Can we stop with the "Entitlement" crap?

[Rosco T.]

like it's a gimme or feebie that people get?

LAST TIME I LOOKED, we PAID money into Social Security/Medicare... it's insurance, we paid for it.

Ok, so maybe we are "Entitled" to it, because we PAID FOR IT.

[DURHAM D]

1. Amen.

Entitlements Now. Entitlements Then. Entitlements Forever.

[PDJane]

2. Neat statistics:

Here's a quick and fascinating breakdown by total amount held and percentage of total U.S. debt, according to Business Insider. I don't know how reliable they are, but I suspect they're on the mark. This is what I suspected, truthfully:

Hong Kong: $121.9 billion (0.9 percent)
Caribbean banking centers: $148.3 (1 percent)
Taiwan: $153.4 billion (1.1 percent)
Brazil: $211.4 billion (1.5 percent)
Oil exporting countries: $229.8 billion (1.6 percent)
Mutual funds: $300.5 billion (2 percent)
Commercial banks: $301.8 billion (2.1 percent)
State, local and federal retirement funds: $320.9 billion (2.2 percent)
Money market mutual funds: $337.7 billion (2.4 percent)
United Kingdom: $346.5 billion (2.4 percent)
Private pension funds: $504.7 billion (3.5 percent)
State and local governments: $506.1 billion (3.5 percent)
Japan: $912.4 billion (6.4 percent)
U.S. households: $959.4 billion (6.6 percent)
China: $1.16 trillion (8 percent)
The U.S. Treasury: $1.63 trillion (11.3 percent)
Social Security trust fund: $2.67 trillion (19 percent)

So America owes foreigners about $4.5 trillion in debt. But America owes America $9.8 trillion.

[hfojvt]

7. thanks, that is interesting

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Entitlement is the correct term. It's been twisted by the righties

to carry the implication that it's something people think they ought to be entitled to but really aren't. However, since we have already paid into these programs, we are, in fact, entitled to them. They are not welfare (another dirty word to the righties). I have no problem with SS and Medicare/Aid being called entitlements. They are annuity and/or insurance. I paid for it. I'm entitled to get it.

[damntexdem]

4. No. It would be better to stop with the disparagement of "entitlement."

Entitlement = something to which we are entitled. Such as SS and Medicare, into which we have paid. As you, yourself, stated.

[Lex]

5. thank you

[felix_numinous]

6. It is typical Orweillian,

to choose a word that represents the exact opposite. It is as if history has been scrubbed of all previous references and now these New Dems are in neo con lockstep, collectively using this NewSpeak to describe something once known as a social TRUST fund, taken out of our paychecks.

The neo con mentality is a dictatorship. They wish to eradicate anyone who remembers what the original version of history is so they can write their own version. Anything that feeds the war monster with our savings, lands and blood.

We have to get ourselves off this corporate grid somehow, stop paying to and fighting for them.

[JHB]

8. You can thank Ronald Reagan for your saying that...

...because it was back then that Republicans started that bait-and-switch terminology: welfare was a nasty "entitlement" (but so was SS and Medicare), and just look at how much we're spending on entitlements! (show huge chunk of budget pie chart, without mentioning that figure includes SS and Medicare).

Now they're turning the tables to attack SS and Medicare. Call them on their crap, don't feed into it.

[dionysus]

9. do you not know the definition of the word? those program are entitlements.

i don't give a shit if RWers don't like the word, that's what they are...

[Atypical Liberal]

10. No, I like "entitlement".

As I tell my extremely conservative mother, "Funny how everything is an entitlement until it is a government service you use."