"Entitlements" are just that----What you are entitled to.

[panader0]

If you have paid into the system all your life, then you are entitled to receive your due when the time comes, which is soon for me. I just don't get the idea of cutting what you are "entitled" to.

[JuniperLea]

1. Just let them try...

This is an old wedge issue, nothing more. I've paid into that system for 30+ years... me and millions like me. Let them try to take that money. Not going to happen.

[HereSince1628]

6. Don't bet your last set of knickers on that.

Well, unless you want to fight to get them back completely knickerless.

Obama asked us to hold him to his promises. If there is ever to be a time, NOW is the time to make the noise make him keep his campaign promises. Acting like happy sheep ready and willing to be sheared will get us robbed for sure.

[JuniperLea]

7. Nonsense...

There's no surer way to get the torch carrying angry mob to march than to touch SS... and they bloody well know it too. It's a wedge issue... taken seriously only by the weak and feeble minded who are easily led astray.

There is plenty of shouting about it, and lying about it, and it just won't happen unless the government is ready to lock and load with rubber bullets. Nothing would bring the economy to a screeching halt faster than taking money from the one group who spends ALL of their money.

[HereSince1628]

8. I'm bookmarking this...we'll see what's happened in a month.

Nothing would bring the economy to a screeching halt faster than taking money from the one group who spends ALL of their money.

I completely understand Keynesian economics, I am not sure Obama's advisors do. And they appear to have him by the ears or something at the other end of his torso.

[Gman]

2. I've told teabagger types when they say something needs to be done about entitlements

"You're goddam right I'm entitled to it." I've added on occasion, and if they take it away, you're going to see torches and pitchforks in the middle of the street and I'll be leading them, goddammit!" They kinda back away like, "he's nuts!" I am when it comes to this shit.

[SharonAnn]

11. I typically rephrase it as "Earned Benefits". It helps.

[PeaceNikki]

3. Yup. It's not a bad word.

[elocs]

4. The trouble is that Republicans have succeeded in making "entitlements" a negative word.

Just have they have made "liberal" and "socialism" negative words. It makes no difference as to what the words really mean if enough people are convinced to perceive the words to mean something else.

As Humpty Dumpty said: "“When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” This is what Republicans do and succeed in doing.

[robcon]

5. That's not the source of the word.

It is a budgeting term. Budgets are set up to supply those benefits, called entitlements, to ALL who qualify for them. That is, there is no limit to the spending (up or down.)

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. Huh?

[Harry Callahan]

9. However, one of the problems is that those who are not entitled...

have already consumed many entitlements.

For example, $2.6 trillion of SS funds have vanquished...

[MadMaddie]

12. Once again we have let the Republicans hijack a word

and twist it's meaning.

Never do you hear a Republican say, "oh it's something that Americans pay into", instead they say, "it's a handout or freebe to people that don't deserve it".