Barack Obama Quotes

We don't want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into complacency and dependence.

The worst thing we could do is impose time limits and then expect people to sink or swim once they move off welfare.

People from both political parties have long recognized that welfare without work creates negative incentives that lead to permanent poverty. It robs people of self-esteem.

I knew that good people who wanted to be a part of the American dream have become trapped in dependency because the federal government and the state government had made it in their economic interest not to take a job because the benefits that they didn't work were better. I changed that.

When they seek to cut programs that help families living in poverty, I will fight them every step of the way.

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.

In the past, the public assistance programs have been too much concerned with the mere dispatching of monthly checks. … it is high time that some concerted effort be made to get people off the rolls who can sustain themselves.

We have spent trillions of dollars on welfare, where we put people in bondage so they can't be all that they're capable of being.

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?

I wrote my thesis on welfare policy.

Anyone who can walk to the welfare office can walk to work.

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

If we take the route of the permanent handout, the American character will itself be impoverished.

When we stand up for America, we stand up for what America stands for, which is a safety net for our seniors and really helping our families be able to help themselves.

Safety-net programs must make efficient use of taxpayer resources and harness the capabilities of recipients by helping them move back into the workforce.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Of course we have compassion. We just don't believe the safety net should be used as a hammock.

Today we are ending welfare as we know it.

Reduction of dependency is the greatest unmet need in social policy today.