While he was criticizing Obama for caving in on social program cuts, Bill Boyarsky makes an excellent point about the use of the word "entitlement".
“Entitlement” is a misleading word because it masks the ugly reality of reducing medical aid for the poor, the disabled and anyone over 65 as well as cutting Social Security. Calling such programs entitlements is much more comfortable than describing them as what they are—Medicare, Social Security and money for good schools, unemployment insurance, medical research and public works construction that would put many thousands to work.
It’s also a Republican word. It implies that those receiving government aid have a sense of entitlement, that they’re getting something for nothing. And now it’s an Obama word as he moves toward the center and away from the progressives who powered his 2008 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination over centrist Hillary Clinton.
A problem for Democrats is that we do not have a specific set of words or phrases that can help us advance our progressive agenda. Instead, we uncritically adopt words and phrases such as "tort reform", "education reform" and "entitlements"; not realizing that these words have an inherit right wing bias attached to them. More importantly, these phrases are too abstract, and that makes it easier for our opponents to push their conservative agenda. I make the same mistake too in using those same words to define current issues because I don't have an alternative set.
I know there are some people that think this is just being PC and the words you used to describe your arguments our irrelevant. But the more I think about this, the more I come to realize that the types of words you used can influence the perception of that issue. It's easy for people to support cuts to social programs when the issue is framed as cutting "government spending". But when cutting government spending is framed as cutting medicare or social security, suddenly people get nervous about doing that.
So I propose we abandoned the word "entitlement" when describing Social Security or Medicare. I'll have write more posts on this subject to come up with a better phrase, but I argue that we should replace the phrase "entitlement reform" with something else. I read an old political science book about neoliberalism in South America, and it define left wing economic ideas as "Economic Security" policies. As in, policies that promote economic security. I like that phrase so I'll adopt it until otherwise.
Note: this item is from my personal blog: http://2moneythoughts.wordpress.com/