Social Programs Quotes

Governments have nothing. They can't create anything, they never have. All they can do is steal from one group and give it to another

It was clear soon after his election that Obama, like FDR, wanted to start dealing with the economic crisis immediately after his inauguration.

Our country is the richest in the history of the world. We should be working to expand and improve successful programs like Medicare, and offer more to our citizens.

If you feel the government should leave you alone, you're a Republican. If you think the job of the government is to go push people around and take things for you, then you're a Democrat.

Most Americans get that there is a need for a safety net in our country, and we support that safety net.

The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time.

No complicated scheme of relief, no plan for government fixing of prices, no resort to the Public Treasury will be of any value …

By 1939, the Depression was back. Unemployment was huge. Roosevelt didn't have any quick fix. Remember, the New Deal, Works Progress Administration, and Civilian Conservation Corps - all that happened years before. Roosevelt was riding a storm.

We think there are better solutions to fighting poverty because we see what the War on Poverty has produced. It produced tens of trillions of dollars in spending. It has been a 51-year exercise, and yet the poverty rates in America today are not much better than when we started the War on Poverty.

The left wants to protect social programs, the right wants to protect defense and intelligence spending and all the rest. I say the defense and intelligence world will be better off with a smaller budget. They would be less encumbered by bloat and able to maneuver the way they used to be able and not trip over themselves.

The best social programs we've had in this country are those that have united the middle class and the poor.

While those with the vision of the anointed emphasize the knowledge and resources available to promote the various policy programs they favor, those with the tragic vision of the human condition emphasize that these resources are taken from other uses (“there is no free lunch”) and that the knowledge and wisdom required to run ambitious social programs far exceed what any human being has ever possessed, as the unintended negative consequences of such programs repeatedly demonstrate.

A budget matters to people who worry about protecting and saving critical programs like Medicare and Social Security. A budget matters to younger workers who fear that more and more money will be taken from their paychecks to fund another generation's spending spree.

Romney and Ryan would do a much better job running the country, and that's what everybody needs to know.

Conservatives should insist that defense spending be examined with the same seriousness that we demand in examining the books of those government agencies that spend taxpayer money in the name of welfare, the environment, or education.

Times have been tough, the economy has been tough. But I want to bring forward a fantastic manifesto for taking the city forwards.

Only 44 percent of Social Security beneficiaries perceive themselves to have benefitted from a government social program.

It is extremely difficult to rescind entitlements to which people think they are legally entitled. Taxes can easily go up and down. There isn’t the same political pressure.

In Chicago, you have an absence of strong family units, and that absence gets filled by gangs. You have a failure in the school system, after-school programs and other social programs to help keep kids off the streets. Amnesty International speaks to that in some way, by keeping these issues in the forefront.

So I really would like to see both parties respond to the poor with greater commitment. But I've got to tell you, the Democrats, I feel, are doing a better job in that respect than Republicans are.

What the government gives it must first take away.

I think governments can't do much.

Bob Rubin was opposed to signing the welfare bill. He's not exactly what I call a flaming liberal.

Politics is economics in action.

I believe the best social program is a job.