Political Quotes

“the real estate bubble may be bursting in some markets around America, but here in Washington, D.C., real estate is still a great investment. You may have missed the listing, but it appears that the U.S. Capitol, the People's House, was bought with a down payment of a mere $1.6 billion, $1.16 billion from lobbyists here in town. Or at least that is what the special interests spent on lobbying the Republican Congress in the first 6 months of 2005. And what exactly does about $1 billion from lobbyists get you these days in a home like the People's House? If you are an oil and gas company, you have done $87 million in lobbying expenses. What does it buy you? $14.5 billion in subsidies from taxpayers. $14.5 billion from taxpayers in subsidies so you can just do your business plan. They spent $87 million and got a $14.5 billion gift from the taxpayers. $87 million will also allow to you pump about $65 billion worth of oil and gas from the Gulf of Mexico, and you do not pay a single royalty, costing the taxpayers $7 billion. That is $7 billion that could pay for child support collections, $7 billion that could pay for college education, $7 billion that can create new broadband expansion, everything that we would be doing. $7 billion could pay down the deficit. No, taxpayers have been asked to forgo all the royalty that is owed to them, and the oil and gas companies walked away with it, $14.5 billion in taxpayers subsidies.…”