Charles A. Reich Quotes

I don’t believe in subsidized programs because by and large they are not sustainable.

Americans oppose public intervention or regulation if it helps others, but favor it if it helps them — take social security, disaster relief, public works projects, for example.

Before this learning experience, I had assumed that with regard to programs that sought to help people out of poverty, the political world was essentially divided into two camps: conservatives who opposed these for a variety of reasons, and liberals who supported them.

Cynically but accurately put, Americans oppose public intervention or regulation if it helps others, but favor it if it helps them - take social security, disaster relief, public works projects, for example.

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.

When they [most people] get a [government] benefit, they assume that God gave them it to them, But most people don’t want to pay for someone else’s undeserved benefits.

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.

I'm a liberal - I believe in subsidies for public goods and in regulations to curb harmful externalities, but neither of those things exist when it comes to parking.

Poverty-fighting programs are not handouts - they are investments.

Some of the people who are the biggest advocates of personal responsibility are the biggest hypocrites as they are advocates for farm welfare and subsidies to agribusiness contracts and laws for corporations to insulate themselves from the market economy and the like.

If we are going to get a single mother off welfare and make her work, we should certainly make the private corporations contribute to the effort by giving up the over $1 Trillion of corporate welfare.

Liberals believe government should take people's earnings to give to poor people. Conservatives disagree. They think government should confiscate people's earnings and give them to farmers and insolvent banks.

I'm a product of Federal spending.

… a giant corporate welfare program

Perhaps never in the history of a nation founded by agrarian self-starters has the federal government propped up rural America to such a degree.

Corporate welfare bums.

I have always opposed subsidies to private corporations.

One of the things that made the marriage between liberty and popular sovereignty possible was the welfare state. Democracy has three parts. It has liberty, it has popular sovereignty, and it has a social safety net as well

We oppose any subsidy or national aid to any private corporation for any purpose.

We continue the policy of not permitting any needy American who can and is willing to work to starve because the Federal Government does not provide work.

Farm subsidies are a matter of national food security

The vast majority of Americans—about 96 percent—benefit from some kind of government social program.

The Chrysler bailout is a basic challenge to the philosophy of America.

Our Congress passes laws which subsidize corporation farms, oil companies, airlines, and houses for suburbia. But when they turn their attention to the poor, they suddenly become concerned about balancing the budget and cut back on the funds for Head Start, Medicare, and mental health appropriations.