Compassionate Policy Quotes

So I come before you with a budget that is honest in its discussion of our challenges, creative in its possible solutions, compassionate in its commitment to our most vulnerable, and balanced on the bottom line.

I disagree with any policy that would turn America's back on people who are fleeing harm. I frankly believe that it is contrary to everything that we have symbolically and actually said we stand for.

Sometimes Republicans engage in number-crunching analysis that doesn't always take the neediest into account.

The Republican agenda is a radical vision in which Medicaid is slashed to the bone - in which we start to balance the budget on the backs of, literally, our most vulnerable citizens.

There ought to be a thoughtful welfare-reform debate that doesn't turn into something that could be called scapegoating.

I believe in taxation and health care that is outside the usual libertarian mandate, because I don't want people to have to suffer. It's as simple as that.

[on compromise immigration bill] This is fundamentally flawed in its current form, and I would oppose it. We need bipartisanship, but we also need legislation that is compassionate. I’m not sure this is.

We must oppose programs that would take food from the mouths of younger generations to buy prescription drugs for old people, and we must do it... for the children.

These are people who wanted to provide for their family and wanted a better life. We've got to have a secure border. But we've also, we've got to act compassionately and recognize labor markets as well. ... I've never thought that it's [path to citizenship] a bad thing. If somebody is going to be here for 20, 30 years, to give them some skin in the game, if you will, to hold out the prospect of citizenship.

This desire for equity must not lead to an excess of welfare, where nobody is responsible for anything.