When giant companies wanted more tax loopholes, Washington got it done. When huge energy companies wanted to tear up our environment, Washington got it done. When enormous Wall Street banks wanted new regulatory loopholes, Washington got it done. No gridlock there!
Interpretation
This quote critiques the ease with which powerful corporations influence government actions, often at the expense of the public and the environment.
Elizabeth Warren highlights the troubling reality that government often caters to the demands of large corporations rather than addressing the needs of the average citizen. She points out that while there is often political gridlock on important issues, when it comes to accommodating the desires of wealthy companies, the government acts swiftly and effectively, raising concerns about priorities and accountability in politics.
In practice
In a political debate, to emphasize the influence of corporations over legislation.
Families rely on financial services more than ever, but those who need them most - who struggle to make ends meet - too often must contend with sky-high interest rates and tricks and traps buried in the fine print of their loan products.
There's been such a sense that there's one set of rules for trillion-dollar financial institutions and a different set for all the rest of us. It's so pervasive that it's not even hidden.
Mitt Romney is the guy who said corporations are people. No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people.
I talk to nurses and programmers, salespeople and firefighters - people who bust their tails every day. Not one of them - not one - stashes their money in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
'Middle class' used to be synonymous with secure, with steady, with boring, because middle-class people were people who were pretty much safe from the time they first started work on through retirement and until their deaths. No longer.
Does anyone believe that Goldman Sachs is gonna give up a deal that would yield millions of dollars because someone fussed at them behind closed doors?
The secret ballot makes a secret government; and a secret government is a secret band of robbers and murderers.
It is not the function of government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.
Brothers and sisters, our democracy has been hijacked. Brothers and sisters, all electoral freedoms in this country are over so long as it's controlled by corporations. Brothers and sisters, we are not going to allow these streets to be taken over by the Democrats or the Republicans. Because it's all of us who have built this city, and we can tear it down unless they give us what we need.
The money in politics is a cash cow for the media.
Persisting social crisis, the emergence of a charismatic personality, and the exploitation of mass media to obtain public confidence would be the steppingstones in the piecemeal transformation of the United States into a highly controlled society.
Herbert Hoover once ran on the slogan, 'Two cars in every garage'. Apparently, the Republican candidate this year is running on the slogan, 'Two families in every garage'.
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