Ross Kemp Quotes
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.
Kemp, Ross. Interview. The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 2015.
What makes this a noteworthy political quotation is that when he made the statement, his party had lurched to the radical right and almost no one else in the Republican party would publicly say that the Federal Government had any legitimate role that involved social services, food distribution, welfare or health care. Also the Republican Presidential candidate the day before had been discovered writing off the poorest 43 percent of the country. Heller however, was up for reelection in a state what was hit much harder than most in the Great Recession and without Federal Assistance many state residents would be in terrible circumstances and Heller would not fare well in the election if he took the then required Republican ideology. Also, Heller came from a blue collar family and had a much different outlook than most Republicans of that particular time.
It was finally passed and signed into law on August 22, 1996
The Pool Laws provided economic and food relief for the very poor—an early type of welfare. Malthus and other conservatives hated the Poor Laws, but many like Malthus felt it immoral to terminate what was then the only social safety net. And none of the critics could suggest anything better and especially anything that would eliminate poverty altogether. The same issues were to be fought out in America during the Hoover Administration when the Great Depression struck. Hoover’s refusal for government to be the social safety net together with his inability to improve the economy, led to his ousting and the establishment of the New Deal with FDR.
Ross James Kemp is an English actor, author, presenter and investigative journalist. He rose to prominence in the role of Grant Mitchell in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. Since 2004, Kemp has received international recognition as a journalist for the BAFTA Award-winning documentary series Ross Kemp on Gangs.
