Eric Garcetti Quotes

The great responsibility that we have today is to put the poor and the near poor back on front of the American agenda.

It is our sacred obligation to eliminate the curse of poverty in the shortest possible time. This is non-negotiable for the Republic.

I have committed my life to helping the poor, and I believe that if more companies followed Wal-Mart's lead in providing opportunity and savings to those who need it most, more Americans battling poverty would realize the American dream.

Taxing poor families runs counter to decades of effort to help people lift themselves out of poverty through work.

And I believe that if we can care about whether or not our neighbor has a good job or access to affordable health care for their children, and we move to implement the policies that can improve these situations, we will unleash vast amounts of human potential and recapture the American spirit.

Even the best community organizations and faith-based initiatives and the extraordinary charity of Americans across the country can't carry the brunt of eliminating poverty.

The poorhouse is vanishing from among us.... We ... today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.... We shall soon ... be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation.

Poverty was not caused by the churches; so how can the churches solve the poverty problem?

Preventing poverty beats curing it.

We will not rest until this war [on poverty] is won.

Investing for the poor requires participation from the entire community.

We must have government that builds stamina into communities and men. That makes men instead of mendicants.

There should be whole-hearted, full commitment to remove poverty - only we are doing it.

As for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit it, the real shame is in not taking practical measures to escape from it.

As a former recipient of these services I can honestly say that the overwhelming majority of TANF recipients are hard-working Americans who are down on their luck, and just want an opportunity to better their lives and those of their family through work and access to education.

The first priority of any serious program against poverty is to strengthen the male role in poor families.

Franklin Roosevelt said the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance to those who have much; it is whether we provide enough to those who have too little. This reconciliation package fails that test as well.

The only way to kill militancy, to reduce it, is to provide opportunities to people who have no opportunities. I've always told my American friends that.

The private sector must play a role in ensuring the prosperity and health of the people who comprise its market. It is time for the private sector to become a proactive partner contributing to the efforts of governments and philanthropies.

When you talk about war on poverty it doesn't mean very much; but if you can show to some degree this sort of thing then you can show a great deal more of how people are living and a very great percentage of our people today.

In a world where people are hungry for quick fixes and sound bites, for instant gratification, there's no patience for the long, slow rebuilding process: implementing after-school programs, hiring more community workers to act as mentors, adding more job training programs in marginalized areas.

We need to make sure middle-class people are able to pay the bills. We need to make sure that poor people don't starve. Those are values, too.

Without better economic opportunity, you can't have better public security and vice versa.

I don't know of a Democrat - whether they're a conservative, a centrist or a liberal Democrat - that doesn't think that it's important to have quality jobs that pay decent wages so that families can support themselves, so that they can have the dignity of being able to afford health care, put money aside for pension, buy a home.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.