Quotes About Social Programs

#1. Unchecked, government social programs are a security threat because they weaken the ultimate line of defense: the free-born citizen whose responsibilities are not subcontracted to the government.

Mark Steyn

#2. The United States Administration for Children and Families (ACF) spends $46 billion per year operating 65 different social programs. If one goes down the list of these programs ... the need for each is either created or exacerbated by the breakup of families and marriages.

Wade Horn

#3. The imperial projects will continue, Wall Street will be unimpeded in its malfeasance and criminal activity, social programs will continue to be cut, maybe not at the same speed as under a Republican Administration, but it's all headed in the same direction.

Chris Hedges

#4. the public was tired of divisive politics, tired of radical social programs.

John Jakes

#5. Social-impact partnerships address our moral responsibilities to ensure that social programs actually improve recipients' lives, and to do so in a fiscally prudent manner.

Todd Young

#6. Sometimes a party must sail against the wind. We cannot heed the call of those who say it is time to furl the sail. The party that tore itself apart over Vietnam in the 1960s cannot afford to tear itself apart today over budget cuts in basic social programs.

Edward Kennedy

#7. Getting the government to put money into social programs run by religious institutions is a practice that started during the Clinton years, when Bill Clinton advocated the AmeriCorps program.

Tony Campolo

#8. Governments allocate enormous resources for social programs. And it is true that for many years we have had one of the best social service systems in the world. Yet we are still incapable of meeting the needs of tens of thousands of Canadian families.

Kim Campbell

#9. The best reason to diminish social programs is not to put more money in people's pockets but to put more responsibility in people's pockets.

Mark Steyn

#10. There is a simple rule here, a rule of legislation, a rule of business, a rule of life: beyond a certain point, complexity is fraud. You can apply that rule to left-wing social programs, but you can also apply that rule to credit derivatives, hedge funds, all the rest of it.

P. J. O'Rourke

#11. Obama behaves like a centrist who leans tentatively left on certain social programs but boldly right on military force and civil liberties.

David K. Shipler

#12. The debt is being cynically exploited by the far right, with collusion of the Democrat establishment, to undermine what remains of social programs, public education, unions, and, in general, remaining barriers to corporate tyranny.

Noam Chomsky

#13. I believe in infrastructure, I believe in investing in your hard assets. Where I think government starts to fail is when it starts getting itself weighed down with the social programs. And I think the American public just feels like a lot of that money is tossed aside and wasted.

Mick Cornett

#14. Well-fed people can enhance their dignity, their health and their learning capacity. Putting resources into social programs is not expenditure. It is investment.

Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva

#15. I think anyone that thought that we were coming in as a bunch of liberal Democrats to deliver more large-scale social programs was nuts. I sure didn't expect it.

Donna Shalala

#16. For states in demographic decline with ever more lavish social programs, the question is a simple one: Can they get real? Can they grow up before they grow old? If not, then they'll end their days in societies dominated by people with a very different worldview.

Mark Steyn

#17. I don't like a lot of social programs either because it makes you non-productive.

Charles Evers

#18. The only time you can have maximum economic progress is when social programs don't exist.

James Cook

#19. And because of these programs like Medicare, Medicare prescription drugs, Social Security, we now have the healthiest and wealthiest group of senior citizens that the world has ever seen. This is a continuing commitment to that.

James T. Walsh

#20. We also need people like social workers, volunteers, the Christian Industrial League, drug treatment programs to make sure you are getting them a job. That's what you have to do. Otherwise, we just keep stepping around these things.

Richard M. Daley

#21. We have a serious structural deficit problem. And it needs to be addressed. The president is trying to address it through reforms of Social Security, but the problem is there with other entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

John W. Snow

#22. To avoid large and unsustainable budget deficits, the nation will ultimately have to choose among higher taxes, modifications to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, less spending on everything else from education to defense, or some combination of the above.

Ben Bernanke

#23. You know, Floridians, we've paid into Social Security. Like a lot of other government programs, we sent money to D.C. We expect to get that money back. We expect that our Social Security is real. So, we have to fix Social Security.

Rick Scott

#24. Research has shown time and time again that infants who receive the high-quality child care and early education programs do better in school, have more developed social skills, and display fewer behavior problems.

Judy Biggert

#25. Don't let the politicians chip away at the New Deal and the Great Society programs like Social Security and Medicare, that puts a floor beyond which the elderly, the sick, the powerless do not starve or lack for medicine or shelter.

Helen Thomas

#26. Incentives aren't the only thing that matter for economic growth. Opportunity is also crucial, and extreme inequality deprives many people of the opportunity to fulfill their potential, and government programs that reduce inequality can make the nation as a whole richer by reducing that waste.

Paul Krugman

#27. We try to invest in companies that are putting together environmental programs and working to improve their overall social and environmental self.

Bob Walker

#28. Certification programs for social media are blossoming as a response to the demand for more social media training. Both industry professionals and recent graduates are tapping into tactical training programs to help them stay up to date as the industry grows.

Ryan Holmes

#29. Only those who are ideologically opposed to military programs think of the defense budget as the first and best place to get resources for social welfare needs.

Herman Kahn

#30. Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.

Ronald Reagan

#31. In fact, entitlement spending on programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security make up 54% of federal spending, and spending is projected to double within the next decade. Medicare is growing by 9% annually, and Medicaid by 8% annually.

Jim Ryun

#32. A diagnosis . . . should not be used to close doors, but rather to open them wider, by making modifications in programs to accommodate special needs, by adding to the understanding that teachers, social workers, lawyers and judges have for affected individuals.

Bonnie Buxton

#33. These programs were never about terrorism: they're about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power.

Edward Snowden

#34. [The US] budget is dominated by the retirement programs, Social Security and Medicare - loosely speaking, the post-cold-war federal government is a big pension fund that also happens to have an army.

Paul Krugman

#35. Too many members of Congress believe they can solve all economic problems, cure all social ills, and bring about worldwide peace and prosperity simply by creating new federal programs.

Ron Paul

#36. This welfare for wealthy companies wastes taxpayer dollars, harms the environment, and makes a mockery of the recent reductions in federal social spending programs.

Ralph Nader

#37. We're living in a whole new social and economic order with a whole new set of problems and challenges. Old assumptions and old programs don't work in this new society and the more we try to stretch them to make them fit, the more we will be seen as running away from what is reality.

Ann Richards

#38. It is the government's strong desire to empower this fabric, this social fabric of our society where faith-based programs large and small feel empowered, encouraged, and welcomed into changing lives.

George W. Bush

#39. I am angry about the mammoth, out-of-control social welfare entitlement programs from Washington, D.C., that were supposed to solve our problems. The obvious truth is these impractical, politically motivated programs have irreparably damaged the fabric of our black society and community.

Allen West

#40. Quality afterschool programs provide safe, engaging and fun learning experiences to help children and youth develop their social, emotional, physical, cultural and academic skills.

Debbie Stabenow

#41. Evidence is mounting that faith-based service programs are often more successful than other programs in correcting social problems. [It is wrong] for government to demand that religious nonprofits gut precisely that part of their program [funded through tax dollars] that makes them so effective.

Ronald J. Sider

#42. 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.

Susan Brooks

#43. My hope was that organizations would start including this range of skills in their training programs - in other words, offer an adult education in social and emotional intelligence.

Daniel Goleman

#44. We need to preserve programs like Social Security and Medicare for our seniors of today and tomorrow. But we need to strengthen both Social Security and Medicare to make sure these programs are still available for future generations.

Joni Ernst

#45. Amnesty will not help balance our budget ... In fact, a large-scale amnesty is likely to add trillions of dollars to the debt over time, accelerate Medicare's and Social Security's slide into insolvency and put enormous strain on our public-assistance programs.

Jeff Sessions

#46. The lesson is obvious. True missionaries concentrate on doing the work of Mark 16:15 rather than operating social-welfare programs. True missionaries serve the message of Christ, not the institutions of the church.

K.P. Yohannan

#47. The massive prison construction represents a commitment by our nation to plan for social failure by spending billions of dollars to lock up hundreds of thousands of people while at the same time cutting billions of dollars
from programs that would provide opportunity to young Americans.

Steven Donziger

#48. So while the book Giving Back serves as a moving tribute, "The Soul of Philanthropy" exhibit and its programs are meant to compel us toward a triumphant movement of conscious giving for social change.

Valaida Fullwood

#49. The frustrations have been festering for 12 years because federal policy has forced immigration into this area with no programs to accommodate this thrust and no dollars for education or jobs or social services ... we have become a repository but no beneficiary of federal actions.

Sharon Pratt Kelly

#50. To attempt to commit the Church to social and political programs may be a short cut . to escape from the more difficult and costly responsibility of submitting ourselves to those deeper changes of disposition and outlook which are in the end a much more powerful revolutionary force.

J. H. Oldham

#51. Communism and socialism, programs for intellectual control over society ... fascism, a program for the social control of intellect.

Robert M. Pirsig

#52. Cliven Bundy is breaking the law. He's breaking the law and he wants all of us to pay for his cattle while he's ranting about people who are part of social welfare programs.

Christine Quinn

#53. Drug programs began to turn their attention and money away from prevention and into maintenance. Methadone was cheaper than social workers, I suppose.

John Dufresne

#54. The United States is excellent at breeding psychopaths - a country where we reward the individual with a hyperfocus on success at any cost. We reward narcissism - with our social networks and hideous reality television programs. We

Lisa Unger

#55. Social Security Disability Plans: This segment of Social Security is different from the more common retirement benefit payout. Two programs are available: Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Both programs have stringent eligibility requirements.

Michele Tagliati

#56. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#57. We must work to stabilize Social Security. We must not gamble with our nation's social insurance program, one of our most popular and effective federal programs that has remained dependable and stable for the past 70 years.

Grace Napolitano

#58. Democrats talk about programs like Social Security or Medicare, but it's not clear to most voters what Democrats' core moral values are.

Jonathan Haidt