Social Security and Medicare Reform: Taking on "dirty, wasteful users of government entitlements"

[Better Believe It]

Entitlement Reform: The Real Language of Hatred
By Donna Smith
Donna Smith is a national single-payer healthcare advocate and community organizer with the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee
March 24, 2010

While we might want to get angry about language and ugliness surfacing during the national discussion of the health insurance reform bill just signed into law, the real nasty language dripping with contempt and loathing for the unwashed masses of America is the language of “entitlement reform.” Just as supposedly more patriotic, profit-loving, pro-corporate power and free market junkies have effectively strangled the discussion of real health reform and delivered a very nice package of bennies to the medical-industrial complex, the same power brokers are already well underway in framing the discussion of all other government programs that benefit millions of Americans, like Social Security and traditional Medicare.

Listen up to how they say the word. Entitlements. The word itself is already infused with negative connotations. So much so that Democrats who want to reassure the right wing of the nation that they are fiscally responsible are using the word with the same sort of negativity and sting that the Republicans used to own almost exclusively. Government entitlements. Oooh. That’s even scarier. The word “entitlement” has become synonymous with receiving something one does not deserve – a handout not earned or worse, something a person who didn’t work hard enough gets at the expense of the “rest of us.”

But as the 111th Congress wraps up its work on the health insurance reform bill and the reconciliation effort, we’ll now hear a ramping up of the language to convince us that we’re going to attack the fraud and waste in “entitlements.” That’s code for calling those who avail themselves of Social Security benefits and Medicare benefits somehow undeserving or worse – somehow dirty and lazy and wasteful users of government-funded entitlements. For shame, for shame. Never mind that many of the same people who would begrudge you and me our entitlements don’t mind a bit accepting theirs via direct deposit every single month.

Entitlements. Government entitlements. Great big government entitlements. Of course they are coming after Social Security and Medicare next. All of them. Republicans love to shout about the dangers of entitlements but when really confronted by seniors and constituents on government benefits they will then deny they would end the programs all together if given the chance; and Democrats claim to be the creators and the defenders of the programs but then fail to actually protect and strengthen them. And our highest serving Democrat is taking a more direct aim at those entitlements.

This is ugly stuff, to be sure. But it’s not being sold in a very straightforward way. Imagine that.

From the White House website:

In the Executive Order creating the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform: “The Commission shall propose recommendations that meaningfully improve the long-run fiscal outlook, including changes to address the growth of entitlement spending and the gap between the projected revenues and expenditures of the Federal Government.” So, off we go, fellow Americans. If you wrongly thought that paying into Social Security for decades was protection against poverty and a pension-free retirement no matter what twists and turns private pension plans have seen and if you wrongly thought your payment of Medicare premiums and taxes was protection from wanting for medical care or bankrupting yourself as a senior or in the event of severe disability, you are about to watch some pretty fancy footwork combined with offensive language making your hard work and reliance on these tried and true programs seem like you are nothing short of an irresponsible slug who ought to have had the good sense and money to not rely on your government for social insurance.

And losing Social Security and Medicare protections and benefits is a game none of us wants to play. The language of hatred includes the word “entitlement.” We need to stop that hateful talk while we can.

Read the full article at:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/entitlement-reform-real-language-hatred

[virgogal]

1. I'm a senior on SS and Medicare and all of this frightens me. I'll be

gone before any great changes but I fear for my kids and grandkids.

[Better Believe It]

2. They are the main targets and we must help protect and defend them.

[Foo Fighter]

6. No, no. You have it all wrong.

Obviously you didn't get the memo. Anyone and everyone collecting SS and/or Medicare now or in the future is nothing but a parasite on society. They need to learn to carry their own weight, you know, pick themselves up by their bootstraps and all that.

Of course, by gutting SS and Medicare, there's the added bonus that that will "prove" that the government is incapable of running these programs. The answer, of course, is to privatize them. Bush tried it with SS but was unsuccessful. With the creation of the commission to look into "entitlement reform," (not to mention the appointment of Alan Simpson to the commission) Obama intends to come to the rescue and take care of Dubya's unfinished business. Bush's third term indeed.


Note to self: look into really cheap countries to retire to. Between HCR and the inevitable gutting of SS and Medicare, being able to afford to retire in this country is nothing but a pipe dream. I hear Costa Rica is nice.

[SoCalNative]

3. If the really want to take on "dirty, wasteful users of government entitlements"

then they need to take keep those who do not need to collect SS and medicare benefits due to their unbridled wealth.

Cut off the millionaires and billionaires collecting these "entitlements' and give it to those who really need the funds.

[slipslidingaway]

4. knr n/t

[Foo Fighter]

5. Excellent article.

"The word “entitlement” has become synonymous with receiving something one does not deserve – a handout not earned or worse, something a person who didn’t work hard enough gets at the expense of the “rest of us.” "

And that, in a nutshell, is how they intend to spin this in order to convince people that "entitlements" are a bad thing. Instead of being seen as money that the taxpayer has paid in that is being rightfully returned to him/her, they try to imply that anyone collecting SS and/or Medicare is nothing more than a parasite feeding at the public trough. The way the top .01% see it, any and all money collected from the poor and working class should rightfully go to them. After all, it works that way for all the other money the government collects. Why should SS and Medicare be any different?

And the bought-and-paid-for bastards in DC fall all over themselves to agree with them. I predict that "entitlement reform" will not end well for 99.9% of us.

Awhile back, someone had posted a graph that depicted why this was coming to a head now. IIRC, the graph had two lines, one of which showed SS payouts and the other line was...maybe tax revenues? At any rate, it showed clearly that the tax cuts to the rich (which were funded by money that was supposed to go to SS) vs SS payouts were coming to a head NOW. Needless to say, that doesn't bode well because hey, we all know that given the choice of making the rich actually pay taxes or screwing over the poor and working class, the PTB will choose the latter every time. If anyone recalls that chart, please feel free to post it as I lost the link. TIA if anyone manages to dig up the chart.

[leftstreet]

7. The Republicans could NEVER have gotten away with this

K&R

[amborin]

8. Social Security "reform" is next!

[Better Believe It]

11. Along with Medicare

Alan Simpson: “How did we get to a point where you get to a certain age in life, regardless of net worth or income, and you’re ‘entitled’? The word itself is killing us.”

Alan Simpson is the co-chair of President Obama's deficit cutting commission.

[Nikki Stone1]

9. Here we go....Now that the health insurance plan has passed, Medicare will be slowly

transferred into it. That's why they needed a whole new infrastructure.

[Better Believe It]

10. Alan Greenspan: "you have to cut benefits"

Social Security payout to exceed pay-in this year
Payments have risen more than expected during the downturn, official says
By Mary Williams Walsh
March 24, 2010

The bursting of the real estate bubble and the ensuing recession have hammered jobs, home prices and now Social Security.

This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, said that while the Congressional projection would probably be borne out, the change would have no effect on benefits in 2010 and retirees would keep receiving their checks as usual.

The problem, he said, is that payments have risen more than expected during the downturn, because jobs disappeared and people applied for benefits sooner than they had planned. At the same time, the program’s revenue has fallen sharply, because millions of jobs have disappeared, leaving fewer paychecks to tax.

Analysts have long tried to predict the year when Social Security would pay out more than it took in because they view it as a tipping point — the first step of a long, slow march to insolvency, unless Congress strengthens the program’s finances.

“When the level of the trust fund gets to zero, you have to cut benefits,” Alan Greenspan, architect of the plan to rescue the Social Security program the last time it got into trouble, in the early 1980s, said on Wednesday.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36028908/ns/business-the_new_york_times

[joe black]

12. Barrak Obama meet Gordon Gekko.

I'm a year away from SS and they're going to pull the rug out from under me. Nice going guys. I hope the government has the 3000,000 dollar check ready for me because that's what they owe me after 44 years in the work place. But I won't hold my breath.