Garrison Keillor Quotes

Social Security is based on a principle. It's based on the principle that you care about other people. You care whether the widow across town, a disabled widow, is going to be able to have food to eat.

We should be developing spaces and places that are thinking about how we care for the group vs. asking the individual to take care of themselves.

In some instances even certain social services that normally were supplied, or pre-empted by the state. Take the United States, the [Ronald] Reagan administration is withdrawing assistance, all kinds of welfare programs, and if people don't improvise their own resources to cope with problems of the ageing, problems of the sick, problems of the young, problems of the poor, problems of tenant rights, who will?

In America, we take care of each other, we support one another, and we look out for our neighbors.

Nobody is starving on the streets. We've always taken care of them. We take care of our own; we always have. It is not the government's responsibility.

Ours is an individualistic society, indeed, and the state must do for the individual what the family does for the older civilizations.

We have not abandoned our old belief in liberty, justice, and Self-help, but we say that under certain conditions the people cannot help themselves, and that then they should be helped by the State representing directly the whole people.

I care for the poor. I am the one willing to work with the poor and have a safety net we can all depend on and make people understand that nothing in life is free. You have to get back to society.

Wouldn't it be better for the human spirit and for the soul of this nation to encourage people to accept more responsibility to care for each other rather than leaving those tasks to paid bureaucrats.

What I think people should realize is that programs like Social Security, programs like Medicare, programs like the Veterans Administration, programs like your local park and your local library - those are, if you like, socialist programs; they're run by [and] for the public, not to make money. I think in many ways we should expand that concept so that the American people can enjoy the same benefits that people all over the world are currently enjoying.

Once a man ceases to be of service to his neighbor, he begins to be a burden to him.

Many of the liberal people tend to say, "Well, the solution is government." I couldn't disagree more. The government cannot solve the problem and never will. I believe the solution to these problems is the church and that the church should be responsible for caring for the sick, and assisting the poor, and educating.

When a beggar asks us for a quarter, our instinct is to say that the State has already confiscated our quarter for his benefit, and he should go to the State about it.

No one may forsake their neighbors when they are in trouble. Everybody is under obligation to help and support their neighbors as they would themselves like to be helped.

By assigning his political rights to the state the individual also delegates his social responsibilities to it: he asks the state to relieve him of the burden of caring for the poor precisely as he asks for protection against criminals. The difference between pauper and criminal disappears - both stand outside society.

For it is said, "You shall strengthen the stranger and the dweller in your midst and live with him," that is to say, strengthen him until he needs no longer fall upon the mercy of the community or be in need.

I don''t know if I like communism, and I don''t know if I like socialism. But I know that the Breakfast for Children Program feeds my kids. And if you put your hands on that Breakfast for Children Program . . .

So we [Americans] have a history a taking care of each other. Now, for some strange reason starting sort of in the 20's with Woodrow Wilson, the government started getting involved in everything.

Every program that ever helped working people, from rural electrification to Medicare, was enacted by liberals over the opposition of conservatives. When people tell me they don't like liberals, I ask, "Do you like Social Security? If so, then shut up!"

The duty of the State toward the citizen is the duty of the servant to its master.... One of the duties of the State is that of caring for those of its citizens who find themselves the victims of such adverse circumstances as makes them unable to obtain even the necessities for mere existence without the aid of others.... To these unfortunate citizens aid must be extended by government--not as a matter of charity but as a matter of social duty.

And I have a plan to do even better, to end welfare as we know it

Social security is the most successful government program in our nation's history. We are not going to cut social security! We are going to expand social security!

If government is to serve any purpose it is to do for others what they are unable to do for themselves.

[I]t's an honor to be a food stamp president. Food stamps feed the hungry. Food stamps save the children. Food stamps help the farmer. Food stamps help the truck driver. Food stamps help the warehouse. Food stamps help the store. Food stamps hire people and feed people. Food stamps save people from starvation and malnutrition. ... Give President Barack Obama a big hand. Show your love. Show your appreciation.

Democrats are fighting for people to be able to quit work while the rest of us pay for their health care while they go out and be artists and photographers and tend to bipolar kids with asthma or what have you, and we're going to pay for this.