Malcolm Turnbull Quotes

It was an idea we had when Al was in the Senate - to organize and moderate an annual conference that would look at government policy through the lens of the family to help identify ways that the family can be supported and strengthened.

Asking the government to help you for short periods of time is different than asking the government to take care of you for the rest of your life.

Working moms, and increasingly working dads, don't want a government handout, but they do need a hand up.

There are lots of people depending on the government who are good, honest citizens who have worked all their lives.

Liberals measure compassion by counting the number of people receiving government help.

Ronald Reagan came from show business. His idea of how the government should help the homeless was like your agent. "We'll try to get you work. But don't bug us about it."

Governments understand that help is power. That is why governments offer as much help to as many people as they can.

I'm very, very concerned about the Bush presidency. I'm worried about the kinds of cuts in domestic programs that mean something to a lot of people, including members of my family, who depend on certain things from the government.

Even before ObamaCare, the government took care of the bottom 5 or 10 percent of the public who were on Medicaid.

The government gave me enough money to go to acting school.

I don't think you expand entitlements when so many people are dependent on government and when the money the federal government is offering is going to be taken away from you after just a couple of years.

Too many Mainers are dependent on government handouts. Government dependency has not - and never will - create prosperity.

We need to make sure our government programs encourage work, not dependence.

The government is becoming the family of last resort.

I was once a welfare recipient and am very aware of the successes and failures of this critical safety net. There are those that would have us believe that those receiving TANF benefits are lazy, shiftless, freeloaders who are just sitting around thinking of another way to suckle from the government teat.

You measure a government by how few people need help.

And under the existing circumstances, I understand there are situations where people indeed need care and need services, but I believe in America that the majority of those people are getting those services under situations and circumstances that are afforded to them by their health care providers and their state government.

There are very few people on welfare who like it.

A third of all the children born today will be on welfare.

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.

Take this question of the payment of taxes which seems uppermost in many people's minds. It is true that you may work twice as hard and that when your income is above a certain amount, you may retain for yourself a much smaller percentage of the fruits of your labor. Perhaps the day will come when the man who is paying a high income tax will say to himself "This is proof of my patriotism. The measures which are supported by this money are what make my country a better place to live in. They insure to me and to my children a greater security under the form of government which I have chosen." We may pay high taxes but if it means that many hard working people have better lives, I am glad to do so. I am entirely in accord with the idea that it is hardly worthwhile to try to give a better way of life to those who will not work and help themselves, but there are many, many people who work hard and for one reason or another have very little return for their labor.

Government has a final responsibility for the well-being of its citizenship. If private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the Government for aid; and a government worthy of its name must make fitting response.

Only 44 percent of Social Security beneficiaries perceive themselves to have benefitted from a government social program.

The vast majority of Americans—about 96 percent—benefit from some kind of government social program.

The important thing for the government to do is to help people who cannot help themselves by providing a range of support.