CHIP is an entitlement because their parents pay taxes (including sales tax ets) that goes to the Govt, that pays for the service (that swallowed a fly, I don't know why she swallowed a fly, perhaps they should all starve to death because of the deliberately obtuse, but I digress)
I pay taxes, that funds the social safety net in my country - if I don't need it, then it can help someone else who does - and I am proud to fund that entitlement
I’ve been using it the way conservatives use it: it means what I want it to mean at any given moment.
Like how woke it is for the Trump Cult to be so inclusive of uneducated women like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. And how woke it is for them to be so accepting of honesty-challenged Turkish Muslims from a different state, like Mehmet Oz. Or how woke it is for them to provide an opportunity to run for the Senate for Herschel Walker.
And then there’s Candace Owens. How super-woke is that! Black, female and a Hitler supporter!
But I didn't realize till recently they could be made into super-dumb people by it, as with Prince Andrew, Don jr, Ivanka, and Eric. Can't keep up, can't catch up, don't get it period. And don't realize that they don't get it, either. Just hear them say something!
So what makes certain budget items "entitlements" is that legally speaking, they are automatically funded in the budget process, and Congress doesn't have to take action to fund them each fiscal year--the only way to cut SS or Medicare is for Congress to take action to cut it, rather than inaction (such as with other budget items). (Mind you, if the government shuts down completely, there will be no way to deliver those funded entitlements, so it is still an issue if Republicans do this).
But when someone complains that "SS is not an entitlement" they seem to be confused as to what the term means.
You have the right to food money. Providing of course you. Don't mind a little. Investigation, humiliation. And if you cross your fingers. Rehabilitation.Know your rights.https://youtu.be/AxB8xGJvCQQ
Couple of things. A) "welfare" is an actual word in the US Constitution, whereas Jesus and Christian are not included. And B), anyone who thinks Social Security recipients didn't work for that entitlement have never worked themselves. Just ask anyone who's put 50 plus years into it.
Actually, I think the word "entitlement" is not the word we should be using to defend any government program that we feel strongly about. I argued this back in 2018 will a fellow whose initials are GF, who took an opposing view. If you're bored and have some time to kill, you can read it here.
*** *** ***
GF: Medicare and Social Security ARE entitlement programs.
***
JakobFabian01: I think "entitlement" is a meaningless buzzword that we should avoid using. The more we use it, the more power we give to it.
***
GF (to JakobFabian01): Well, if it’s meaningless then what is your suggestion for substitute if a new word for entitlement programs? It’s simply a word that designates a classification of government programs.
***
JakobFabian01 (to GF): How about: good, beneficial, economically sound and necessary, not to mention popular government policies? This puts SNAP, Social Security, and Medicare all in the same category – a moral category.
***
GF (to JakobFabian01): ALL government programs should meet those criteria. Your criteria do not help to identify a specific classification of programs. Your words are helpful rhetoric to be used in promoting any policy at all, including to fund programs or to eliminate them.
***
JakobFabian01 (to GF): I agree wholeheartedly that "ALL government programs should meet those [moral] criteria." My question is: Do they?
Look, I am a defender of the Democratic Party and everything it stands for (or used to stand for). But Republicans argue (or claim to argue) "morally" all the time. When Democrats refuse to do so, out of whatever misguided notion of "objectivity," Democrats effectively let Republicans define what "moral" means, by default. I support what Representative Larson is trying to do. [Note: What he was trying to do was defend Social Security by arguing that it was "not an entitlement program."] But his rhetoric is dumb.
Republicans have been harping, harping, and harping about how "we need to cut those wasteful entitlement programs." They have made "entitlement" an empty word that denotes almost nothing but connotes something very bad. Against rhetoric like this, it helps nothing at all to protest that a program is okay because it is "not an entitlement program."
Suppose you are being bullied by older children who say that you have cooties. Does it help to say that you don't have cooties? The point is: Cooties don't exist.
My point is: "entitlement" is not a meaningful category in the moral sense. Arguing whether a program is or is not an "entitlement" is like arguing over whether somebody does or does not have cooties. The thing we should be arguing about is whether a program is GOOD or not.
***
GF (to JakobFabian01): Okay. Thank you for writing to me. You are saying that the word "ENTITLEMENT" --- a specific, technical term, with a precise definition, that has been useful for decades, referring to a certain structure of US government program -- has become poisoned with toxic connotations due to successful rhetoric by the Republican Party.
Okay. Let's suppose you are correct. I am agnostic about whether you are correct. The important thing we must acknowledge is: There IS an objective reality that matches the word "ENTITLEMENT." Entitlement programs DO exist.
At this point the question is:
As a rhetorical strategy [of people who are in favor of entitlement programs], what is better?
So, let's accept that "entitlement programs" do exist. That is smart for everyone to accept that, because they do.
Let's say that we are people who are in favor of entitlement programs.
Let's also say that the term "entitlement programs" has been poisoned with toxic connotations by people who oppose them.
The question for us is then, to choose a political strategy that will be effective. Here are two options:
1 - Do we assert, and work to convince the public, that entitlement programs are good, so the public should support them? or,
2 - Do we introduce a new term to refer to entitlement programs, that we use to convince the public to support them?
[JakobFabian01], you are proposing that we abandon the term "entitlement programs." If so, I'm asking that you propose a better term for them.
Remember that when Social Security was first created in 1935, NOBODY could argue "It's mine because I've paid into it all my life." In 1935, nobody had yet DONE that. The only way the architects of the New Deal could promote Social Security was by arguing that is was right and moral for young, healthy people to pay to support the elderly and infirm. The main part of the Social Security Act is called OASDI: Old-Age, Survivors, Disability Insurance. This phrase names the beneficiaries of the program. Medicare can and should be defended in the same way: It is right and moral for healthy people to pay to help sick people. The original New Dealers argued for Social Security by saying that it was the RIGHT THING TO DO.
If the only argument that we can give for a social welfare program – and that's what Social Security and Medicare are – is that "I paid into it and I should get it back," then how are we to respond to people who say, "Well, I should just invest in my own retirement and pay for my own health insurance. Why should I pay for anybody else's?" Why? Because some people are born poor and needy and others are born with inherited wealth. Because some people enjoy good health and others are born with serious health challenges. Because people who are lucky are morally called upon to help those who are not so lucky. This is, in general, what the Democratic Party is (or was) supposed to stand for.
Every time we argue for an "entitlement" program saying "I paid into it, so I should get it back," we throw SNAP recipients and TANF recipients, who have paid nothing for what they desperately need, UNDER THE BUS. By defining ourselves as "deserving," we bracket them out as "undeserving." I object to that – for moral reasons.
***
GF (to JakobFabian01): SNAP (better known as food stamps, which is in the Dept of Agriculture), TANF (temporary aid to needy families), OASDI (Social security checks), Medicare, Medicaid and other income-based programs set up by various states, agricultural subsidies to farmers (including PIK, payment in kind, where the government gives cash to landowners for not planting crops, in order to limit supply of food and keep prices artificially high, benefiting farmers), VA-administered benefits for veterans, unemployment insurance (UI), etc. etc. are ALL entitlement programs. I really do not understand the hullaballoo about this word.
So, look. Entitlement programs exist. Like, for example, a plant called rapeseed exists. You can make oil from it. And it's different from other kinds of plants. And the oil's different, with specific qualities. But its name has some bad connotations. Okay, for marketing purposes, let's all call it canola. And canola oil. Presto change-o. Now we have made it more possible to market rapeseed oil.
So. What do you propose to call entitlement programs?
*** *** ***
At this point, I had nothing more to say, because I thought I had probably said everything that I needed to say. Sometimes, you just have to let a debate die with questions left dangling.
CHIP is an entitlement because their parents pay taxes (including sales tax ets) that goes to the Govt, that pays for the service (that swallowed a fly, I don't know why she swallowed a fly, perhaps they should all starve to death because of the deliberately obtuse, but I digress)
I pay taxes, that funds the social safety net in my country - if I don't need it, then it can help someone else who does - and I am proud to fund that entitlement
go to your room
This.
And also, "Emailing the Upgrade"
It's still an entitlement even if the parents have never paid taxes.
I’ve been using it the way conservatives use it: it means what I want it to mean at any given moment.
Like how woke it is for the Trump Cult to be so inclusive of uneducated women like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. And how woke it is for them to be so accepting of honesty-challenged Turkish Muslims from a different state, like Mehmet Oz. Or how woke it is for them to provide an opportunity to run for the Senate for Herschel Walker.
And then there’s Candace Owens. How super-woke is that! Black, female and a Hitler supporter!
Insurance is neither welfare, nor an entitlement. It is risk reduction.
But I didn't realize till recently they could be made into super-dumb people by it, as with Prince Andrew, Don jr, Ivanka, and Eric. Can't keep up, can't catch up, don't get it period. And don't realize that they don't get it, either. Just hear them say something!
So what makes certain budget items "entitlements" is that legally speaking, they are automatically funded in the budget process, and Congress doesn't have to take action to fund them each fiscal year--the only way to cut SS or Medicare is for Congress to take action to cut it, rather than inaction (such as with other budget items). (Mind you, if the government shuts down completely, there will be no way to deliver those funded entitlements, so it is still an issue if Republicans do this).
But when someone complains that "SS is not an entitlement" they seem to be confused as to what the term means.
But that's a shift from what the word meant for centuries, which was as the root implies that you had purchased title to something.
Jv has covid
You have the right to food money. Providing of course you. Don't mind a little. Investigation, humiliation. And if you cross your fingers. Rehabilitation.Know your rights.https://youtu.be/AxB8xGJvCQQ
"Pro-life". Right.
Couple of things. A) "welfare" is an actual word in the US Constitution, whereas Jesus and Christian are not included. And B), anyone who thinks Social Security recipients didn't work for that entitlement have never worked themselves. Just ask anyone who's put 50 plus years into it.
HOW SHOULD WE DEFEND SOCIAL SECURITY, ANYWAY?
Actually, I think the word "entitlement" is not the word we should be using to defend any government program that we feel strongly about. I argued this back in 2018 will a fellow whose initials are GF, who took an opposing view. If you're bored and have some time to kill, you can read it here.
*** *** ***
GF: Medicare and Social Security ARE entitlement programs.
***
JakobFabian01: I think "entitlement" is a meaningless buzzword that we should avoid using. The more we use it, the more power we give to it.
***
GF (to JakobFabian01): Well, if it’s meaningless then what is your suggestion for substitute if a new word for entitlement programs? It’s simply a word that designates a classification of government programs.
***
JakobFabian01 (to GF): How about: good, beneficial, economically sound and necessary, not to mention popular government policies? This puts SNAP, Social Security, and Medicare all in the same category – a moral category.
***
GF (to JakobFabian01): ALL government programs should meet those criteria. Your criteria do not help to identify a specific classification of programs. Your words are helpful rhetoric to be used in promoting any policy at all, including to fund programs or to eliminate them.
***
JakobFabian01 (to GF): I agree wholeheartedly that "ALL government programs should meet those [moral] criteria." My question is: Do they?
Look, I am a defender of the Democratic Party and everything it stands for (or used to stand for). But Republicans argue (or claim to argue) "morally" all the time. When Democrats refuse to do so, out of whatever misguided notion of "objectivity," Democrats effectively let Republicans define what "moral" means, by default. I support what Representative Larson is trying to do. [Note: What he was trying to do was defend Social Security by arguing that it was "not an entitlement program."] But his rhetoric is dumb.
Republicans have been harping, harping, and harping about how "we need to cut those wasteful entitlement programs." They have made "entitlement" an empty word that denotes almost nothing but connotes something very bad. Against rhetoric like this, it helps nothing at all to protest that a program is okay because it is "not an entitlement program."
Suppose you are being bullied by older children who say that you have cooties. Does it help to say that you don't have cooties? The point is: Cooties don't exist.
My point is: "entitlement" is not a meaningful category in the moral sense. Arguing whether a program is or is not an "entitlement" is like arguing over whether somebody does or does not have cooties. The thing we should be arguing about is whether a program is GOOD or not.
***
GF (to JakobFabian01): Okay. Thank you for writing to me. You are saying that the word "ENTITLEMENT" --- a specific, technical term, with a precise definition, that has been useful for decades, referring to a certain structure of US government program -- has become poisoned with toxic connotations due to successful rhetoric by the Republican Party.
Okay. Let's suppose you are correct. I am agnostic about whether you are correct. The important thing we must acknowledge is: There IS an objective reality that matches the word "ENTITLEMENT." Entitlement programs DO exist.
At this point the question is:
As a rhetorical strategy [of people who are in favor of entitlement programs], what is better?
So, let's accept that "entitlement programs" do exist. That is smart for everyone to accept that, because they do.
Let's say that we are people who are in favor of entitlement programs.
Let's also say that the term "entitlement programs" has been poisoned with toxic connotations by people who oppose them.
The question for us is then, to choose a political strategy that will be effective. Here are two options:
1 - Do we assert, and work to convince the public, that entitlement programs are good, so the public should support them? or,
2 - Do we introduce a new term to refer to entitlement programs, that we use to convince the public to support them?
[JakobFabian01], you are proposing that we abandon the term "entitlement programs." If so, I'm asking that you propose a better term for them.
***
JakobFabian01 (to GF): Let's call Social Security "Social Security." Let's call Medicare "Medicare."
Remember that when Social Security was first created in 1935, NOBODY could argue "It's mine because I've paid into it all my life." In 1935, nobody had yet DONE that. The only way the architects of the New Deal could promote Social Security was by arguing that is was right and moral for young, healthy people to pay to support the elderly and infirm. The main part of the Social Security Act is called OASDI: Old-Age, Survivors, Disability Insurance. This phrase names the beneficiaries of the program. Medicare can and should be defended in the same way: It is right and moral for healthy people to pay to help sick people. The original New Dealers argued for Social Security by saying that it was the RIGHT THING TO DO.
If the only argument that we can give for a social welfare program – and that's what Social Security and Medicare are – is that "I paid into it and I should get it back," then how are we to respond to people who say, "Well, I should just invest in my own retirement and pay for my own health insurance. Why should I pay for anybody else's?" Why? Because some people are born poor and needy and others are born with inherited wealth. Because some people enjoy good health and others are born with serious health challenges. Because people who are lucky are morally called upon to help those who are not so lucky. This is, in general, what the Democratic Party is (or was) supposed to stand for.
Every time we argue for an "entitlement" program saying "I paid into it, so I should get it back," we throw SNAP recipients and TANF recipients, who have paid nothing for what they desperately need, UNDER THE BUS. By defining ourselves as "deserving," we bracket them out as "undeserving." I object to that – for moral reasons.
***
GF (to JakobFabian01): SNAP (better known as food stamps, which is in the Dept of Agriculture), TANF (temporary aid to needy families), OASDI (Social security checks), Medicare, Medicaid and other income-based programs set up by various states, agricultural subsidies to farmers (including PIK, payment in kind, where the government gives cash to landowners for not planting crops, in order to limit supply of food and keep prices artificially high, benefiting farmers), VA-administered benefits for veterans, unemployment insurance (UI), etc. etc. are ALL entitlement programs. I really do not understand the hullaballoo about this word.
So, look. Entitlement programs exist. Like, for example, a plant called rapeseed exists. You can make oil from it. And it's different from other kinds of plants. And the oil's different, with specific qualities. But its name has some bad connotations. Okay, for marketing purposes, let's all call it canola. And canola oil. Presto change-o. Now we have made it more possible to market rapeseed oil.
So. What do you propose to call entitlement programs?
*** *** ***
At this point, I had nothing more to say, because I thought I had probably said everything that I needed to say. Sometimes, you just have to let a debate die with questions left dangling.
Monday, October 15, 2018