Politicians and The Money Loop
Politicians have the ability to influence governmental spending, its actions and its failure to act. There are many clear legal ways to interact and influence politicians including:
- Writing a letter, or sending an e-mail;
- Lobbying for legislation and changes;
- Making a campaign contribution;
- Volunteering to help a candidate get elected;
- Donating to a candidate's party.
Within certain limitation, in many countries these types of interaction between the people of the country and the government is encouraged. However, when citizens exceed the law of the land many countries react swiftly. This helps these countries ensure their governments are for the people.
In the words of former US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens:
"In a functioning democracy the public must have faith that its representatives owe their positions to the people, not to the corporations with the deepest pockets."
Read more about this topic: Money Trail
Famous quotes containing the words politicians and, politicians and/or money:
“When politicians and politically minded people pay too much attention to literature, it is a bad sign—a bad sign mostly for literature.... But it is also a bad sign when they don’t want to hear the word mentioned.”
—Italo Calvino (1923–1985)
“Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand merchants and farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may. I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near at home, coöperate with, and do the bidding of, those far away, and without whom the latter would be harmless.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downward. To have done anything by which you earned money merely is to have been truly idle or worse.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)