. He's also about to demonstrate that the Internet is a better place to spend campaign dollars than are TV stations and media time buys. The fact that Internet communications is free makes one-on-one retail politics more effective, more rapid, and less costly than mass communication. — Dick Morris

Varium et mutabile! murmurs the man sagely - "A woman's privilege is to change her mind!" If the nature of his industry were such that he had to change his mind from cooking to cleaning, from cleaning to sewing, from sewing to nursing, from nursing to teaching, and so, backward, forward, crosswise and over again, from morning to night - he too would become adept in the lightning-change act. The man adopts one business and follows it. He develops special ability, on long lines, in connection with wide interests - and so grows broader and steadier. The distinction is there, but it is not a distinction of sex. This is why the man forgets to mail the letter. He is used to one consecutive train of thought and action. She, used to a varying zigzag horde of little things, can readily accommodate a few more. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Currying favor with special interests at the expense of the public good is a way for politicians to fund their campaigns and secure their future for when they leave government. It has been firmly enshrined as the primary source of money for politics since the Sherman Act did away with patronage. So long as politicians are able to tap special interests for these purposes, they will find ways to reward them with public policy - and they will do whatever it takes to protect the programs they have already put in place. What reformers really need to do first is attack the way the business of politics is conducted, rather than focusing on the products of that business. Then, and only then , will the cancer of cronyism be removed from the body politic. — Anonymous

The Congress is virtually incapable of passing any reforms unless they first get permission from the powerful special interests who are most affected by the proposal. — Al Gore

I have strong interests in supporting sport, primarily football, and also in developing cultural relationships within national communities and their diasporas, with special reference to Ethiopia. — Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi

The misconception that there is serious disagreement among scientists about global warming is actually an illusion that has been deliberately fostered by a relatively small but extremely well-funded cadre of special interests, including Exxon Mobil and a few other oil, coal, and utilities companies. These companies want to prevent any new policies that would interfere with their current business plans that rely on the massive unrestrained dumping of global warming pollution into the Earth's atmosphere every hour of every day. — Al Gore

You may think that tax policy sounds like the most boring topic in the world. That is precisely what most governments, corporations, and special interests would like you to think, because tax policy is where much of society and the economy gets shaped. It is also where well-informed citizens can achieve socioeconomic revolutions with astonishing speed and effectiveness - but only if they realize how much power they might wield in this domain. If citizens don't understand taxes, they don't understand how, when, and where their government expropriates money, time, and freedom from their lives. They also don't understand how most governments bias consumption over savings, and bias some forms of consumption over other forms, thereby distorting the trait-display systems that people might otherwise favor. — Geoffrey Miller

The Sheldon Adelsons, the Koch brothers, the George Soroses, what we want to try to do is force them into the parties, not so that Kasich or whoever is going to straight to them and trying to kiss up to special interests, but so the parties have the power and they can direct the money. — Mark Shields

When you're part of something special, you have to cherish it and defend it against many outside distractions and temptations. But nothing is more potent or deceptive than the competing interests or another great opportunity. In those moments when priorities clash, always stay guided by your values, not your perceived necessities. Necessities exist in a state of mind that will not last, whereas values are transcendent and enduring. — Adam Braun

One of the fundamental necessities in a representative government such as ours is to make certain that the men to whom the people delegate their power shall serve the people by whom they are elected, and not the special interests. I believe that every national officer, elected or appointed, should be forbidden to perform any service or receive any compensation, directly or indirectly, from interstate corporations; and a similar provision could not fail to be useful within the States. — Theodore Roosevelt

America's heart and soul is more embedded in our love of liberty, self-reliance, and tolerance than by our foreign policy, driven by powerful special interests with little regard for the Constitution. — Ron Paul

One of the problems that we have in the human rights community is that special interests often forget the interests of other victims, and there's competition among victims expressions that are unnecessary. — Alfred-Maurice De Zayas

From the moment I take office, I will stand up to the special interests and stand with hardworking families so that we can give America back its future and its ideals. — John F. Kerry

The smaller the unit of government and the more restricted the functions assigned government, the less likely it is that its actions will reflect special interests rather than the general interest. — Milton Friedman

Focusing on and sustaining life activities...jobs, budgets housekeeping etc. takes from me. It is an exhausting struggle; a desperate attempt to tread water while drowning.
Life drains my well. Special interests fill it back up. I need that time, I need that filling, that relaxing, that decompressing, in order to accomplish other tasks in my life. — Jeannie Davide-Rivera

Paralysis of leadership is due in part to the unseen grip of the special interests. — John W. Gardner

People are looking for a leader independent of powerful, wealthy special interests that always push to the front of the line. — Martin O'Malley

If you're looking for someone to go to Washington, to go along to get along, to get - to agree with the career politicians in both parties who get in bed with the lobbyists and special interests, then I ain't your guy. — Ted Cruz

I've made it clear that I'm not taking special interest PAC money or accepting donations from lobbyists - ever. I want to represent the interests of the citizens. — Stephen Pagliuca