Quotes About Government

Contrary to what President Obama said in his inaugural address, going on Medicare and food stamps does not strengthen us. Just ask people who are fourth-generation welfare recipients.

I've always believed as a value that the government has a vital - not overwhelming, but vital - role to play in furthering human welfare and good. I think we have an important supportive role to play, hopefully intelligent and sensible.

While the rest of the country is still talking about welfare reform, Texas is implementing it.

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.

The real purpose of welfare is to get rid of poor people entirely. Everybody knows welfare has bad effects; that's the point.

Before they got vengeful, conservatives had some useful points to make about welfare. Government 'help' is too often guilt-assuaging gesture. It creates layers of wasteful bureaucracy. Too much help of the wrong sort creates a culture of dependency that swamps our ability to provide.

America doesn't like to hear about things like welfare. 'Don't talk about that. We don't like what it did to people!' Yeah, but it happened.

In '86 or '87, the welfare lists were at the lowest level in 17 years. Why? Because the economy was the best it was in 17 years. There were jobs.

It was such a struggle for me to make it off welfare. I was getting $630 a month for myself and my children with no support from their fathers. The rent was $600 a month, and if you got a job, they took it out of your welfare.

U.K. welfare cuts are pushing more children into poverty; that is beyond dispute.

Reagan was president and had Democrats control the House and Senate, and they reformed the tax code. Clinton was president, and he had Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole; they reformed welfare and balanced the budget.

I don't mind payin' for the police and for streets and sanitation, or road work, bridges, trains, food subsidies and welfare. But I don't wanna pay for bombs to fight proxy wars in the middle of nowhere against enemies in the night.

Corporate welfare isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Governments everywhere that are unable to guarantee equitable growth and social welfare have suffered a fatal decay of legitimacy.

When I left, there were over 1 million fewer people on welfare in New York state than when I took office, replacing dependency with opportunity.

Is our national goal to place as many people on welfare, food stamp support, as we can possibly put on that program? Is that our goal? Is that a moral vision for the United States of America, just to see how many people we can place in a situation where they're dependent on the federal government for their food?

We need workfare over welfare.

It's one thing to have a president with whose politics you disagree; it's another to have a president who doesn't even seem to care about your welfare.

I'm not the Eritrean welfare minister and not the Sudanese labor minister.

The government has a right - the government and the people of the United States have a right to run the programs of the United States. Health, welfare, housing - all these things.

It will be hard to convince people that their welfare is safe in the hands of a federal government when they feel themselves the victims of unjust sectional discrimination.

I don't think you ought to walk into this country one day, and the first stop you make is the welfare office.

As more and more money is coming into the formal economy, one can look at more attractive tax rates and lower tax slabs. Even if half the people who were in the informal sector move in to the formal economy and more taxes get collected, more money can be spent on the welfare.

I don't know how we will ever have the moral authority to deal with social welfare if we can't deal with corporate welfare.