Yes It Is, It’s True: Working stiffs deserve entitlements

Common political discourse these days too often includes erroneous commentary about “entitlements,” by confusing them with “privileges.”

Entitlements wrongfully are thought of as perks unearned by lazy and shiftless people living off the public dole. They’ve been getting an unfair bad rap lately from certain free market advocates of a dog-eat-dog society and by a lazy press bereft of critical thinking.

Entitlements, which actually are all about getting what we deserve, were introduced into modern American society 80 years ago during the Great Depression with Social Security. They expanded in the 1960s during Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” with Medicare.

The idea was to provide basic amounts of money to people who may not be able to provide for themselves.

In most cases, these entitlements have been earned, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. It broils my brisket when I hear someone advance the notion that Social Security is some kind of gift that wasn’t earned.

When I retired, I became “entitled” to a certain monthly stipend. But it was not a privilege, not a handout. I earned it for more than 40 years by contributing part of my paycheck to the Social Security fund. It was a way for me to invest in my country, and then be repaid as I aged and could no longer perform tasks of employment. It was like an insurance policy, and it had its risks.

The vast majority of senior citizens in the United States today use Social Security to pay for basic services such as housing and food.

To be sure, some did not live long enough to collect what they paid into the system. Yet others lived far beyond their expected years and perhaps received more than they contributed.

We’re being told that Social Security, the most popular government program in U.S. history, other than Medicare, will run out of money in the next 20 years. We’re being told the money paid in to the fund is shrinking while numbers of recipients are swelling.

Yet what few tell us is that presidents in bygone days raided the Social Security fund to pay for such things as war and tax cuts for the wealthy. And we don’t hear a whole lot about how once an employee makes more than $110,000 a year, he or she no longer has to pay into the system, which benefits all. This essentially creates a privilege for wealthy folks — if you earn enough money, you don’t have to pay into Social Security like everyone else.

Entitlement is most of us working stiffs getting what we deserve, a return on our investments over many years. Privilege is using one’s status for unfair advantage over others.

A good example of privilege in the news was the Stanford student who raped a drunk and unconscious girl. He received a slap on the wrist and the judge even commented that prison might be too traumatic for him.

Had this student been poor and black, he would have been sent up the river for a long time.

Another good example was shown by Jeb Bush when he was governor of Florida. When his daughter was busted for her habitual cocaine problem, he bailed her out of jail and declared the whole thing a health issue, not a criminal one.

For once he was right, but a huge number of prison inmates who didn’t have such good connections were not treated in the same way. And they continue to be incarcerated while Bush’s daughter received humane medical treatment.

But she was not entitled. She was privileged.