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Understand, this is unemployment insurance. It's not welfare, as a lot of my Republican colleagues like to suggest it is. You pay into it when you're working. You get help when you're not.

But we will say something else. That for far too long in this country, people who can work, people who are able to work, and people who choose not to work: you cannot go on claiming welfare like you are now.

The real purpose of welfare is to get rid of poor people entirely. Everybody knows welfare has bad effects; that's the point.

We can't afford as a nation - not because of money but because of our social fabric - to have large numbers of people who are not working.

People from both political parties have long recognized that welfare without work creates negative incentives that lead to permanent poverty. It robs people of self-esteem.

A billion dollars every week for Iraq, $87 billion for Iraq. We can't get $5 billion for childcare over five years in welfare reform.

I believe welfare makes you lazy and unproductive.

The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.

I don't believe in welfare.

Without growth we can't pay down our debt, and without growth there's no money for welfare.