Extortion Quotes

“Those who wonder why the American tax code is so complex, convoluted, and constantly changing fail to appreciate what a wonderful tool it is for extortion.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“Eliminating politicians’ ability to raise money while in session would force them to devote their time exclusively to their job: lawmaking.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“FBI investigations alone will never take corruption out of politics. They take too much effort, and they attack the problem serially, one target at a time.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“Politics in modern America has become a lucrative business, an industry that has less to do with policy and a lot more to do with accessing money and favors. As we will see, bills and regulations are often introduced not to effect policy change, but as vehicles for shaking down people for those money and favors.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“leadership PACs are not about benefits for districts: they are about benefits for members of Congress.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“According to Waggoner, the trouble is that complicated laws enrich those who make the laws while making the rest of society poorer.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“Complexity is a useful and lucrative method of legal extortion for politicians”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“Extorting money in the form of campaign contributions is not simply about getting reelected. Many politicians aggressively fund-raise even though they face little or no opposition for reelection. Politicians have discovered a creative way to transfer donations into subsidies designed to benefit their lifestyles”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“They were directed to hire certain well-connected advisers and lobbyists in Washington. “You hear about bribery in China,” says Herbold. “They have nothing on us. We are just more sophisticated about it.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“In Washington, it is far more important to be feared than loved.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“Raising money is what helps an ambitious member of the House rise in the ranks far more than ideas or competence.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“Nine out of ten times in the House of Representatives, and eight out of ten times in the Senate, the candidate who spends the most money wins.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“Both political parties were trying to grab the public high ground while in the background extracting what they could. Senator Harry Reid criticized Republican senators for holding “backroom negotiations” with Wall Street executives over the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill. But when he made the charge, Reid had only recently himself held a fund-raiser in New York City organized by Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn.36 Republicans, on the other hand, criticized Democrats for extorting Wall Street, while playing a similar game themselves.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“Politicians spend so much time raising money because that is how you win elections.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“major piece of financial regulation—the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act—moved toward passage. Wall Street money flowed to some of its fiercest critics in the 2010 election. That year, seven out of the ten top recipients of Goldman Sachs contributions, for example, were Democrats. Former Clinton secretary of labor Robert Reich declared that this was evidence that Wall Street was “bribing elected officials with their donations.”14 I would argue that Reich had the power equation wrong. It was the Permanent Political Class that threatened to cause severe damage to the financiers—not the other way around. As the late economics professor Peter H. Aranson puts it, “The real market for contributions is one of ‘extortion’ by those who hold a monopoly on the use of coercion—the officeholders.”15 The midterm election passed, and so did Dodd-Frank.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“Washington has been using tax extenders to extort donations for more than thirty years. Lobbyists have likened the tax extenders ploy to Lucy pulling the football away from poor Charlie Brown in the last second.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“Washington has been using tax extenders to extort donations for more than thirty years.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“A one-star Army general with forty years of service can earn up to $143,000 per year in basic pay. A freshman congressman starts out at $174,000. If he becomes Speaker of the House, he can pull down $223,500.1”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“Solving problems and settling issues is good lawmaking, but it’s not lucrative. It is gridlock, confusion, and rehashing fights that create streams of income—like an annuity—for the Permanent Political Class.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“Mark Hanna, who served as President William McKinley’s chief fund-raiser. (Hanna once famously said, “There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money and I can’t remember what the second one is.”)”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“Hiring a lobbyist aligned with a powerful politician is more important than hiring a lobbyist with a certain expertise or experience. Hiring a former staff member or family member is better still.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“We have focused on the buyers of influence (those outside special interests), but paid little heed to the sellers of influence—bureaucrats and politicians.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“Outside interests, from labor unions to large corporations, are influencing and distorting our government in the search for favorable policies.”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“What if politics is really largely about fund-raising and making money?”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption

“The assumption is that we need to protect politicians from outside influences. But how about protecting ourselves from the politicians?”
― Peter Schweizer, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own ... The Bombshell Exposé on Congress Corruption