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?
Voting is the foundation stone for political action.
Conservatism is rooted in preservation; progressivism advances alteration. These are different love languages. These languages turn on your view of change itself: When you think of America, do you see a country struggling to be maintained or one striving to be made better?
I ask the rights to pursue happiness by having a voice in that government to which I am accountable.
Fundamentalists are not friends of democracy. And that includes your fundamentalists in the United States.
How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics in the twentieth century.
The very first time a politician puts you in his target is sometimes a disappointment, because perhaps you thought you were friends and getting along well... But it is not something that you dwelled on. At least, I did not.
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