Donella Meadows Quotes

I don't like a lot of social programs either because it makes you non-productive.

Welfare distorts behavior, makes one less personally responsible and reduces the role of private charity. This principle applies to corporate welfare.

The belief that recipients of government aid are better off the more we spend on them is remarkably persistent. No matter how many times this central tenet of liberalism gets debunked, like Brett Favre, it just keeps coming back.

It's not good for government to tell people that the world owes them a living and that things are free.

Maine's welfare program is cannibalizing the rest of state government. To all you able-bodied people out there: Get off the couch and get yourself a job.

The best reason to diminish social programs is not to put more money in people's pockets but to put more responsibility in people's pockets.

Welfare makes you dependent upon someone to take care of you.

I often quote Ronald Reagan, who is pretty close to my favorite President ever, I will have to say that, but one of my favorite remarks he ever made was that when you look at Federal programs, there is nothing so close to eternal life on Earth as a Federal Government program.

People still seem to think that they should vote themselves money. They seem to think there is stuff which they think is the government's job, when it's really the individual's job.

I don't think anybody should be expanding Medicaid. I think it's a mistake to create new and more expensive entitlement programs when we can't afford the ones we've got today. We've got to stop this culture of government dependence.

I believe welfare makes you lazy and unproductive.

Sometimes people need a kick in the pants to get them to do what they would be doing if government weren't there as a perpetual parent.

There is no such thing as a 'free' government benefit. Ask small-business owners who are footing skyrocketing bills for bottomless jobless benefits.

Americans oppose public intervention or regulation if it helps others, but favor it if it helps them — take social security, disaster relief, public works projects, for example.

Last year in the United States alone over $98 billion was distributed in unearned government transfer payments and other aid to millions of men and women who most often did nothing for what they received. This character-weakening government dole is repeated in almost every nation of the world. We encourage Latter-day Saints everywhere to remain free of government assistance. Work for what you receive.

We don’t want to turn this [social] safety net into a hammock that ends up lulling people in their lives into dependency and complacency.

The Chodorov Principle: For every social problem A caused by government program X, problem A can be solved by abolishing program X.

I do not believe in welfare. Therefore, I am the first presidential candidate in American History who qualifies for Federal matching funds, who will not take them.

All communities are apt to look to government for too much ... especially at periods of sudden embarrassment and distress. This ought not to be.

You came out of your mother’s belly without government. You have lived so far without the help of government …. How many people in this world live without government, yet do well enough, and are well looked upon?

I don’t want to kill the government. I just want to shrink it down to a small enough size that I can flush it down the toilet.

Some welfare programs in the past have not been well-designed. They increased dependency.

Democrats need to stand strong against any efforts to cut benefits to Social Security and Medicare.

I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won't help themselves, won't lift a finger, and expect the federal government to do everything.

Expanding a failing, big-government program that reduces flexibility for the states and traps generations of Americans in dependency is not consistent with the kind of conservative solutions that Reagan sought during his terms as governor of California and president of the United States.