“Welfare was taking away the very thing that people needed most—the initiative to provide for themselves. At the same time it was undermining the family: Teenagers from the inner cities, who for various reasons decided they didn’t want to live at home anymore, discovered that by getting pregnant—they didn’t even have to wait for their baby to be born—they got a welfare check that allowed them to rent their own apartment, and they discovered they could increase their monthly welfare check any time they chose simply by getting pregnant again. Meanwhile, the father of the child might have a good job and want to live with his family. But he was told his family was better off financially if he walked out on them; if he stayed, they wouldn’t get a welfare check. Not only was the welfare program a tax-financed incentive for immorality that was destroying the family, it was responsible for an endless and malignant cycle of despair in which generation after generation went on the dole and never had any incentive to leave it.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“The American dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“For the average American, the message is clear. Liberalism is no longer the answer. It is the problem.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“We are a nation that has a government--not the other way around.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“If more government is the answer, then it was a really stupid question.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“The future doesn't belong to the light-hearted. It belongs to the brave.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“There probably isn’t any undertaking on earth short of assuring the national security that can’t be handled more efficiently by the forces of private enterprise than by the federal government.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Together, let us make this a new beginning. Let us make a commitment to care for the needy, to teach our children the values and the virtues handed down to us by our families, to have the courage to defend those values and the willingness to sacrifice for them. Accepting Republican nomination, Detroit, July 17, 1980”
―
Ronald Reagan
“The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“The government is like a baby's
alimentary canal, with a happy
appetite at one end and no
responsibility at the other.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans. ”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Christmas can be celebrated in the school room with pine trees, tinsel and reindeers, but there must be no mention of the man whose birthday is being celebrated. One wonders how a teacher would answer if a student asked why it was called Christmas.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I didn’t leave the Democratic party, the Democratic Party left me.”
―
Ronald Reagan
