Do you recall when everybody was talking about the baby boomers retiring?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

I do.

A massive wave of people are entering retirement right now.

And how are Republicans reacting? Well, apart from waking in a cold sweat over America becoming a "welfare state" they are railing about a "sense of entitlement" and saying moochers don't have a right to food.

[img][/img]

[B Calm]

1. I got news for them, they can call

Social Security a sense of entitlement, because that's exactly what it is! I paid into it my entire damn life, and damn right I feel like I'm entitled to it!

[Sherman A1]

2. Precisely

I completely agree, those that paid in are indeed entitled to the benefits.

[tavalon]

3. Even those who didn't

But I'm just like that, being a socialist and all. And unlike Obama, I really am a hardcore socialist.

[B Calm]

5. They roll the word entitlement off their

nasty tongues like it's a bad word. They did that with the word liberal too. They can all go to hell!

[jtuck004]

6. But we are entitled. Our veterans are entitled to care and our gratitude, we are entitled

to have an education system that educates our kids and adults so they can thrive, we are entitled not to have people starving in the streets, or hoarding pennies so they can bury their family, to invest in a fire department and police to keep most of us safe. There's a lot of things we decided to invest in, because we thought, correctly, that we are entitled to their benefits.

Imho, we are also entitled to a president who doesn't act like a rich a$$hole.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

23. Even housewives who have never worked outside the home are able to get benefits.

Not to mention the survivors benefits and disability benefits.

I know somebody who fell off a cliff when he was 10 years old and the fall shattered his legs and bent his legs sideways at the knees. He spent six months in traction and had multiple reconstructive surgeries during a time when most kids are out riding bikes. He's now in his 50s and is mentally like a child and has reoccurring problems. He has walked with a cane all his life and he gets mad because every time Republicans are in power he has to go in for a reevaluation to see if he is really disabled enough to not work at a job. He fears a time when some Right Wing doctor decides to cut off his only support.

[ProfessorGAC]

8. The Term "Entitlement" Has Been Hijacked

The perjorative would be a "misplaced sense of entitlement". You know, like what Silverspoon and Mittens have in common.

Entitlement is not a perjorative term, and the simplest way for our politicians to take it back is to keep reminding people that "entitlement" means that people ARE, IN FACT, entitled to it.
GAC

[freedom fighter jh]

17. Exactly

They need to look it up in a dictionary.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

22. It's not an "entitlement". It's one of the "benefits" of being an American.

It's been at the core of the American way of life. Work hard now and enjoy life later.

It's why Americans have put up with abusive working conditions and little vacation time. There's always been that lure that they will be able to retire some day and do all the things they never had the time for.

Republicans want us to feel guilty for expecting that.

[liberal N proud]

12. +10000

[Hubert Flottz]

4. If Bush had had his way, everyone on SS would have been wiped out

in the Wall Street Crash of 2008. I think that was the plan. Thank heaven it failed last time.

Bush was so busy raiding social security, that he was a week late finding out about Katrina.

[VWolf]

20. Do you remember the 2000 debates?

Al Gore kept talking about keeping SS in a "lockbox", and everyone on the right mocked him.

Assholes, all of them.

[jeaps]

7. Why yes, yes I do

I remember the Greenspan Commission. I remember the hike in SS tax to cover the looming wave of retirees. That's why when Dubya ran for president and started spouting off about how the budget surplus the Clinton administration left behind was our money and should be refunded to us in the form of tax cuts that he was putting future SS payments into jeopardy. That surplus was supposed to pay down the national debt so we wouldn't be in this mess right now. I remember the very same Greenspan talking about the dangers of paying off the national debt without a mention of the retirement wave. I remember the naysayers dissing the "tax and spend" liberals because if there was a government surplus they would surely come up with a new program to spend it. Yet, here it was the Republicans that found a way to funnel that surplus to the 1%, while trying to sell us the snake oil of privatizing SS.

[woo me with science]

11. "I remember the hike in SS tax to cover the looming wave of retirees."

Thank you.

They increased the amount going in, so they could steal it.

[Cosmocat]

13. That just pisses me off to no end ...

This is SPOT on accurate.

The same sanctimonious jackasses screaming about the debt now where spewing the exact bullshit you just posted then to get Bush elected.

I make these points regularly.

Just makes me want to pull my hair out, and of course, the "liberal media" just goes along for the ride and legitimizes their BS of the day nonsense.

[socialist_n_TN]

18. Yep, I remember that too.........

We were the first generation in the SS system that were taxed, not only for our parents, but for ourselves too. What happened to that money again? This is the time we were taxed extra for. So what happened to that money again?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

25. "So what happened to that money again?"

It's there. Republicans want you to believe it's not.

One of the things they say is the money is in the form of IOUs. Well, those IOUs are actually Treasury Bonds which are traded on the bond market every day and are highly valued worldwide. See, there's a law that says elected officials are prohibited from bad mouthing US bonds otherwise they would claim those bonds are worthless. They can't do that so they call them IOUs to make them sound like little slips of paper. When you have a chance, make one of these bastards admit those IOUs are Treasury Bonds.

BTW: Much of the increase in the National Debt was caused by investors moving their money out of the Stock Market and into the Bond Market. Republicans want those people to fear they will lose their money if they don't hand it back over to Wall Street so they keep saying America can't pay off its debts and do all they can to run up that debt.

[tclambert]

9. "Retire and get PAID for NO WORK? Turning 65 is a poor excuse for picking a man's pocket!"

That's my impression of modern day Ebenezer Scrooge. The Scrooges of our world don't think it's fair to pay workers who no longer work, and they see all that Social Security money as an opportunity for themselves, if they could only find a way to get hold of it. As for all those old people who worked their whole lives, well, if they're too old to work and would die of starvation without Social Security, "Then let them die and decrease the surplus population."

[King_Klonopin]

10. The rigged system

As it stands right now, the only baby boomers who are
going to be able to afford retirement are those who have
had enough expendable cash to put it into IRA's and other
investments that weren't destroyed by the "crashes" --
and whatever "crashes" are yet to come. The first in
line will stand a better chance of being able to retire in
their 60's.

I was born in 1959, so I expect to get the shaft along with
most who follow.

The average, working Joe's will have S.S. income, but it will
amount to a piss hole in the snow in ten years. Our IRA's have
been decimated too many times to reach high enough returns
on principal we invested. Our pensions have been looted.
The value of our homes has been set back too far.

We will be working until we are 20 minutes away from dead.
Capitalism rewards the highest productivity at lowest costs, ya know.

[Cosmocat]

14. This actually is a good part of the entrenched unemployment that we now have

A lot of people simply are not retiring as early as they have in the past.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

26. Kucinich suggested lowering the retirement age to 50 to open up jobs for younger workers.

[Martin Eden]

15. Romney wants to redistribute your payroll taxes to the rich via tax cuts

It's pretty damn obvious.

The Republican platform is to lower the income tax rate on the rich, to be financed by chiseling away at "entitlements" which the majority of Americans paid for with payroll taxes their entire working lives.

It is REDISTRIBUTION, plain and simple, from the poor to the rich.

[quaker bill]

16. You actually want us to retire

Think of all the job openings we will leave behind.

[socialindependocrat]

19. Congress has a nerve to talk about ENTITLEMENTS?

Our ,e,bers of congress need to have the same benefits that the common pewople do.

They need to feel the effects of the changes that they make in their own pockets.

They need to work for their benefits.
They should get a portion of retirement benefits for each year they work.

Their health care benefits need to be just like everyone elses.
They need to have the deductables
They need to have the co-pays

They should get paid based on what they do.
You want to campaign - take the time without pay!
If you don't benefit the American people then I ain't payin' for it!

"Political Projection" - When elected officials accuse their constituents of their own faults.
Example: The Repukes accuse the American people of feeling entitled to benefits
it is said they don't deserve when the elected officials do nothing and
expect to get paid, they get health benefits above and beyond what the
people get and they get retiremnet benefits that are in excess of their
contributions while in office.

They need to feel the effects of the changes they make!

[madrchsod]

21. why that`s me they are talking about so...

i got a message for them....

fuck off republicans....

[porphyrian]

24. Yep. n/t