Thomas Malthus Quotes

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.

Most Americans get that there is a need for a safety net in our country, and we support that safety net.

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.

None of the lower orders need suffer for an hour, the Poor House is open.

We are tired of a welfare system which dehumanizes us and dispenses payments under procedures that are often ugly and paternalistic.

Why is it is claimed that if people won't or can't take care of their own needs, that people in government can do it for them?

The government's War on Poverty has transformed poverty from a short-term misfortune into a career choice.

There was no welfare state, and people had to rely mainly on the Poor Law - that was all the state provided. It was very degrading, very humiliating. And there was a means test for receiving poor relief.

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.

Fiscal prudence does not prevent government from providing shelter for the homeless, work for the idle, care for the elderly and infirm, and hope for the destitute.

It is because of capitalism that we can pay for services to poor people that we don't even know.

Today we are ending welfare as we know it.

Poor young children and the elderly must be fed at public expense.

We happen to be living in an era when, in consequence of human gullibility and fallibility, the world has been overtaken by panic and distress such as private initiative alone cannot cope with. To an extent that could previously never have been expected the cities, the states, and the central government have been compelled to undertake to provide relief where voluntary agencies have been unequal to the task.

By helping the poor, we must be able to remove their poverty. By extending help to one here and one there in the form of providing food will not remove poverty

The institution of such supervisatory control and surveillance over the now low orders of society as shall compel them to industry, and provide for the helpless, and thus banish those institutions of pauperism and beggary which are fastening upon the vitals of society, and are so prolific of crime and suffering in certain communities.

The first role of government is to help people who are in crisis or need. That's why we have government.

I'm for helping the poor, always have been. And I don't think they should be bereft of healthcare.

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?

There is much in American society which I admire, but I have long held the view that the absence of an effective safety net in that country means that too many needy citizens fall by the wayside. That is not the path that Australia will tread. Nor do we want the burdens of nanny state paternalism that now weigh down many economies in Europe.

I hope and understand that people are getting a better recognition that food stamps is a program that really helps America, helps families in need. It's not a government handout. If anything, it's a safety net that helps people through difficult times and bridges them towards stability.

If war is the solution, why didn't Roosevelt declare war on poverty?

What Clinton severed with his welfare reform was the obligation of the federal government to step in when the states failed and to monitor these programs.

Programs like food stamps, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, and job retraining help Americans get back on their feet when they are down and out and laid off through no fault of their own.

The welfare system was designed to do something different when it was started than what it does now. It was a safety net to help people get back to work: if they were sick, it would help them get back.