Time to set the political language straight. The word ‘entitlement’ has been turned inside-out as to its meaning. Many seem to think it is an epithet. I gather this is a mistake made largely on the right, but also by some on the left. It seems to be used to diminish the standing of such policies as medicare and social security. As in: these are simply ‘entitlements’ that the government has granted to citizens and therefore can take away or reduce. No. Those programs are entitlements in the correct sense of the term. We are ENTITLED to them as we have paid into those insurance programs over lifetimes on the expectation that our property (to which we have legal title) will protect us later in life. What they are NOT are fungible caches of cash with which the Congress can willy-nilly balance its tax cuts for the wealthy as it pleases. That is theft, and few of us misunderstand that term.Â
4 Replies to “On Entitlements”
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I am so delighted to see your blog!!! You have so much wisdom to share, as well as a terrific writing style and word usage that will inform and stimulate reflection for those who take the time to read your posts.
This is a great service to others, and I am grateful and proud that you decided to do this.
KEK
I agree wholeheartedly with every word of this, Kathy!
True of Medicare and Social Security, but those aren’t so controversial (though they certainly were at the time they came into being, by the same crowd that once opposed, say, the minimum wage, child labor laws, abolition, and now universal health coverage). Not true, though, of Medicaid, Temporary Aid to Needy Families, Food Stamps, and Section 8 housing. These are “entitlements” in the more technical sense that if you qualify, you are legally “entitled” to receive the benefits without need for an annual Congressional appropriation. The spending is mandated by statute. I’m not value-judging this, just defining it.
The real trouble is the unalterable mindset of the conservatives who make a cause celebre out of the lifestyle support programs into which working people pay taxes but from which most of them never receive benefits — i.e., TANF, Food Stamps, and Section 8 — without regard to facts. They believe their hard-earned money is being confiscated in the form of taxes to give as handouts to people who don’t want to work. And there’s no doubt there are some people like that, to whom I’m not in favor of giving my money either. But the fact is that the amounts involved are chump change.
The defense budget alone is 5 times the size of those three programs combined. And the vast majority of recipients are either elderly, disabled, or working but for such pitiful salaries that they still qualify for benefits. For those in that category, your tax dollars are in a sense subsidizing large corporations and corporate franchisees who won’t pay a living wage to their workers (as Social Security and Medicare subsidize retirees to whom they won’t pay pensions or health insurance). Raise the minimum wage so that workers are being paid by their employers instead of by taxpayers, anyone?
The bottom line is that somewhere south of 1 percent of federal tax dollars are going to support the chronically and voluntarily unemployed and underemployed. But conservatives just absolutely don’t want to hear this if you try and take them through the data. It’s too deflating to their anti-government, anti-tax, anti-poor mindset.
If there was a way to tighten up the eligibility standards to get those voluntarily unemployed people off of benefits and incentivize work better without throwing out the baby with the bath water, I’d favor it too. But it’s not so easy to define the criteria so precisely with large-scale programs, public or private sector as to sweep in everyone who’s deserving and filter out everyone who’s not. A small minority will always find ways to defraud or game the system (vendors and professionals as well as beneficiaries). Crack down on that as much as possible, yes. But as an affluent person, define your political philosophy around anger surrounding that less-than-one-cent on your tax dollar, no.
Just so, Steve! The problem I was addressing was the not-so-slick move to ‘stain’ the social insurance programs into which participants pay over lifetimes with the image of ‘handouts to the undeserving’ that you debunk well, as if Medicare and SS were government grants to Americans rather than benefits bought and paid for by working citizens.