Thomas Friedman Quotes

Like all good citizens, the elderly and people with disabilities want to eradicate waste and fraud from government, but helping people with special needs meet their basic needs doesn't fit this description.

The government can take smart steps to give all kids the healthy start they need to reach their full potential.

My home State of North Carolina ranks 12th in the United States for increased aging population and, according to a national report, 41st in overall health. According to this same report, individuals aged 50+ are the least healthy.

I am fairly certain that our budget deficit was not caused by children with autism or 90-year-old grannies in nursing homes, so why take it out on them by cutting services?

I have felt the force of what governments can do. I remember my elder son being in the first cohort of kids who got a free nursery place, I remember the palliative care my mother got at home as I watched her die.

Many of my constituents are in their 80s, 90s, even 100, and our focus is ensuring that their needs can be provided for.

What is a government supposed to do for its people? To improve the standard of living, to help them get jobs, get kids to schools, and have access to medicine and hospitals. Government may not directly provide these public goods and services, but government must be accountable for whether or not they are delivered to citizens.

The NHS should be proactively using substantial resources across government to intervene and try to deliver positive improvements in people's standards of living.

After-school tutoring programs, care for the elderly, shelters for the homeless, disaster relief work, and a variety of other services would all benefit from government funding.

The life expectancy is much longer today than it was when Social Security was created.

I don't think anybody should be expanding Medicaid. I think it's a mistake to create new and more expensive entitlement programs when we can't afford the ones we've got today. We've got to stop this culture of government dependence.

When the Australian Government looked at how to meet the challenges, and the opportunities, presented by our ageing population, it saw that an all-encompassing approach was a prerequisite.

Traditional nursing facilities are sterile institutions rather than homes - which is why many Americans do not want to live in one or want this as their only option for themselves or their family members.

The elderly are all someone's flesh and blood and we cannot just shut them in a cupboard and hand over the responsibility for taking care of them to the state.

Community care is a fundamental, an essential, an enduring part of our aged care system.

People were concerned about national security, and that precluded us from having the opportunity to break through on the issues that we cared most about - the economy, education and health care.

The federal government should only be providing services for emergencies. You and I, taxpayers, shouldn't be paying for cell phones so someone can have a social life. I just don't think it's appropriate.

Most Americans have some experience with nursing homes or other long term care settings, and nearly half have had a family member or close friend in a home in the past three years.

I want to protect and preserve social security and Medicare.

You measure a government by how few people need help.

What we mean by an outcome will naturally depend on the context. Thus, for a government charged with delivering public goods, an outcome will consist of the quantities provided of such goods as intercity highways, national defense and security, environmental protection, and public education together with the arrangements by which they are financed.

The strongest initiative that government can take to ensure Australia is prepared for population ageing, is to maintain a strong economy, and a secure nation.

I believe the most important aspect of Medicare is not the structure of the program but the guarantee to all Americans that they will have high quality health care as they get older.

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.

In a secular, pluralistic democracy these issues of life and death involve questions about the right of individual Americans to decide and the obligation of the federal government to finance their decisions.