Earned Entitlements, Earned Entitlements, Earned Entitlements

[soupkitchen]

Whenever Republicans talk of entitlements Democrats should talk of earned entitlements

Social Security is an entitlement? No, Social Security is an earned entailment.
Medicaid is an entitlement. No, its an earned entitlement.

Co-opt the phrase. Turn the Republican disdain for entitlements into the Democratic pride of earned entailments

This is exactly how Rove and Luntz play the game on the other side.

[Brickbat]

1. Better: lifetime investments.

[aquart]

2. Which is it? Entitlement or entailment?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. It can not be earned and subject to means testing

[Freddie Stubbs]

4. Mdeicaid is not earned.

[JDPriestly]

5. Better yet, ask them how they will provide for seniors after they have

ended Social Security as we know it.

Point out to them that very few seniors have I-Phones, etc. Most seniors just barely survive. Social Security pays less than $1200 per month.

There is no alternative to Social Security. And no one has suggested one. Investing in Wall Street is a scam. It is unrealistic to think that an 80-year old with beginning dementia and several annoying physical disabilities and chronic conditions will be playing the numbers on Wall Street.

Nobody is going to do away with Social Security.

[exboyfil]

6. Actually it is Medicare and not Medicaid

that is "earned".

The whole concept of earned is a slipperly slope. I can tell you you earn lifetime medical coverage by paying $100 now, but is it really earned?

Both Medicare and Social Security have a strong component of redistribution to them, and, in that sense, they are not earned. Not only for Social Security is the benefits formula deeply progressive, it is also needs tested for high income retirees (portion of benefits being taxed). The same can be said for Medicare when you look at the premium structure.

It is particularly glaring for the older retirees under Social Security whose withholding rates were less than half of the current rates. In no sense can they say they have completely earned the entitlement.

[Lorien]

7. Oh Jeezus; STOP ADOPTING THEIR FRAMING! They aren't "Entitlements"

They are social programs or earned benefits.
Reagan used the term for a reason: The definition of entitlement in the 1980's was: : "belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges". He was saying that SS is a PRIVILEGE, not a RIGHT. Let's use the word in another sentence; "Celebrities always feel a sense of entitlement". Does that paint celebrities in a positive light? Historically the word dates back to the landed gentry of Britain, each of whom was given a TITLE such as duke, Baron, Countess, etc., thus making them ENTITLED and deserving of certain privileges that the common man was not.

[damntexdem]

10. Which makes them ENTITLEments.

We are entitled to them.

I tell my gerontology students that I've paid my dues and now it's up to them to pay theirs and keep up the titles to our entitlements.

[RebelOne]

8. I earned my Social Security and Medicare.

I am collecting these benefits because I paid into them most of my life. I earned them and I am now entitled to collect them.

[damntexdem]

9. Titles to entitled entitlements.

Entitled to titles to entitled entitlements.