Romney's War on "Entitlement"

It's an old theme by now, going back to Reagan and his war on welfare, but this time it's Romney's war on entitlement. His new campaign refrain is to blame the poor for feeling "entitled," for saying, "They owe me, I'm entitled," while they sit back with their big screen HDTVs, their delivery pizza, laughing at the poor suckers who are getting up at six and working for a living. It's Reagan's campaign theme from 1980: "Send the welfare bums back to work."

This season's entitlement theme came from a Tea Party sign that read "You Are Not Entitled To What I Earn." Romney's handlers took that sign and are running with it, refining Reagan's equally blunt slogan with more subtle rhetoric:

Will the United States be an Entitlement Society or an Opportunity Society? In an Entitlement Society, government provides every citizen the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort and willingness to innovate, pioneer or take risk.

It's an obvious distortion of langauge to say that the government provides every citizen the same or similar rewards. "Rewards?" Really? What is he talking about? As a Senior Citizen I have both Medicare and Social Security, one I pay something for and the other I earned by 40 plus years of teaching. It's not a reward in any shape or form, and I resent the implication. Also, at one point in my life I needed unemployment insurance for a short time, and that wasn't a reward either. It was help I needed to provide for my family until I could find another position.

Romney wants to blame entitlements for our debt crisis and then to tout opportunity as the path to recovery. Well let's look at opportunity as a theme. I'm all in favor of "America as Opportunity," but Romney isn't talking about real opportunity. He won't talk about what opportunity requires: (1) guaranteeing a level playing field for all citizens to work hard and find success; and (2) having health care for all so that illness doesn't prevent a person from fulfilling his or her dreams; (3) providing a quality and affordable education for every citizen so that he or she can successfully enter into and succeed in an innovative marketplace; and (4) it means making sure that our vanishing middle class can recover and be the true strength of American leadership in the world. Then and only then will "America as Opportunity" be realized.

Every reasonably educated person knows full well what the word "entitlement" signifies to the impressionable electorate, and Romney will use a negative spin to strike fear and loathing into the hearts of those who resent paying taxes to help those who need support and a real opportunity to get ahead. Killing so-called "entitlements" is not a plan for American recovery. Putting the middle class on a solid economic footing is the key to recovery, and that will take a combination of higher taxes for the wealthy and renewed investment, which means getting mountains of cash off the sidelines and into the game and then creating a culture where all Americans have a chance to fulfill their dreams.

 

 

 

Follow Richard Geldard on Twitter: www.twitter.com/richgeldard

Comments

[RK Johnston]

08:59 PM on 12/29/2011

They care not...because they are past caring.
They would rather destroy than build...and the destruction they so enjoy builds them into compassionless Scroogeophiles who only see workhouses, orphanages, and debtor's gaols as the "true way" to rebuild our national economy.

All of this coming from well-to-do meatheads who never had to taste the bitter dregs of poverty--because they could rely on the old man's money to see them through.
Perhaps a year of having to do without that infusion of filthy green stuff--self-reliance done a la John Wayne--might give them just the right slant into the "world where living in Poverty Flats only guarantees a Krueger-level nightmare of having to choose between eating, medications, and heating oil."

By then, will they start feeling compassion for their fellow Americans?
Stay tuned--stranger things have happened.

--RKJ

[blueken60]

03:20 PM on 12/29/2011

"You Are Not Entitled To What I Earn" Let's look at it another way. I start working at 16 years of age. Every pay check I ever earn has a deduction. It's so that I can have a small income when I retire. My employer pays an equal amount. Thank you employer. Now that I just might need some of that money I earned, I find out that the money has been borrowed to pay for things that should have been paid for by taxes. So the weatlhest people on earth got a tax break with my retirement money. Isn't that money I earned?

[nothingchanges]

11:02 AM on 12/29/2011

Romney's War on "Entitlement"

Can be explained simply in two sentences.

You, and people like you, being entitled to anything that I, or my friends have to pay into is BAD.

Me, and those like me, being entitled to benefits that you and your people pay for........is GOOD.

Entitlement apparently depends on your point of view.

Maybe that's part of the problem?

[Icecube]

12:32 AM on 12/30/2011

You just know he is not talking corporate welfare, farm supports for NOT growing crops, etc etc.

[treasuredtrophie]

11:01 AM on 12/29/2011

How long should a person be a entitlement specialist? I see and know for a fact how many and how long they stay on welfare. Years after years. These people most who have never worked including now a whole new generation of them. I am a fan of helping the working poor just not the lazy folks who think they disserve it. You know the Air Jordan folks.

[blueken60]

03:16 PM on 12/29/2011

"Air Jordans" Is that code, wink, wink. I go visit my mother-in-law at a rest home and I see a lot of people you are talking about takeing care of our elderly for wages that they can barely get by on.

[Lindytindy]

10:39 AM on 12/29/2011

They never want to talk a bout welfare for corporations and the rich, a large part of our deficit and ongoing budget woes. They always want to talk about the pathetic benefits for the poor. Meanwhile war is 70-75% of the deficit, but hey we can't do away with that. And it's not just Romney, Obama is more for destroying Social Security and Medicare than Romney is. They are all the same, people, they are not on your side.

[seawolf77]

10:08 AM on 12/29/2011

The profit seekers got bailed out by the taxpayer. While they held a gun to our heads, we agreed on all their terms. In return the profit seekers promised us jobs, loans, and prosperity. Instead they declared war on us. NOW do you know who you are dealing with?

[l78lancer]

01:50 AM on 12/29/2011

There is an expression that says when you point the finger at someone there are always three pointed back at you. Try it. Point at something then look at your hand. Where are the fingers pointing?

This holds true for the GOP and their mantra about entitlements. While the claim that benefits are really entitlement and thus try to guilt people about taking advantage of them , the reality is that they receive many more benefits for which they do not pay and are not entitled. So they scream loud and long about how it's such a travesty that the peopole are expecting something from their government. They express self-righteous and sanctimonious indignation about people who feel that they should get something back when they have contributed to their benefitss like Social Security and Unemployment Compensation Insurance. Yet all of the noise they make is intended to conceal their own greed and theft of resources. Why theft? If someone receives a benefit for which they are not qualified or have not earned that is theft. It is no different for the corporation or the rich than it is for someone who falsely applies for a social security check.

So every time the republicans complain about the entitlements provided to citizens, just remember that their finger-pointing is really self-incriminating.

[l78lancer]

01:32 AM on 12/29/2011

Romney and the rest of the GOP would have the public believe they are not entitled to that for which they have worked, paid and contributed. The evil here is that they are trying to convince people that it is wrong to have expectations of your government. Anyone who has paid into Social Security or unemployment for their entire careers know that it is NOT welfare, and they have earned it when they need to use it. They are benefits, not entitlements

The GOP is engaging in a psychological war as much as a fiscal and socal war on the public. They desire to minimize if not eliminate employee expectations all to the accrual of profit and benefit to the corporations and the rich.

They are attempting to do European aristocracy even better than the Europeans.

[jtay]

09:01 AM on 01/02/2012

The Food stamps program is an actual example of an entitlement that Romney has talked about reforming. A family of four receives over $600 a month in food stamps. I agree that we should help but that is almost twice what I budget for my family of 5 for food and diapers each month. So too much is being paid out which creates dependancy and a sense od entitlement. How many people in this country intentionally avoid work so they can still qualify for programs like food stamps? That's the problem. I agree that bailouts for the rich are preposterous and need to addressed too but Obama and Harry Reid are doing more of that than anyone has ever done. This attack on the rich is just lazy rhetoric. No one is talking about taking away your benefits that you've paid for like social security. Too many politicians like George W. and Harry Reid and President Obama have borrowed from social security with no plan to pay it back which means when it comes time for a lot of us to retire we're not going to see a dime of our money unless SERIOUS reform takes place NOW. The rich aren't the villains here and we can't be so blind to not do actual research into a candidates positions before we write them off like so many of you have.

[l78lancer]

04:58 PM on 01/02/2012

Right, yeah, okay, uh huh...

[mamacita]

04:00 AM on 12/28/2011

The sainted Job Creators are not entitled to tax cuts that result in profits being pocketed, and do not directly result in jobs being created. Corporations are not entitled to subsidies when the end result is profit at the expense of the tax payer, nor are they entitled to loopholes that allow them to receive the benefits of tax cuts while outsourcing US jobs that are the tax base. Corporations are not entitled to unlimited campaign donations, giving them more of a voice in the elections than individual voters, especially in a global corporate world, where foreign interests could influence US elections.

Entitlements that result in higher profit margins are not helping our economy, and it is not creating opportunity for the majority of the US population. In fact, it is doing the opposite.

[l78lancer]

01:34 AM on 12/29/2011

While they are not entitled, they are the ones with the true entitlement mentality - the rich and the corporate leaders.

Good comment.

[stonemann]

09:40 PM on 12/27/2011

Romney isn't waging a war on entitlements; he's waging a war on certain entitlements. When a Righty advocates for entitlement reform but fails to mention the various subsidies and tax breaks, which are nothing more than entitlements, to folks and entities who on many circumstances don't need them, then that person is not serious about meaningful entitlement reform, hence, Mitt Romney.

[LoyalDem4646]

09:31 PM on 12/27/2011

The GOP use entitlements as a scapegoat in order to brainwash the public into believing the rich deserve a tax break. I wonder why they never mention all the money the government waste overseas to secure more money for the wealthy. I can't believe all the Fox News followers that eat this up hook line and sinker. To think that every cent of our tax dollars goes to entitlements is absurd. We all know it's those Bush tax cuts that put us in a deep hole. Not only did Bush protect the rich but he borrowed money from our enemies and the GOP is blaming the middle class because the well is running dry. The GOP needs a timeout in 2012 and maybe in 2024 they'll have a better strategy that benefits everyone equally instead of just the rich.

[2pence]

09:29 PM on 12/27/2011

The "entitlement" mantra works because it's inflammatory and malleable according to perspective. Even those receiving these "entitlements", but persistantly calling them Social Security, Education assistance, I paid for it/they didn't, etc, become inflamed because the word implies something they are not getting. Our society is divided and more than steeped in the "me, me, me" mentality. When me is the only thing occupying our collective conscious, the rhetoric works. 40 years of Republican dissimination of divisive rhetoric, coupled with cheap credit to offset stagnating and deflating wages, an influx of cheap imported products, mostly due to Republican driven policy, creating an illusion of wealth even amongst the poor and struggling middle class, has made less educated/aware Americans ripe to swallow the entitlement BS doled out by the right wingers. Republican political strategists are very aware of the 40 year ground work which has been laid and are using it to their candidate's advantage. We truly do need a powerful voice(s) to point out this dynamic in order to counteract it. Personally, even OWS has not gained the voice to overcome the rhetoric of Republicans.

[Earl Gray]

06:27 PM on 12/27/2011

"Entitlements" exist as price supports to enrich the wealthy much more than those who are "given" them. Think about it.

Who REALLY benefits from "entitlements"? Is it the person who gets to the end of the week on fumes because of the price of gas or the speculator who adds 40% to its cost and then pays only 15% on those profits? The family getting price supports for a sub-standard apartment or the landlord who makes a profit on the subsidy AND gets tax breaks for creating "affordable" housing? The family who tries to stretch $352 a month to feed four people or the traders who make millions on pork belly and corn futures?

It costs $50K a year to feed and house a family of four in this country. If we insist on paying people less than this in wages (to bolster profits for the 1%), it has to get made up somewhere. The "wealth redistribution" that leave some wailing and gnashing their teeth happened to THEIR benefit long before a welfare or Medicaid or Section 8 Housing subsidy check was ever cut.

[pragview13]

03:59 PM on 12/27/2011

Romney is complaining about entitlements! Give me a break. He got is money by (1) inheriting some of it; and (2) by stripping companies of assets and shipping the jobs overseas.

[treasuredtrophie]

11:02 AM on 12/29/2011

This season's entitlement theme came from a Tea Party sign that read "You Are Not Entitled To What I Earn. Get a job earn a living no more free loaders.

[lisalulu]

03:38 PM on 12/27/2011

Why are paid for programs such as social security and unemployment insurance deemed entitlements?

Answer: Big lie/narrative created by the right wingers.

Why are tax cuts for the rich, tax loopholes for big business and tax policies that favor the uber rich not entitlements?

Answer: Because they were not paid for: Power Grifting.