Welfare In The United States

"$5 billion for zero-emission buses..."

"Before COVID-19, nearly 700 people died everyday because of poverty and inequality in this country. The frontlines of this pandemic will be the poor and dispossessed - those who do not have access to healthcare, housing, water, decent wages, stable work or - and those who are continuing to work in this crisis, meeting our health care and other needs. It should not have taken a pandemic to raise these resources. In June 2019, we presented a Poor People’s Moral Budget to the House Budget Committee, showing that we can meet these needs for this entire country. If you had taken up this Moral Budget, we would have already moved towards infusing more than $1.2 trillion into the economy to invest in health care, good jobs, living wages, housing, water and sanitation services and more. This is not the time for trickle-down solutions. We know that when you lift from the bottom, everybody rises. There are concrete solutions to this immediate crisis and the longer term illnesses we have been battling for months, years and decades before. We will continue to organize and build power until you meet these demands. Many millions of us have been hurting for far too long. We will not be silent anymore."

"Even with the immense growth of governmental levels in recent decades, the fact remains that five out of every six jobs in this country are still in the private sector. Simple arithmetic tells us this is the place to look for new jobs and for better jobs. This is where the people have been laid off and where they must first go back on the payroll. I don't need to say that twice here in Michigan, where automobile workers and all the other jobs that depend upon them have been especially hard hit. The good news, however, is that the United States automobile industry is turning around. And in the first 20 days of 1976, new car sales were up 37.2 percent over 1975. But even the most sincere proponents of Federal public works and public service job programs don't contend that the cure for unemployment in the American automobile industry is to build Federal factories to make Federal cars. I doubt that the United States Government could make a Model T for less than $50,000."

"If the traditional was clearly in the ranks of a liberal-progressive orientation, calling for more effective national governmental action, some advocates of Black Power could easily conclude that such action had reached its limits: Once the national government removed the legal barriers to advancement, the task was then up to blacks themselves to devote more of their energies and resources to helping themselves. They needed to engage more in “self-help” and seek to develop organizations and institutions that would rely less on government “handouts” and more on their own intra-communal efforts. After all, wasn’t this the way other groups had made it in the society? As many blacks received advantages in education and jobs, they should “reach back” and help their less fortunate sisters and brothers. And do so without the constant complaining about the lack of governmental economic assistance. They should stop seeing themselves as perpetual victims, and take more initiative on their own to assume responsibility for alleviating their plight."

"The plight of impoverished children anywhere should evoke sympathy, exemplifying as it does the suffering of the innocent and defenseless. Poverty among children in a wealthy country like the United States, however, should summon shame and outrage as well. Unlike poor countries (sometimes run by leaders more interested in lining their pockets than anything else), what excuse does the United States have for its striking levels of child poverty? [...] The conservative response to all this remains predictable: You can’t solve complex social problems like child poverty by throwing money at them. Besides, government antipoverty programs only foster dependence and create bloated bureaucracies without solving the problem. It matters little that the success of American social programs proves this claim to be flat-out false."

"Americans raised in poor families do markedly less well compared to those from middle class or affluent homes—and it doesn’t matter whether you choose college attendance, employment rates, or future household income as your measure. And the longer they live in poverty the worse the odds that they’ll escape it in adulthood; for one thing, they’re far less likely to finish high school or attend college than their more fortunate peers. [...] Yet childhood circumstances can be (and have been) changed—and the sorts of government programs that conservatives love to savage have helped enormously in that process."

"Our own history and that of other wealthy countries show that child poverty is anything but an unalterable reality. The record also shows that changing it requires mobilizing funds of the sort now being wasted on ventures like America’s multitrillion-dollar forever wars."

"Programs that reduce child poverty help even in years when poor or near-poor parents gain and, of course, are critical in bad times, since sooner or later booming job markets also bust."

"The Trump administration has, for good measure, rewritten the eligibility rules for such programs in order to lower the number of people who qualify. The supposed goal: to cut costs by reducing dependence on government. (Never mind the subsidies and tax loopholes Trump’s crew has created for corporations and the super wealthy, which add up to many billions of dollars in spending and lost revenue.)"

"Even before Donald Trump’s election, only one-sixth of eligible families with kids received assistance for childcare and a paltry one-fifth got housing subsidies. Yet his administration arrived prepared to put programs that helped some of them pay for housing and childcare on the chopping block. No point in such families looking to him for a hand in the future. He won’t be building any for them. Whatever “Make America Great Again” may mean, it certainly doesn’t involve helping America’s poor kids. As long as Donald Trump oversees their race into life, they’ll find themselves ever farther from the starting line."

"Worse, Donald, who understands nothing about history, constitutional principles, diplomacy (or anything else, really) and was never pressed to demonstrate such knowledge, has evaluated all of this country's alliances, and all of our social programs, solely through the prism of money, just as his father taught him to do. The costs and benefits of governing are considered in purely financial terms, as if the US Treasury were his personal piggy bank. To him, every dollar going out was his loss, while every dollar saved was his gain. In the midst of obscene plenty, one person, using all the levers of power and taking every advantage of his disposal, would benefit himself and, conditionally, his immediate family, his cronies, his sycophants; for the rest, there would never be enough to go around, which was exactly how my grandfather ran our family."

"Our basic premise is that money and jobs are not the final answer to the black man’s problems. Without in any sense denying the overwhelming reality of poverty, we must affirm that the basic goal is not “,” as some have called the anti-poverty and other federal programs, but the inclusion of black people at all levels of decision-making. We do not seek to be mere recipients from the decision-making process but participants in it. [...] It is our hope that the day may soon come when black people will reject because they have understood that these programs are geared to pacification rather than to genuine solutions. We hope that the rising level of consciousness may bring a rejection of such doles. This will strike many readers as fantastic, but they might recall that once in India, Gandhi rejected relief food shipments from England precisely because he saw them as tools of pacification."

"With its broad sweep, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced us into an unprecedented national emergency. This emergency, however, results from a deeper and much longer term crisis — that of poverty and inequality, and of a society that ignores the needs of 140 million people who are poor or a $400 emergency away from being poor."

"We cannot return to normal. Addressing the depth of the crises that have been revealed in this pandemic means enacting , expanding social welfare programs, ensuring access to water and sanitation, cash assistance to poor and low income families, good jobs, s and an annual income and protecting our democracy. It means ensuring that our abundant s are used for the general welfare, instead of war, walls, and the wealthy."

"Before COVID-19, nearly 700 people died everyday because of poverty and inequality in this country. The frontlines of this pandemic will be the poor and dispossessed - those who do not have access to healthcare, housing, water, decent wages, stable work or - and those who are continuing to work in this crisis, meeting our health care and other needs."

"It should not have taken a pandemic to raise these resources. In June 2019, we presented a Poor People’s Moral Budget to the House Budget Committee, showing that we can meet these needs for this entire country. If you had taken up this Moral Budget, we would have already moved towards infusing more than $1.2 trillion into the economy to invest in health care, good jobs, living wages, housing, water and sanitation services and more."

"This is not the time for trickle-down solutions. We know that when you lift from the bottom, everybody rises. There are concrete solutions to this immediate crisis and the longer term illnesses we have been battling for months, years and decades before. We will continue to organize and build power until you meet these demands. Many millions of us have been hurting for far too long. We will not be silent anymore."

"With its broad sweep, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced us into an unprecedented national emergency. This emergency, however, results from a deeper and much longer term crisis — that of poverty and inequality, and of a society that ignores the needs of 140 million people who are poor or a $400 emergency away from being poor. [...] We cannot return to normal. Addressing the depth of the crises that have been revealed in this pandemic means enacting , expanding social welfare programs, ensuring access to water and sanitation, cash assistance to poor and low income families, good jobs, s and an annual income and protecting our democracy. It means ensuring that our abundant s are used for the general welfare, instead of war, walls, and the wealthy."

"But his favorite attack of all is that those of us who don't agree with him, that we only care about rich people. Mr. President, I still live in the same working-class neighborhood I grew up in. My neighbors aren't millionaires; they're retirees who depend on Social Security and Medicare. They're workers who have to get up early tomorrow morning and go to work to pay the bills. They're immigrants who came here because they were stuck in poverty in the countries where the government dominated the economy. The tax increases and the deficit spending you propose will hurt middle-class families. It will cost them their raises. It will cost them their benefits. It may even cost some of them their jobs. And it will hurt seniors because it does nothing to save Medicare and Social Security. So, Mr. President, I don't oppose your plans because I want to protect the rich. I oppose your plans because I want to protect my neighbors, hard-working middle-class Americans who don't need us to come up with a plan to grow the government. They need a plan to grow the middle class."

"America is losing its democracy as our politicians trade their votes for campaign contributions from the corporate lobbies. We have a corporatocracy rather than a democracy... The Wall Street Journal... is the leading print mouthpiece for the corporatocracy... America’s corporatocracy is governed by vested interests rather than moral or economic principles.... Americans today by large majorities support public education, Medicare, Social Security, help for the indigent, stronger regulation of the banks, and higher taxation of the rich. The problem is... with the failure of our government to translate American values into American policies."

"The real issue here, if you look at the Koch Brothers' agenda, is: look at what many of the extreme right-wing people believe. Obamacare is just the tip of the iceberg. These people want to abolish the concept of the minimum wage, they want to privatize the Veteran's Administration, they want to privatize Social Security, end Medicare as we know it, massive cuts in Medicaid, wipe out the EPA, you don’t have an Environmental Protection Agency anymore, Department of Energy gone, Department of Education gone. That is the agenda. And many people don’t understand that the Koch Brothers have poured hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars into the tea party and two other kinds of ancillary organizations to push this agenda."

"Since this pandemic began, over 30 million people have lost their jobs and many have lost their health insurance. Millions of working families are wondering how they'll feed their kids and worried that they will be evicted from their homes. And how has Trump responded? Instead of maintaining the $600 a week unemployment supplement that workers were receiving, and the $1,200 emergency checks that many of you received, instead of helping small businesses—Trump concocted fraudulent executive orders that do virtually nothing to address the crisis while threatening the very future of Social Security and Medicare."

"The reason Social Security is in big trouble is we don't have enough workers to support the retirees. Well, a third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion, because one in three pregnancies end in abortion."

"Perhaps the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will attain the enduring status of the Social Security Act or the Taft-Hartley Act; perhaps not. But this Court’s two decisions on the Act will surely be remembered through the years. The somersaults of statutory interpretation they have performed (“penalty” means tax, “further [Medicaid] payments to the State” means only incremental Medicaid payments to the State, “established by the State” means not established by the State) will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence. And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites."

"Nobody is entitled to someone else's money, that is the bottom line. People think they are entitled to it because they think they paid into it, nobody paid into anything, it was a fraud. Every single dollar that the gov collected in social security taxes, has already been spent, there is nothing there, there is no money, so the only money the government gets to make current payment is the money it can take from people who are still working. Its a transfer from the working poor in many cases to the retired rich. We don't have the money, I feel bad for the fact people made promises we can't keep, I feel bad for the people that invested with Bernie Madoff and lost their money, but its the same principle, its the same Ponzi scheme. We have to put an end to it, we have to find real solution to these problems because if we keep on denying that they exist and keep on spending money, we're going to destroy the value of everyone's benefits."

"Aside from the wisdom of going to war as Bush wants, I am troubled by who pays for his capricious adventure into world domination. The administration admits to a cost of around $200 billion! Now, wealthy individuals won't pay. They've got big tax cuts already. Corporations won't pay. They'll cook the books and move overseas and then send their contributions to the Republicans. Rich kids won't pay. Their daddies will get them deferments as Big George did for George W. Well then, who will pay? School kids will pay. There'll be no money to keep them from being left behind -- way behind. Seniors will pay. They'll pay big time as the Republicans privatize Social Security and rob the Trust Fund to pay for the capricious war. Medicare will be curtailed and drugs will be more unaffordable. And there won't be any money for a drug benefit because Bush will spend it all on the war. Working folks will pay through loss of job security and bargaining rights. Our grandchildren will pay through the degradation of our air and water quality. And the entire nation will pay as Bush continues to destroy civil rights, women's rights and religious freedom in a rush to phony patriotism and to courting the messianic Pharisees of the religious right."

"There also is a reason labor unions are flourishing among people who work for government. No matter how much these public sector unions drive up costs, government agencies do not go out of business. They simply go back to the taxpayers for more money. Consumers in the private sector have the option of buying products and services from competing, nonunion companies — from Toyota instead of General Motors, for example, even though most Toyotas sold in America are made in America. Consumers of other products can buy things made in nonunion factories overseas. But government agencies are monopolies. You cannot get your Social Security checks from anywhere except the Social Security Administration or your driver’s license from anywhere but the DMV. Is it surprising that government employees have seen their pay go up, even during the downturn, and their pensions rise to levels undreamed of in the private sector?"

"Now, Social Security through the years, for many many people, has been a terrible investment. It's really a tax, that's all it is. Social Security is a tax."

"Our Social Security System should be developed into the main reliance of our people for basic protection against the economic hazards of old-age, unemployment, and illness. I earnestly hope that the Congress will complete action at this session on legislation to increase the benefits and extend the coverage of old-age and survivors' insurance. The widespread movement to provide pensions in private industry dramatizes the need for improvements in the public insurance system."

"There are two main differences between Ponzi’s original scam and tThe passage of the Social Security Act in 1935 marked a great advance in our concept of the means by which our citizens, through their Government, can provide against common economic risks. . .""

"I have been studying the Republican Party for over 12 years at close hand in the Capital of the United States. And by this time, I have discovered where the Republicans stand on most of the major issues. Since they won't tell you themselves, I am going to tell you. They approve of the American farmer—but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home—but not for housing. They are strong for labor—but they are stronger for restricting labor's rights. They favor a minimum wage—the smaller the minimum the better. They indorse educational opportunity for all—but they won't spend money for teachers or for schools. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine—for people who can afford them. They approve of social security benefits—so much so that they took them away from almost a million people. ... They think the American standard of living is a fine thing—so long as it doesn't spread to all the people. And they admire the Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it."

"Taft explained that the great issue in this campaign is "creeping socialism." Now that is the patented trademark of the special interest lobbies. Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people. When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan "Down With Socialism" on the banner of his "great crusade," that is really not what he means at all. What he really means is, "Down with Progress — down with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal," and "down with Harry Truman's fair Deal." That is what he means."

"Save Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security without cuts. Have to do it. Get rid of the fraud. Get rid of the waste and abuse, but save it. People have been paying it for years. And now many of these candidates want to cut it. You save it by making the United States, by making us rich again, by taking back all of the money that's being lost."

"I've also made an ironclad pledge to American families: We will always protect patients with preexisting conditions. And we will always protect your Medicare, and we will always protect your Social Security. Always."

"There is a distinct force in American society which is both volatile and pivotal in its activism ... - the Middle American Radical (MAR). Their perspective does not fit readily the traditional molds of liberal and conservative ideologies. ... On some issues, MARs are likely to take a "liberal" stand, on others a "conservative" one. For example, the MAR expresses a desire for more police power. He feels that granting the police a heavier hand will help control crime, i.e., [Alabama Governor George Wallace]'s Law and Order program. However, MARs are also adamant about keeping many social reforms, often wrought by the left, such as medicare, aid to education, and social security. Often MARs feel their problems stem from the rich and the government working together to defraud the rest of the country. They blame the situation on defects in the system such as bad taxes. However, their causal analysis does not suggest what effective remedial actions they can pursue as individuals."

"When you’re dealing with people who think that SpongeBob SquarePants is more important than social security, you have a problem."

"Not surprisingly, the insurance lobby recoils in horror at the prospect of automatic coverage ( including, when it was first proposed, Social Security), no matter how efficient it may be. Automatic coverage eliminates sales commissions and profit."

"Republicans have racialized poverty, and Democrats have run from poverty. And we’re forcing them to deal with the reality. We are very political, but we’re not partisan... There is not some separation between Jesus and justice; to be Christian is to be concerned with what’s going on in the world... All the victories we enjoy today—voting rights, Social Security, minimum wage—100 years ago were seen as virtually impossible...Everything we won, people had to start winning in the midst of opposition that looked like it was overwhelming. I believe that’s the moment we’re in right now."

"My views are more akin to the nineteenth-century liberal philosophy espoused by Milton Friedman, especially in his Capitalism and Freedom. In that work, he proposed many policies that are harmonious with free markets and are receiving serious attention in the United States and other countries. This list includes school choice, the flat-rate income tax, rules for monetary stability, privatized social security, and the elimination of affirmative-action programs."

"We have a president who apparently loves instability and revolution, and that is the antithesis [pointing at blackboard] of those two words, "Social Security"."

"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."

"For our seniors, Social Security is a sacred obligation, a sacred promise made. The current president is threatening to break that promise. He's proposing to eliminate the tax that pays for almost half of Social Security without any way of making up for that lost revenue. I will not let it happen. If I'm your president, we're going to protect Social Security and Medicare. You have my word."

"You know, my dad used to have an expression. He said: "Joey, don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget; I'll tell you what you value." And that's at the heart of this debate: What do we value? Protecting seniors. You may remember, during my State of the Union Address there were a spirited—there was a spirited exchange between me and a few Republicans spontaneously occurring on the floor of the House of Representatives. I was pointing out that, for years, some of them were putting forward proposals to cut Social Security and Medicare. And some of them that night took exception, and they said very loudly that that wasn't true. So I asked them on the House that night. I said—asked them a simple question: Will you agree not to cut Social Security and not to cut Medicare? Would they agree to protect these essential programs that are a lifeline for millions of Americans? Programs that these Americans have been paying into every single pay check they've earned since they started working and that provide so much peace of mind. With the bright lights and cameras on, those few Republicans who were protesting, they agreed. They said they wouldn't cut it. That's how we protected Social Security and Medicare from the beginning and from it being cut, period."

"I don't know if Bernie Madoff got his idea from there, but if there's ever a Ponzi scheme, people say Madoff was the biggest? Wrong. Social Security is, far and away,"

"Well alright, anyone who has dreams of world empire, look what it did to Britain. There's a reason that whole country is one big Smith song. That's actually one exciting thing about studying history, there did come a point towards the end of the 19th century where the British were just like, "this ain't worth it mate". There's a reason why in 1945 they gave us the keys to the world. They were like, "here, it's yours, take it, go, we're fine, no? India, go. Africa, go." Because they'd had enough. Because it's really hard, we can't even run ourselves. We literally have people storming our capital with signs saying , "government, keep your hands off my social security". If we can't handle that, do we really want to try and run, Africa? I think what we need is not so much world empire, I think we need closer cooperation, closer alliances."

"Like Thelma and Louise, Medicare and Social Security are headed for the cliff. And we are in the back seat."

"And there's one thing I hope we will be able to agree on. It's about our commitments. I'm talking about Social Security. To every American out there on Social Security, to every American supporting that system today, and to everyone counting on it when they retire, we made a promise to you, and we are going to keep it. We rescued the system in 1983, and it's sound again -- bipartisan arrangement. Our budget fully funds today's benefits, and it assures that future benefits will be funded as well. The last thing we need to do is mess around with Social Security."

"Seventh, we must get the Federal deficit under control. We now have, in law, enforceable spending caps and a requirement that we pay for the programs we create. There are those in Congress who would ease that discipline now. But I cannot let them do it, and I won't. My plan would freeze all domestic discretionary budget authority, which means no more next year than this year. I will not tamper with Social Security, but I would put real caps on the growth of uncontrolled spending. And I would also freeze Federal domestic Government employment. And with the help of Congress, my plan will get rid of 246 programs that don't deserve Federal funding. Some of them have noble titles, but none of them is indispensable. We can get rid of each and every one of them."

"Social Security has been called the third rail of American politics, the one you're not supposed to touch because it might shock you. But if you don't touch it, you cannot fix it. And I intend to fix it. To the seniors in this country, you earned your benefits, you made your plans, and President George W. Bush will keep the promise of Social Security. No changes, no reductions, no way. Our opponents will say otherwise. This is their last parting ploy, and don't believe a word of it. Now is the time—now is the time for Republicans and Democrats to end the politics of fear and save Social Security together."

"Another priority in my budget is to keep the vital promises of Medicare and Social Security, and together we will do so. To meet the health care needs of all America's seniors, we double the Medicare budget over the next 10 years. My budget dedicates $238 billion to Medicare next year alone, enough to fund all current programs and to begin a new prescription drug benefit for low-income seniors. No senior in America should have to choose between buying food and buying prescriptions. To make sure the retirement savings of America's seniors are not diverted into any other program, my budget protects all $2.6 trillion of the Social Security surplus for Social Security and for Social Security alone."