Social Programs Quotes

“Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.”
― Ronald Reagan

“A final irony has to do with the idea of political responsibility. Christians are urged to vote and become involved in politics as an expression of their civic duty and public responsibility. This is a credible argument and good advice up to a point. Yet in our day, given the size of the state and the expectations that people place on it to solve so many problems, politics can also be a way of saying, in effect, that the problems should be solved by others besides myself and by institutions other than the church. It is, after all, much easier to vote for a politician who champions child welfare than to adopt a baby born in poverty, to vote for a referendum that would expand health care benefits for seniors than to care for an elderly and infirmed parent, and to rally for racial harmony than to get to know someone of a different race than yours. True responsibility invariably costs. Political participation, then, can and often does amount to an avoidance of responsibility.”
― James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World

“In a 2010 study, 64 percent of parents who put money in 529 accounts wrongly reported that they had "not used a government social program." The government gives this money away so easily that two out of every three people who receive it don't even notice. Wealthy Americans live in a welfare state invisible to nearly everyone, including themselves.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness