Entitlements! Bankrupting the Country! Abusing the System! Freebies! Free Money! These are how the Republicans most often refer to Medicare, Social Security Disability, Medicaid, SNAP, The ACA, Section 8, WIC, and Planned Parenthood, Meals on Wheels, Unemployment Insurance, Black lung Fund, National Institute for Health, Workman Compensation, and National Endowment for the Arts. Just to name a few are classified "free money" Getting something for nothing" "Breaking the Government" "Encouraging laziness corruption" "Abusing the system". That’s their press statements. Even though they only make up less than 3% of any budget, They are the first to be highlighted and trashed as abused and ineffective. Now their starting it again and full tilt. It is "OUR" Tax money along with mandatory payroll deductions designed to Cover these, at least a good portion of them, basically prove the Morals of this Government are corrupt and out of whack with "WE THE PEOPLE"
When I was a boy, my Grandfather was my hero. He grew up during the "great Depression" as a share cropper’s son in a large family. By the time he was 13, he had watched both his parents die and his brothers and sisters scattered to the four winds. He dropped out of school and began working as farm labor for room and board. He survived a dark time in our history. He took his third grade education, and learned to drive semis and helped found the Teamsters Union, often violently resisting company goons paid to intimidate drivers to "fall in line."
It was a hard time that brought out the best and worst in him. He truly fought for the injustices faced by drivers of the time and became a Teamster State official helping his "brothers" get the rights they deserved. He drank like a fish for a long time too. This created all sorts of problems in his personal and family life. But being the hardcore man he was, he quit drinking to be the man he knew he could truly be. He was a proud Democrat. He truly thought America could do so much better for its people. He wasn’t religious. He believed in God, just not the one TV Preachers and Evangelist preached. He thought everybody, regardless of race or immigration status, deserved the same shot at the American Dream. He grew up in hard times and had some beliefs we would call "racist" by today’s standards. He believed we would never have a black president. That the races should never "mix" in marriage or love. He didn’t believe "black people" were evil or less than whites.
He never said they were lazy or deserved less than white people. He just thought people were too racially charged to ever put a black man in office, and people should stay within their own races and be proud of that. He supported civil rights, and people not being discriminated from jobs and schools. Everybody deserved their shot at the American dream, regardless. He liked the message of Dr. Martin Luther King. He believed Communism was the biggest threat to American Values. That Russia wanted to destabilize our beliefs. That we needed to always defend the underdogs in the world. He believed Nuclear weapons were a "necessary" evil and should never be used, ever. He put very little trust in politicians and even less in the "Washington Machine"
He often said the parties had blurred the lines over what they stood for and what they believed. He trusted science and intelligence. He worried about our futures and what they were leaving us. He backed social programs that helped people and helped them lift themselves from poverty. He hated abuse of the system and blamed Washington for keeping some people in poverty as a form of legal slavery. He didn’t blame the people for it, but the Government for "fixing" it that way.
A lot of my beliefs and ideas come from his teachings, though not all. He believed every generation was different and responsible for what it did for the next. Him and my grandmother "respected" the hippy movement and thought the war in Vietnam and the Draft were wrong on so many levels. They believed Johnson went against what Kennedy had wanted for the benefit of Arms manufacturers and oil companies. That Vietnam was war designed to enrich a few at the expense of the many. Not a good position for an older, democratic couple to have or take. They believed the draft was to create jobs by eliminating poor high school kids from the job market and benefiting the rich who, like Trump and Bannon and even Bill ORielly, got deferments to keep from going.
I loved them so much for their beliefs.
He would never have called any of those programs Entitlements, as they are deducted from our checks every week. He would have said if everyone is paying their fair share, these work fine. They do what they’re supposed to do. The Key is "everyone" paying their "fair share" He would be angry that rich folks are paying less and less, while the poor are expected to pay more and more.
Taxes used to be fair. They helped create the middle class. America grew in all areas. Poor folks; like Ben Carson’s family, did exactly what the programs were designed to do. Help raise them out of poverty and elevate themselves to a higher position. It worked mostly fine. The way it was designed, to help us during bad times to what we can achieve if the opportunity is available. Now we want to remove those programs because now the "rich pay less and less, get more and more, and we can’t help poor folks when we’re paying so much to keep the rich, rich. We change the wording and instead of calling them "assistance" or "temporary help" programs; we call them "entitlements" and "free money for nothing" or "a burden on taxpayers"
Don’t be fooled. Changing the wording is a way of influencing less intelligent voters into somehow think they are giving free money to people who are too lazy to work and want to get it free from taxpayers. A twisted lie. Stop giving our money to rich corporations and rich families. Let them reimburse America for their fortunes. We bailed out Wall Street. We bailed out the Banks. We bailed out the Auto manufacturers. We started giving money to companies to stay open; to ease their burdens. If they’re NOT paying taxes and getting money for nothing and now Trump and the Republicans want to give them EVEN MORE MONEY; who pays?
According to them, WE DO. What we used to call welfare, is now becoming the staple of the rich. They screw us over and make billions doing it, give them even more. We can’t afford meals on wheels, but we can afford to give Monsanto tax breaks to poison our air and water. Walmart can’t afford to carry insurance, but we give the Walls family billions for having stores in America while we cover their employees with food stamps, housing assistance and Medicaid. Taxes are held out of their employees pay, but used to let the Walls live their lifestyle. Oil companies, Car companies, Wall Street, Banks all get "free money" the poor pay for, yet SNAP is an "entitlement" "Section 8" is "free money for poor people" But billions to the Koch Brothers for NOTHING is not? "WIC" encourages people to be "lazy and sponge off the Government" yet we can spend millions for Trump to go to his country club almost every week end?
It seems to me, we can’t afford "corporate welfare" That these lazy Rich Republicans want to keep their entitlements that we're paying for, while removing programs that actually lift real people out of poverty. If it didn’t work, Ben Carson would be just another black man in the system, instead of a famous children’s brain surgeon. Barack Obama would never have been President.
When do we quit giving "corporate entitlements" to rich folks who pay less and less every year, and start making them "pay their fair share" for their part of the American Dream? When did helping the less fortunate become an entitlement, but giving free money to the rich is the"expense of doing business"?
When did greed become “good” and empathy towards the less fortunate become an entitlement and bad? Why are we paying for SS and Insurance and food stamps in our weekly checks, yet it’s being called an “entitlement” and we’re being denied it’s very use? Why are we (the poor and middle class) paying the BULK of all taxes collected, while the wealthy pay so little? According to Webster’s an "entitlement is a right to benefits specified especially by law or contract." Which by my understanding, is EXACTLY WHAT THE WEALTHIEST AMONG US ARE DOING! They want GOVERNMENT ENTITLEMENTS and ARE GETTING THEM; LEGALLY AND BY government policies!
Social programs are not entitlements as specific taxes are held to pay for a portion of those programs. Tax breaks for the wealthy, Credits paid for businesses to be in America, Business tax cuts on profits covered by laws are all forms of real entitlements. Getting money without paying for it or reimbursing it is a entitlement. Wealthy people are wanting and getting legally passed entitlements and apparently don’t feel we pay them enough and now want us to give up the things that work to help our less fortunate to help the wealthiest less fortunate. Poor rich folks want their entitlements at the expense of paid social programs that help the less fortunate among us. This is why it is important we do not let the wording be changed.
Why Wealthy entitlement must be called entitlements. Why we must see the WHOLE budget, not just the social programs they pick. Why we must prioritize spending. We DONT NEED a stupid WALL costing tens of billions, when we have people who can’t afford food or homes. We can’t afford hundreds of millions for EXTRA security and WEEKEND VACATIONS TO Florida or New Jersey or New York, at the expense of the elderly, disabled, and children and women’s health. We shouldn’t be able to afford to launch 95 million dollars in cruise missiles at land around an airstrip for distractions and delay, while defunding research on cancer, dystonia, Parkinson’s and other major medical research programs at the National Institute for Health. We can’t eliminate taxes on the rich, while increasing spending on military for wars we can’t sustain. Idiocy is the only term that covers this train of thought.
WE MUST Take OUR Government back from those who are choosing to corrupt it for the sake of the wealthy and at the detriment of the less fortunate. We must send a STRONG, UNITED Answer to the questionable actions they are doing now. We Must UNDO the damage they do and will continue to do till they are stopped. We must get OUR COUNTRY BACK. This is OUR COUNTRY, NOT THEIRS