Poverty Reduction Strategies Quotes

Between 1965 (the beginning of LBJ's "Great Society") and 1994, welfare spending has cost the taxpayers $5.4 trillion in constant 1993 dollars. The War on Poverty has cost us 70 % more than the total price tag for defeating both Germany and Japan in World War II, after adjusting for inflation. Many believe that Welfare has destroyed millions of families and cost a huge portion of our national wealth in the process.

It is more difficult to fight poverty in a rich country than in a poor one.

Many people believe in eliminating gaps and eliminating poverty. They don't realize that in some sense those two things are antithetical. If you were to double everyone's income, or if everyone's income were doubled naturally over the course of time, then you would reduce poverty significantly but you would have also increased the gap.

The war on poverty programs help address the pain of poverty.

Let us, above all, be clear that, without a convincing program of debt relief to start the new millennium, our objective of halving world poverty by 2015 will be only a pipe dream.

It would take little more than $50 billion to raise every poor person above the official poverty line, yet the percentage of the population classified as poor hardly budges, while annual welfare spending amounts to four times that much. Where's the money going?

Our efforts to help the poor does not mean we're going to eradicate poverty.

You can't lift people out of poverty simply by tweaking the tax system, or by raising the minimum wage by a few cents, or by reducing student debt slightly. These might be necessary components of a larger anti-poverty program, but you have to accept they are pieces of a much larger puzzle.

For the first time in our history it is possible to conquer poverty.

High-quality public education - combined with other appropriate support, as needed - is the best way to achieve the Oregon Business Plan's goal of reducing the number of people living in poverty.

The poor is the central focus of my economic agenda. The poor should be strengthened in such a way that they get the willingness to defeat poverty. By helping the poor make ends meet while they remain in poverty is also one of the ways. I am not saying right or wrong but it's one of the ways.

Do we have the will to make poverty history?