There they go, again!
For the past three years an invidious word has been slowly reemerging in the Republican vocabulary - entitlement. The word appeared on several talk shows this past weekend, spewing from the mouths of Republican candidates, and their pundits.
As someone who has repeatedly seen words used to misinform and distort the public dialogue, and as a retired person whose private pension was wiped out by corporate shenanigans, this particular word is striking fear into my heart.
Social Security Insurance is being increasingly referred to as "an entitlement" by Republicans every time they can get their hands on a public microphone. Use of the word entitlement carefully links the SS Insurance program in the mind of the public, to "just another form of welfare".
"Entitlement" is the word that was used to destroy welfare assistance for the most needy in our society. "Entitlement" is the word used to imply a wasteful program that supports the undeserving with the hard earned cash of the worthy. Calling SS Insurance an entitlement program implies that retired citizens are taking money from others that they neither earned, nor deserve.
Casting SS Insurance as an "entitlement" program paves the way for its dismantling in the name of Grover Norquist's fiscal principals, and moving "privatized" retirement funds to Wall Street. The money changers will love this. It promises huge profits for the portfolio managers, and a throw of the market dice for retirees. It also promises big time fun for everyone dependent on whatever the current market value of their investments may be for the income they need for food, rent, and over priced medicines, (yet another gift of the Republican Congress).
I paid for an SS Insurance policy for over 50 years. My employer matched my paycheck withholding. You may have paid for this insurance policy for 5 years, or 10, or 30, but make no mistake if Republicans are allowed to frame SS Insurance as an "entitlement" your retirement insurance is at risk.
The Federal Government withheld this insurance payment with the promise that the funds would be invested in bonds and the accrued interest would be repaid after I retired, guaranteeing me a base income regardless of market fluctuations and economic upheaval. I was given no voice in the development of this insurance plan, and the monthly payment was taken from my earnings before I received my pay. I was assured that it was in my best interest.
The one element in this equation that the Republicans seem determined to overlook is that it's my money, damn it! Not an "entitlement" graciously allowed by Federal largess.
The contract developed by the government promised that my SS retirement insurance would be increased by careful management at the Federal level.
Careful management?
For decades the Congress has raided the SS Insurance fund to support every hair-brained, pie in the sky, foolishness that a self-serving politician could dream up. Now the demographics are catching up with them and the SS Insurance fund is depleted. This is, of course, the only insurance plan in the world that is allowed to spend its capital without maintaining a sufficient sum to meet its obligations.
The Bush administration is systematically destroying every social safety net the Federal government has developed during the past 70 years, by huge tax give-backs to the wealthy while increasing Federal spending to the point where dismantling whole agencies will seem to offer the only solution for a return to fiscal sanity.
For over 70 years it has been the avowed purpose of the Conservatives to dismantle SS Insurance. They have nearly succeeded. Now they want to distort the language to make protests against this violation of trust seem to be the plea of the unworthy. It is after all, just another "entitlement" program.
Words have power. This creeping denigration of the system designed to protect the retired and elderly, by using the word entitlement, is simply the latest manipulation of truth by the right-wing propaganda machine that we call our government.
Let's keep reminding them that Social Security is an INSURANCE program! We must not let them frame Social Security Insurance as an "entitlement".