When did people start calling them "entitlement" programs?

And why do Democrats go along with this blatantly, deliberately destructive meme?

It's not a destructive meme. It's the truth. Like any insurance, if you paid your premimums (SS taxes) you're entitled to the benefit.

Most people don't pay unemployment out of their check but it comes from their employer except for three states (last I checked) as an example...

inalienable Rights.

like paying insurance premiums. Therefore you are entitled to the benefits. There's nothing pejorative about the term "entitlement," which has been used for as long as I can remember. It accurately describes what these programs are.

I think of, for example, when the frequently controvrsial Father Pfleger stood up at Obama's church and criticized Hillary Clinton for allegedly feeling "entitled" to the presidency.

"'But I'm white! I'm entitled!"' He shouted, trying to mock her.

Of course, he wanted attention, and was full of crap.

a certain type of program is classified as entitlements.

just as did :

democRAT
clean coal
compassionate conservatives
family values
christian values

and too many others to list..


When said often enough, especially with a hard edge and a sneer, it works... and because no one on the left counters it, it becomes the default..

SS is not welfare.

Given to programs/services that citizens are entitled to receive by law.

They are called entitlements because the people who pay into them are entitled to the benefits they provide. If you pay the dues to join the Country Club you are entitled to use the golf course. So the real question is when did the word entitlement take on a new meaning and who caused that to happen?

Right about the time they stopped calling it America and styarted calling it The Homeland, and right about when we stopped being The People and started being The Folks. Right around 2000, when the bloodless coup happened. You know, the invisible one we can only feel and never talk about.

Reagan and the Democrats are following right along.

Get a grip.

You didn't even come close. Read it again. Thanks for playing.

That's when the first measures were enacted.

Why would you consider it a "blatantly, deliberately destructive meme", to call something by it's legal name?

Conservapedia defines "Entitlement Mentality":

Support for wholesale expansion of government social programs as a cure-all for perceived "injustice."

An inability to accept that actions carry consequences. This can be seen in public schools, where grade inflation and social promotion have resulted in students who expect that they will be promoted to the next grade regardless of their level of effort.

Arrogantly assuming that privilege reflects on the merits of the individual in question. For example, someone who is fortunate enough to be born extremely intelligent might arrogantly assume that that intelligence is an achievement on his part.

Increased dependency on government intervention, and an expectation that the government will intervene to solve personal problems. Upon losing a job, for instance, someone with an entitlement mentality is likely to turn to the government for handouts, rather than immediately seeking another job.

There's more tripe at the link below. I only posted some of the "definition".

http://www.conservapedia.com/Entitlement_mentality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entitlement

"An entitlement is a guarantee of access to benefits based on established rights or by legislation. A "right" is itself an entitlement associated with a moral or social principle, such that an "entitlement" is a provision made in accordance with legal framework of a society. Typically, entitlements are laws based on concepts of principle ("rights") which are themselves based in concepts of social equality or enfranchisement.
In a casual sense, the term "entitlement" refers to a notion or belief that one (or oneself) is deserving of some particular reward or benefit<1>—if given without deeper legal or principled cause, the term is often given with pejorative connotation (e.g. a "sense of entitlement")."

the source for being, what, full of shit? That's the point. Here's yet more RW horseshit about "entitlements" from Forbes blog.

Bursting The Defense Bubble: End The Entitlement Mentality
Apr. 30 2011 - 11:32 am | 2,878 views | 1 recommendation | 3 comments
Along with the growth in health care spending, growth in defense spending is one of the principal causes the alarming budget deficit of the U.S.

blablablabla...

http://blogs.forbes.com/stevedenning/2011/04/30/bursting-the-defense-bubble-end-the-entitlement-mentality/

Seriously.

In a casual sense, the term "entitlement" refers to a notion or belief that one (or oneself) is deserving of some particular reward or benefit<1>—if given without deeper legal or principled cause, the term is often given with pejorative connotation (e.g. a "sense of entitlement")."

These are Entitlements, and the RW smear is to try and complain that there is not a deeper legal/principled reason for them.

It's like ownership is bad for poor people.

It's conservatives and Republicans who have tried to turn it into a dirty word, hoping that Americans aren't smart enough to consult a dictionary.

http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OP_Home/ssact/title02/0226.htm

Note the language in this short excerpt: entitled, entitlement used repeatedly.

and NO, I'm NOT talking about SS Disability Insurance.

You can still find many sites on the web that refer to SS retiree benefits as Social Security Insurance.

Referring to SS as an entitlement is recent, and entirely pejorative, and pisses me off...

...almost as much as some of the responses in this thread.

It's how I learned what an "entitlement" was. When I got my SS card. I was 9, it was 1968.

If that's recent, well, I suddenly feel a lot younger.

It is still Social Security Insurance. Some referents have multiple ways of being referred to. Take my computer monitor. Or is it a computer screen? Or a display? An output device? Seriously, it can be only one, right? Is it flat-screen or liquid crystal? So confusing. So SS is insurance; it's an entitlement; it's a program; it's many things, depending how you look at it and what the context is.

Here's the problem. Follow the nuances and how they change.

An entitlement program is a program that has legally defined benefits that you're entitled to receive. Simple enough. SS is an entitlement program. It was called that back in the '60s. Wasn't around much before that, can't say what the options were for referring to it in the '50s and before. Then again, it expanded a few times in there, too.

However, SS is an entitlement program that people pay into and receive benefits from based upon participation. You aren't entitled to SS by virtue of breathing. There's no means test for it. You pay in, you get it. You may get far more than you pay in. Or not.

Medicare is also an entitlement program. Everybody qualifies at a certain age, I guess. I'm not there yet, my mother is.

Welfare is an entitlement program. So is Section 8 housing. If you qualify for them, you are entitled to receive them.

There's no stigma attached to SS or Medicare. There has usually been a stigma attached to welfare and the like. That was bad enough--there was an active push to de-stigmatize such entitlement programs. However, the stigma that attached to welfare and other services for the poor spread to the term "entitlement." That happens.

Languages have words that express disregard or contempt. If an object or ethnic group is despised or frowned upon, as we invent new, "neutral" words they become disparaging or taboo. Look at the long string of words for African-American, each going from neutral to a term of derision. The attitude towards the referent shifts to being the attitude towards the word. "Tar baby" is a term from Uncle Remus, originally intended as a good thing; now most blacks I know think it's a racist work and that "tar baby" can only refer to African-Americans. Words shift meanings. So welfare had a stigma; "welfare", the word and program, acquired a stigma; these are entitlement programs; therefore "entitlement program" becomes a kind of slur.

Along the way some recipients of temporary, need-based entitlements started thinking they were really entitled to them without regard to the conditions legally imposed. They unilaterally redefined them from a temporary aid to something they deserved. I've known parents who lied to get their kids free lunches at school--it was a right, even if the parents had gotten better jobs, and when they don't like the lunches provided they complain because, well, they *deserve* high quality free lunches. I've known single mothers in schools who refuse to use WIC money for formula for their infants in school day care, they feel they're entitled to having their kids fed by the schools and are entitled to use the WIC money intended for that food for anything they want. It's *their* money. The idea of restricting the use of money intended for feeding kids to food appropriate for kids sends them into a fit. This is abusing the system, and it just takes a few abusers to give the entire class of recipients a bad name, to make the idea of entitlement programs into a slur of sorts.

Still, in the social class I hang out in there's no sense of stigma in referring to SS and Medicare as "entitlements." The people know the meanings of the term and can discriminate the connotations by context.