Bill Clinton Quotes

Western–style redistributive programs-progressive taxation, social security, unemployment insurance-should be encouraged, but at least in the short run, they have limited potential. There simply is not enough to tax, and nearly no one can be trusted to transfer revenues.

The main purpose of Social Security is to redistribute wealth, to make an increasingly large number of Americans dependent on government for their basic needs in their retirement years.

By common consent, most European countries support the maintenance of robust welfare states and are comfortable with taxation systems that support them.

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 know, 600,000 millionaires get a Social Security check every month. I think there's enough waste and inefficiency.

It is not in accordance with the genius of our Government or our country to pay pensions.

We should be reforming our entitlement programs to empower people.

The welfare state, which grew out of post-war solidarity, has for decades been based on the principle that those who pay into the system are entitled to expect that the safety net will be there for them when they fall on hard times.

I wrote my thesis on welfare policy.

I think we will begin to see some real efforts made to do things like protecting Social Security and Medicare.

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

I believe that social security should be a universal retirement guarantee and not means tested.

Well you know I've attracted a lot of criticism by, for example, suggesting that child benefit should be taken away from higher rate taxpaying families.

Nobody wants to pay higher taxes. But do you want your kids to get a good education? You have to pay for that. Do you want Medicare for senior citizens? I do. We have to pay for it.

No one was elected to Congress because he or she promised to cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.

It will take a brave person to cull the benefits system and analyse who deserves and who doesn't.

As the wealthiest nation on Earth, we have made a commitment to provide health care for those over 65. In order to pay for this, each of us should contribute the same, flat percentage of our earned income.

Let's means-test benefits - let's means-test Social Security and Medicare and make the rich pay more for these benefits.

The country will also need 'new forms of social welfare' instead of its current system which is excessively centred on pensions.

It's fairness to say those who work hard, get up in the morning, cut their cloth - in other words 'we can only afford to have one or two children because we don't earn enough'. They pay their taxes and they want to know that the same kind of decision-making is taking place for those on benefits.

We should stop having a conversation about cutting Social Security a little bit or a lot.

Could we do without the social safety net, without Social Security, without Medicare, without farm subsidies, without unemployment compensation, without school lunch programs, without housing assistance? Of course we could. But we would not be a civilized society and we would not be an American nation any of us would be proud of.

If you throw a welfare state into the middle of a democracy, it’s very hard to get rid of the beast.

Give the working-man the right to work as long as he is healthy; assure him care when he is sick; assure him maintenance when he is old.

I would insist that every person in the community in receipt of any income whatsoever must make some contribution to the fund for social security. I want it to be an act of conscious citizenship. I want every child to be taught that when he begins to earn, then, for the first time, he will have the first privilege and right of citizenship—to begin to contribute to the great scheme that has been designed to serve him when he is no longer able to work and to help all of those who at any period of their lives may meet with distress or trouble. In such a scheme, I believe, there should be pensions for all; there should be no means test; those who have should contribute according to their means. But every one, however little he or she earns, should contribute something, be it only a three-penny stamp, as a sort of token payment for the advantage of Australian citizenship.