Why is a program we have all invested in considered an entitlement....

The use of the word Entitlement is loaded with regal and therefor negative connotation.

Shouldn't Social Security and Medicare be considered a public investment program?

Really, if you want to know who has a sense of Entitlement, look at those precious, soft skinned privileged few populating the top 1%. These are the folks who have a deep sense of entitlement. After all, they firmly believe without their knowledge and wisdom and investment prowess, where would the rest of us poor schleps be...

If that isn't a sense of entitlement, I surely don't know what is...

It does sound so negative, doesn't it?

In fact, there are certain things one is entitled to as a member of a society. "Title" to something is the right to it; an entitlement is a right, I think it's just that in the US there is reluctance to talk about anything being a right outside of those old 18th century ones that are all about the government not being the boss of you, so these are called something else instead.

So it isn't an inherently negative term and I'm sure it didn't start out that way, it has just acquired that connotation as the idea that people are entitled to anything at all as members of their society has fallen into disrepute in the US.

In Canada, we call these things the "social safety net". You're welcome to borrow!

should be for the wall street houses that want to clean out everyone's retirement accounts on a regular basis - as they already have for those held privately. It is impossible to get their hands on it the way it is now with Social Security.
They are salivating at the thought of getting their hands on all of that.

A "sense of entitlement" is quite different from a legal entitlement, also known as a right. A sense of entitlement is a misplaced or misconstrued belief that one is owed or owns something, a symptom of narcissism. A legal entitlement is a legal right to something, in the case of social security and medicare, that right is based on an obligation to pay taxes specifically allocated toward funding these programs. The rw spin masters work hard at clever word play to confuse and manipulate the people. Our side works hard at explaining the minutia of policies that benefit an increasingly befuddled and hostile populace. Wonder why we are losing?

to what before were neutral and descriptive words.

Their strategy is always to muddy the waters and confuse people.

They make wild assertions on the cable shows, and Dems have to spend most of their cable air time explaining why what the Republicans said is not true,

It is a pretty effective strategy.

Every interview has to begin with Dems doing a minute rebuttal. By the time they are done with that, the host says "Sorry we are out of time."

"Entitled, you are damn right I'm entitled to something I've paid into for my whole life".

If anything we should top them and call it obligatory spending.

I have been paying in since I was 16.

By letting them set the terms that we use to discuss our investments, we have allowed ourselves to be out-flanked.

We are way overdue to change that.

Should I not be able to opt out if I want to?

e.g. AFDC, food stamps, and Section 8 housing subsidies.

I know my usage is not necessarily correct, but that's how I use it. I call unemployment insurance a compulsory insurance plan, and Social Security a compulsory savings plan.

so stop doing that.

For one kind you pay in and get money out later, for the other everyone pays in based on ability and people are paid out based on need.

Warren, would it piss you off if I labeled the view that there is no difference as "left-wing framing?"

You put in labor, you get money out later, to which you are in fact entitled, need it or not. Would you agree to 'need based' payment of your salary, or are you entitled to what is agreed?
Words have defined meanings for a good reason.

HTH

to have access to them. Even if you qualify, your state can turn down your application. The reforms of 1996 made it that way.

AFDC (now TANF) USED to be an entitlement program. If you were poor enough and had qualifying children, you were guaranteed help by the federal government. That is no longer the case. TANF, Food Stamps, Medicaid, WIC...NONE of those programs are guaranteed to anyone anymore.

And that's the biggest difference between Social Security and welfare programs. You are guaranteed to get Social Security if you qualify for it. You are ENTITLED to it. That is not true for welfare.

middleclass.

:cry:

I think you are projecting your feelings onto me.

more like "progressives" and include ALL in their priorities, rather than just the muddleclass?

... they paid for them.

Why that word has become a bad thing is beyond me.

I started when I was 14, had to get a special work permit to bus tables in the place where my mom worked.

So, if I retire at 67 I will have been paying for 53 years...thats an 'entitlement'??

Fuck the bastards, I'm gonna get my money back one way or another.

I am now collecting, and I believe I am entitled to it.

It is the way those who have raided th Social Security Trust Fund. It is they who have made the word nasty.

But the main point I am trying to make is that you wouldn't call the pension fund you paid into as a entitlement. You would look at it as an investment.

part of it is kept uncontroversial.

That is stoking a class war.... between two classes, poor and middleclass, who SHOULD be unifying and fighting this together.

As long as the middleclass keep distancing us, the upper class is winning.

(especially a right to benefits)". It has nothing to do with who is funding the program. Social Security is, in fact, an entitlement.

To quote the great EstimatedProphet:

Of course it's an entitlement. BUT THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ENTITLEMENTS

Idiot teabillies think that SS is a tax. They think this because they are stupid. People pay into SS, and it is no different than a 401K - with 1 exception: it's safer. However, it's far from an entitlement the way they think of an entitlement, as money that gets taken from them and given to those dirty neegras and messicans. But, as I said before, they think that because they are stupid.

Social Security is, by definition, an entitlement

:hi:

meaning we are more than entitled which merely means qualified for. This is an earned benefit.

the word entitlement and made it mean something it does not. We ARE entitled to Social Security and Medicare because we PAID for it.

How did entitlement become a dirty word?

vilifying it is to find a term that is derogatory and repeating it a billion times until the masses link the two.

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It's all they are good at....besides fucking up things for the average american

Unless we change the term, and QUICKLY, "entitlement" will become the new "liberal", and it's well on its way.

We can argue back and forth, but we are dealing with Lee Atwater disciples who can and will use our own terms against us.

Is it Orwellian? Absolutely. But instead of arguing how unfair and unjust it is, let's fight them employing their own tactics.

I propose the Medicare and Social Security "Dividend". Corporate-speak? Sure, but that's all Righty understands.

Oasis

repug catch phrases. I dont know how to change that. I do my small part.