Entitlement Programs: Killing a Myth

[Lyric]

I've seen some confusion here recently about what "entitlement program" means. It saddens me greatly that the right-wing has been SO successful at demonizing the word "entitlement," because there really isn't anything sinister about it.

An ""entitlement program" in our government is simply this: a program that the government is legally required to pay for. All "entitlement" means here is that the government can't just arbitrarily decide that it won't fund or pay for Social Security this year. Entitlement programs are GOOD, because they represent a contract between government and the people that cannot be broken on a political whim; it takes an act of Congress to reduce funding for an entitlement program. Unlike most other government programs, entitlements CANNOT be manipulated or held hostage via the budget process. They are "safe" from partisan bickering in a way that other programs are not. Social Security and Medicare are entitlements.

Some people get panicky when they hear Social Security and Medicaid referred to as "entitlement programs," and they automatically assume that "entitlement" means "welfare," but it doesn't. It just means that the government has to pay for them, whether it wants to or not, because the government and the people have a contract that cannot be broken without an Act of Congress.

Welfare, on the other hand, is NOT an entitlement program. It used to be before the 1996 reforms, but thanks (in small part) to the way that Republicans managed to slander the word "entitlement" and confuse it in our minds with the common, pejorative use of "entitlement" (as in, "He has an entitlement complex"), and (in large part) to the way that the poor were demonized and slandered by the greedy right-wing (Reagan's mythical "welfare queens," etc.), our Congress stripped away welfare's entitlement status. Congress gave the states the right to set their own welfare "rules," and NO person is guaranteed help now. Before the 1996 reforms, AFDC was a promise made to the poor families with children in America, just like Social Security is a promise made to the elderly. As it stands now, welfare exists only so long as Congress and the states fund it.

With TANF replacing AFDC, we no longer promise the poor that their children deserve a basic level of support. TANF is a (VERY) grudging handout, not a promise, and it can be taken away whenever the government chooses to do so. The biggest and most tragic effect of welfare reform was this: we allowed the government to give itself permission to cease welfare when it decides to do so, and we removed the only guaranteed social safety net that the poor of America had.

So yes, Social Security IS an entitlement program. No, that DOESN'T mean welfare. But if we had any compassion left as a society, we'd be clamoring to restore welfare's entitlement status, too. A society that can't be bothered to make such a basic, humane promise of bare support to its poorest children is a society that is sick all the way down to the place where its heart used to be.

[Zoeisright]

1. That isn't a myth. It's LIE.

Started by the fucking pig Reagan, who I hope is burning in hell.

[Lyric]

2. Oh Reagan definitely did his part, but the right-wing as a whole

shares a lot of responsibility for the confusion too, along with the complacent DINO left.

[SouthernLiberal]

3. Republicans are masters at this

And oh, how I wish that liberal Democrats could master the technique!

Just like the current health care debate. I have never heard a Republican or tea-partier argue against health care reform on the merit. For example, you never hear anyone argue that it's a good thing that people will stay in a job they hate, rather than switching to one they would love, because the benefits are better at the bad job.

What you do hear are cries of 'Socialized Medicine!'

And that's all they need. They have given real reform an ugly name, and that's that.

[Lyric]

4. Yep. It's a semantics process.

First, you lay the groundwork by picking out a vague word (like "entitlement" or "welfare" or "socialism") and demonizing the hell out of it with lies and propaganda. Then you move to attack all government functions that might relate to the demonized word, making sure to associate it firmly with Bad Things. Then you start poking Congress to "reform", and scaring the hell out of their constituents by tossing around the newly-redefined buzzword of choice. Then you destroy another American safety net.

1-2-3, easy as pie. Sickening, isn't it? And we see the results even HERE, where people are much more aware of how manipulative the opposition can be. I see posts from people who are offended and pissed that Social Security is being referred to as an "entitlement," and I want to cry. It's so frustrating to fight the propaganda war, and even more so when we see that propaganda at work even in the community of the left(ish).

[Rhythm]

5. Yep... the art of the 'sound bite', rather than anything substantive...

The Repukes have become the master of this sort of deceptive dialogue. And unfortunately, too many people fall for it every time.

[izquierdista]

6. Entitled

That's the word you would hear loudest from those who would kill it. If you told the Tea Partiers you were going to cancel their Socialist Security payments, they all yell in unison "hell no! I paid into that for 40 years, I'm entitled to it!"