Barack Obama Quotes

Government has a role as well in what is referred to as redistributive justice.

I think when you spread the wealth around it's good for everybody.

The New Deal was going to redistribute the national income according to ideals of social and economic justice.

We’ve taken care not to penalize the wealthy but we have to redistribute some income …It is through reform that we can obtain fairness in the modern world…A reformed welfare state is the only way to obtain social justice.

The Tenth Commandment sends a message to socialists, to egalitarians, to people obsessed with fairness, to American presidential candidates in the year 2000 - to everyone who believes that wealth should be redistributed. And that message is clear and concise: Go to Hell.

Liberals measure compassion by counting the number of people receiving government help.

I actually believe in redistribution (of wealth)

Ironically, in the full-fledged transfer society, where governments busy themselves redistributing income by means of hundreds of distinct programs, hardly anyone is better off as a result.

The right combination is between a free economy and social policy that addresses the needs of society and creates equal opportunity.

I say I don't need a tax cut. It will not do me any more good. I can't buy more, I can't eat more, I can't do more, and I want it distributed among the ordinary people who work every day.

To Republicans, I humbly suggest that we make it possible for Democrats to give up their quest for redistribution of income and wealth by our acceptance of an appropriate role for government in financing those public goods and services necessary to secure a social safety net below which no American would be allowed to fall.

The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.

There is a legitimate concern about wealth distribution in the United States, but the answer is not to scapegoat any individual who makes over $200,000 per year and to try to sell the fraud that the government can equitably take the money of those who have earned it and give it to those who haven't.

It's not that I am against the rich giving money to charities. I'm all for it, and we should think of ways of encouraging more of it. But I also believe that states, rather than individuals, are ultimately a better bet for delivering a fair and just world and reconciling differing interests.

Government has got to work for all of us and not just for a few billionaires..

Democracy must knock the rough edges off capitalism so that capitalism is safe for everyone and not just the big boys.

Every American has a right to food, housing, and health care - and we can afford to provide it if billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share.

The British people overwhelmingly favour big businesses and the wealthiest individuals contributing their fair share so we can invest in our schools, hospitals and services.

The Democratic Party might be called the Takings Coalition, made up of groups that want the government to take from American citizens -- usually cash -- and keep it for itself.

Imagine what would happen if the government were to take the wealth of 200,000 of India's richest people and redistribute it amongst 2 million of India's poorest? We would hear a lot about socialist appropriation and the death of democracy. Why should taking from the rich be called appropriation and taking from the poor be called development?

The more the state gives to its citizens, the less they have to earn. That is the basic concept of the welfare state - you receive almost everything you need without having to earn any of it. About half of Americans now pay no federal income tax - but they receive all government benefits just as if they had paid for, i.e., earned them.

When poverty declines, the need for government declines, which is why expecting government to solve poverty is like expecting a tobacco company to mount an aggressive anti-smoking campaign.

A recent poll showed that nearly half the American public believes that the government should redistribute wealth. That so many people are so willing to blithely put such an enormous and dangerous arbitrary power in the hands of politicians – risking their own freedom, in hopes of getting what someone else has – is a painful sign of how far many citizens and voters fall short of what is needed to preserve a democratic republic

Practically all government attempts to redistribute wealth and income tend to smother productive incentives and lead toward general impoverishment.

I believe the government has the right to recover from the heirs to the fortunes of its most successful citizens some portion of those fortunes.