Dan Quayle

“ Our inner cities are filled with children having children, with people who have not been able to take advantage of educational opportunities, with people who are dependent on drugs or the narcotic of welfare. To be sure, many people in the ghettos struggle very hard against these tides and sometimes win. But too many feel they have no hope and nothing to lose. This poverty is, again, fundamentally a poverty of values. Unless we change the basic rules of society in our inner cities, we cannot expect anything else to change. ”

“ It is a betrayal of all those people equally outraged and equally disadvantaged who did not loot, who did not riot, and who were, in many cases, victims of the rioters. No matter how much you may disagree with the verdict, the riots were wrong. If we as a society don't condemn what is wrong, how can we teach our children what is right? ”

“ And let's not forget that in 1990, 84 percent of the crimes committed by blacks were committed against blacks. We are for law and order. If a single mother raising her children in the ghetto has to worry about drive-by shootings, drug deals, or whether her children will join gangs and die violently, the difficult tasks becomes next to impossible. We're for law and order because we can't expect children to learn in dangerous schools. We're for law and order because if property isn't protected, who will build the businesses, who will make the investment? ”

“ Personal responsibility is the brick and mortar of power. The responsible person knows that the quality of his life is something that he will have to make inside the limits of his fate... The quality of his life will pretty much reflect his efforts. ”

“ We can stop penalizing marriage for welfare mothers. We can enforce child support payments. Ultimately, however, marriage is a moral issue that requires cultural consensus and social sanctions.
Bearing babies irresponsibly is simply wrong. Failing to support children one has fathered is wrong and we must be unequivocal about this. It doesn't help matters when primetime TV has Murphy Brown, a character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent, highly paid, professional woman, mocking the importance of fathers, by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice. ”

“ So I think the time has come to renew our public commitment to our Judeo-Christian values -- in our churches and synagogues, our civic organization and our schools. We are, as our Children recite each morning, "one nation under God." That's a useful framework for acknowledging a duty and an authority higher than our own pleasures and personal ambitions. ”

“ Empowering the poor will strengthen families, and right now the failure of our families is hurting America deeply. When family fails, society fails. The anarchy and lack of structure in our inner cities are testament to how quickly civilization falls apart when the family foundation cracks. Children need love and discipline; they need mothers and fathers. A welfare check is not a husband ”

“ It is from parents that children learn how to behave in society. It is from parents, above all, that children come to understand values and themselves as men and women, mothers and fathers. And for those concerned about children growing up in poverty, we should know this -- marriage is probably the best anti-poverty program of all. ”

“ Creating enterprise zones by slashing taxes in targeted area, including a zero capital gains tax to spur entrepreneurship, economic development, and job creation in the inner cities; instituting our education strategy, America 2000, to raise academic standards and to give the poor the same choices about how and where to educate their children that the rich people have; promoting welfare reform to remove the penalties for marriage, creating incentives for saving, and give communities greater control over how the programs are administered -- these programs are empowerment programs. ”

“ When I have been asked during these last weeks who caused the riots and the killing in L.A., my answer has been direct and simple. Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame. ”

“ By any measure, the America of 1992 is more egalitarian, more integrated, and offers more opportunities to black Americans and all other minority members than the America of 1964. There is more to be done, but I think that all of us can be proud of our progress. And let's be specific about one aspect of this progress. The country now has a black middle class that barely existed a quarter-century ago. Since 1967, the median income of black two-parent families has risen by 60 percent in real terms. The number of black college graduates has skyrocketed. ”

“ Among families headed by married couples today, there is a poverty rate of 5.7 percent. But 33.4 percent of families headed by a single mother are in poverty today. Nature abhors a vacuum. Where there are no mature, responsible men around to teach boys how to be good men, gangs serve in their place. In fact, gangs have become a surrogate family for much of a generation of inner-city boys. ”

“ From the perspective of many Japanese, the ethnic diversity of our culture is a weakness compared to their homogeneous society. I begged to differ with my host. I explained that our diversity is our strength and I explained that the immigrants who come to our shores have made and continue to make vast contributions to our culture and our economy. It is wrong to imply that the Los Angeles riots were an inevitable outcome of our diversified society. ”

“ I believe that the Bush Administration's empowerment agenda will help the poor gain that power, by creating opportunity, and letting people make the choices that free citizens must make. Though our hearts have been pained by the events in Los Angeles, we should take this tragedy as an opportunity for self-examination and progress. ”

“ We can start by dismantling a welfare system that encourages dependency and subsidizes broken families. We can attach conditions such as school attendance or work to welfare. We can limit the time a recipient gets benefits. ”

“ If we lived more thoroughly by these values, we would live in a better society. For the poor, renewing these values will give people the strength to help themselves by acquiring the tools to achieve self-sufficiency, a good education, job training, and property. ”

“ Even though our cultural leaders in Hollywood, network TV and the national newspapers routinely jeer at them, I think that most of us in this room know that some things are good and other things are wrong. ”

“ One reason I believe we won't fail is that we have come so far in the last twenty-five years. There is no question that this country has had a terrible problem with race and racism. The evil of slavery has left a long legacy. ”

“ But we have faced racism squarely, and we have made progress in the past quarter of a century. With landmark civil rights bills of the 1960s, we removed legal barriers to allow full participation by blacks in the economic, social, and political life of the nation. ”

“ Safety is absolutely necessary, but it's not sufficient. Our urban strategy is to empower the poor by giving them control over their lives. To do that, our urban agenda included fully funding the Home Ownership and Opportunity for People Everywhere program. ”

“ Black men and women have achieved real political power. Black mayors head forty-eight of our largest cities, including Los Angeles. These are achievements. These are real achievements, but as we all know, there's another side to that bright landscape. ”

“ It is a group whose members are dependent on welfare for very long stretches, and whose men are often drawn into lives of crime. There is far too little upward mobility, because the underclass is disconnected from the rules of American society. And these problems have, unfortunately, been particularly acute for black Americans.
In 1967, 68 percent of black families were headed by married couples. In 1991, only 48 percent of black families were headed by both a husband and wife. In 1965, the illegitimacy rate among black families was 28 percent. ”

“ We also announced a manufacturing technology initiative that will allow American engineers to gain experience working in Japanese businesses. Japan and the United States are allies and partners. Though we have our differences, especially in the area of trade, our two countries – with 40% of the world's GNP – are committed to a global partnership in behalf of peace and economic growth. ”