Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I think citizens in this country ask one thing of their government above all other things. That is a sense of fairness, a sense of justice, a sense of consistency in the way we treat people irrespective of their economic wherewithal or irrespective of their needs. There is a wonderful line in a poem by Robert Frost, the poem called ``Death of the Hired Man.'' Silas, the old hired man, has come back home. He is still able-bodied, but the gentleman who owned the farm said to the lady he ought to have to earn his way here. He has come back home, and we should not keep him unless he can earn his way. Now I remember the words of the lady who spoke to her husband, and she said, ``You know, home is something you somehow have not to deserve. Home is the place that when you got to go there, they got to take you in.'' Now think about that. That is the real argument here. America, out of its goodness, provides a home for a lot of people who are in very difficult circumstances, and what some folks here want to do is say, ``Nah, before we provide it, they have to somehow earn it, they have to deserve it.'' That is not what the heart of America says. That has never been what the heart of America says. America says just what Robert Frost said: ``Home is somehow something you have not to deserve.'' That is what we owe our poorest people.…”