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.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There's no doubt that there's a public backlash against the way campaign money is raised, but I don't think the only alternative is to elect people with money.
There isn't a political price to be paid yet for doing nothing. People need to get upset with President Bush. People need to get upset with their Congressmen.
When one may pay out over two million dollars to presidential and Congressional campaigns, the U.S. government is virtually up for sale.
This is the people's money, and we need to use it on their priorities. Increasing the pay of members of Congress is not their priority.
Elections are a competition with only one winner. Giving more money to the opponent every time one speaks on behalf of a favored candidate discourages the speech that triggers the matching funds.
Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.
If taxpayers want better results from Congress, they must stop paying their elected officials for failure. After all, you get what you pay for.
Anyone who has been around Washington politics long enough can't avoid this truism: Election-year money is like a rushing river that invariably finds cracks in any dam the reformers erect.
There's a lot of politics over who gets the next allocation of Congressional funding.
This fundraising is consuming us. It's impossible to overstate, I think, what it's doing to members and their ability to just focus on the job that they were elected to do. The collective concentration of the institution is being undermined every day by the need to fund-raise.
No opposing quotes found.