Paul LePage Quotes

Is our national goal to place as many people on welfare, food stamp support, as we can possibly put on that program? Is that our goal? Is that a moral vision for the United States of America, just to see how many people we can place in a situation where they're dependent on the federal government for their food?

The issue I highlight in the book is welfare reform.

In America today, we are nearer a final triumph over poverty than is any other land.

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.

One of the flaws in the American dream is that there isn't as much of a safety net as you may get in other countries.

And I do not intend to lead a state where we simply tolerate poverty in our communities.

At its core, government welfare is predicated on a false compassion.

A welfare state is frightened of every poor person who tries to get in and every rich person who tries to get out.

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

You know, I think that the Republicans have made it really clear that they want to end the so-called social safety net from cradle to grave.

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.

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

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.

I don't know if I can live on my income or not - the government won't let me try it.

Ten years ago, Republicans decided it was time to reform our broken welfare system and give welfare recipients the tools they needed to escape the system and build a better life.

The issues that matter to me are the social safety nets for people, health care, middle-class concerns. We need to take care of the middle class and the poor in our country.

In my youth, I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

It's hard to bring up your children on benefit. It's easier if you can do part- time work, or even full-time work, and actually have a better standard of living, and that's the direction in which we are going.

The welfare system in the United States is vile.

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.

The War on Poverty did not work because it was a war on shame … a war on the family and a war on God.

Today we are ending welfare as we know it.

If we are going to get a single mother off welfare and make her work, we should certainly make the private corporations contribute to the effort by giving up the over $1 Trillion of corporate welfare.

Reducing poverty is in our own interest.

A New Dealer regrets poverty and deplores the fact that it is necessary for society to slough off its misfits as an individual sheds his impurities and his diseases. But New Dealers believe that human want and human distress should be prevented or at least ameliorated.