Social Security and Medicare are not entitlements

[antigop]

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/jasoneverettmiller/2009/01/social-security-and-medicare-a.php

Some may not have thought I had it in me, but I always planned to critique Barack's performance when necessary. It's become necessary. Riding home on the Metro tonight, I read a four-page article on the mobile New York Times latest news section. After a fairly standard opening paragraph, I got to this beauty of a quote:

"We expect that discussion around entitlements will be a part, a central part" of efforts to curb federal spending, Mr. Obama said at a news conference. By February, he said, "we will have more to say about how we're going to approach entitlement spending."

There is so much wrong with this sentence I hardly know where to start, so I will start with the obvious response that found its way into the title of this blog. Social Security and Medicare are promises, not entitlements. They are part and parcel of the societal compact we have crafted over 230 years of contest and compromise.

If anything, they are woefully underfunded. They need to be bigger. They need to be a Pension and Health Care System that lets all of us plan for and live a decent life. Properly managed, a pension and heath insurance system for 300 million can pretty much pay for itself. Lift the cap on Social Security contributions, set taxes back to what they were when Reagan left office and we can have both of those programs as far as the eye can dream.

Beyond the offending quote was the story itself.

Barack appointed a new Chief Performance Officer to implement his pledge to go through the budget line-by-line. I don't know anything about the woman he selected, but I assume she is perfectly qualified. However, in all four pages of this ridiculous story, there was not a single mention of the defense budget and agricultural subsidies and trade agreements and unaccountable government contractors or any one of a dozen ways to heal our economy before looking at Social Security and Medicare.

[HeraldSquare212]

1. Doesn't it just mean, you're entitled to receive them. Isn't that just the other side of a promise?

[Terran]

8. Yes

"Entitlement" is a perfectly good way to describe these programs, because *everyone* is entitled (i.e., has the right) to benefit from them.

[TahitiNut]

12. "Entitlement" means it's a creation of law ... like a TITLE to property.

My Social Security benefits are indeed an entitlement! I met the requisete legal standards and receive them accordingly. They're NOT 'rights' since they depend absolutely on legislation and the enforcment powers of a government for them to exist.

Entitlements are the creation of law, not nature, and the enforcement powers (police and military) of the state. Entitlements include title to real estate, title to motor vehicles, the title of King, Baron, Prince, and other titles.

[nashville_brook]

19. damn good explanation.

[county worker]

13. The way the right uses the word is wrong.

When the right uses the word entitlement they let their knuckle dragger minions think it means you are entitled to someone else's hard earned money.

[BrklynLiberal]

16. EXACTLY! The repukes have changed the connotation of the word, a

ploy they have used many times in the past. It is political linguistics.
Any negative meaning that is now associated with the word "entitlement" is a product of a conscious effort by those who are
using the language as a tool, exactly the way Frank Luntz has taught them. George Lakoff has tried to show the Democrats that they are not using language to frame the issues to our advantage.

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/06/06/con06234.html

Framing Versus Spin: Rockridge as opposed to Luntz

[SharonRB]

2. I've been saying forever that they need to lift the cap on SS

Problem solved!

[Lifetimedem]

9. Exactly

That would fund SS for generations to come

[indepat]

21. Ain't no way 'pukes are going to allow tomfoolery such as this because then

high income people might have to pay as high a percentage of their income to Uncle Sam as tens of millions of lower income people have been paying since the early days of the Gipper. Ain't no way 'pukes would allow such: betcha they would shut the government down before letting such tomfoolery and heresay as this to happen. :P

[Hydra]

3. We pay huge amounts of money into those programs

Not cool for Obama to be talking about funneling that money elsewhere.

[JuniperLea]

5. Yep

It's our money, it's not something we can stop paying into either. They have us by the short hairs on this one and it really stinks.

Like the IOU's some of us may be receiving instead of a state income tax return... I'm betting they won't allow me to STOP paying state income tax until we are even.

[OhioChick]

4. K&R

:kick:

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. If Obama adversely affects those programs, he's a one-termer.

[suston96]

7. They are insurance plans that we all pay into......

"The Social Security Trust Funds are the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund and the Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund. The OASI Trust Fund began in 1937; the DI Trust Fund in 1957. These trust funds are managed by the Department of the Treasury."

Read more and try the different links. Way too many people have no clue as to what Social Security and Medicare are.

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/funds.html

They are indeed a social contract, a sacred trust between the people and their government and any attempt to breach that contract, that sacred trust, will be dealt with severely by - Us, the People.

[county worker]

10. I do not understand why there is talk about SS & Medicare at all !

The funding from Medicare and Social Security comes from workers and their employers and has a specific intended use. It seems to me it should be in a fund that is untouchable except for it's intended use. It is not general tax revenue.

I've read where there is enough money in Social Security to pay current benefits till 2040. To make it more solvent, raise the tax rate and raise the cap and have a means test for benefits.


As far as Medicare goes, it is the start of a national health insurance plan. We need less defense spending and more Medicare spending. Talk about the deficit but leave SS & Medicare out of the discussion.

[sandnsea]

11. We're Entitled To Them BY LAW

That is why they're called Entitlements. It has nothing to do with a feeling.

[Deja Q]

18. AND because law says we MUST put money from our paychecks into them.

It's not an entitlement when it's our own money. Put in by ourselves.

This isn't welfare - you know, as the bumper sticker says, "corporate fathers blame welfare mothers".

[1776Forever]

Right on - Defense budget & agricultural subsidies & trade agreements & $$$ Gov contracts!

Kick it UP!!!

:kick:

[southernyankeebelle]

14. Wow

Come Oct 11,2009 I will be eligible to apply for social security. I will be able to start collecting Jan 11, 2010. You have to be 3 months out from your birthday. My health is not the best. I have tried to apply earlier and I know I could get but I don't want to have to get a lawyer to fight what is rightfully mine. So I will wait. I will be 62 than. I won't be sorry to collect it. I earned every penny of it. Even if its only $600.00 it will help my family.

[Joanne98]

15. That's RIGHT! They aren't entitlements, they are insurance programs!

People paid into them their whole lives. Would you cancel people's life insurance? NO! If Washington needs money they can GET IT FROM THE EMPIRE BUDGET!

Another thing. George Bush cut taxes for the RICH then funded his WARS with SS monies. BUSH NEEDS TO GO TO JAIL! He's a THIEF!

[Deja Q]

17. So one is not entitled to the money they put into the system?

I know people were expecting change, but that tidbit didn't cross their minds...

[slipslidingaway]

20. Last paragraph is spot on, also Dean Baker on entitlements...

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/7/obama_warns_trillion_dollar_deficit_could

DEAN BAKER:

"...On the other issues, the entitlements, absolutely, we don’t need to cut entitlements. Social Security, we’ve paid for. Anyone who talks about Social Security, we’re basically defaulting on bonds held by the Social Security Trust Fund. If we think we have to default on bonds, let’s default on the US government debt more generally. I really don’t understand why we should default on the bonds held by workers, but not on the bonds held by Citibank. So, you know, that’s kind of ridiculous. The real problem with entitlements, as, you know, everyone really knows who’s looked at it, is healthcare, our healthcare system, because if we fixed our healthcare system, we don’t have an entitlements problem. So, we should be talking about fixing the healthcare system. Then we could tell Larry Summers we don’t have to worry about entitlements. He knows the numbers as well as anyone, and that’s really just garbage to talk about entitlements..."