Reforming the Entitlement Mentality

Tea Party candidates say we need entitlement reform. We need reform alright, but sadly, there isn’t much agreement on which ones should be addressed.

For instance, banks are now entitled to be bailed out. In March 2009 Paul Volcker said, “What all this amounts to is an unintended and unanticipated extension of the official “safety net”…the obvious danger is that with the passage of time, risk-taking will be encouraged and efforts at prudential restraint will be resisted. Ultimately, the possibility of further crises-even greater crises-will increase.”

There’s not much Tea Party coverage of this entitlement danger, but when it’s a social safety net like Social Security, that’s an entitlement they say we just can’t afford.

In 2009, after the tax payer bailed them out, Goldman Sachs set aside 14 billion in bonuses for their employees, which works out to 750,000 per employee. Not only are they entitled to tax payer bonuses, the banks don’t even think they should pay taxes on any of it.

In his review on the book Casualty Gap, about poorer and less educated citizens being more likely to die in America’s wars, former West Point instructor Andrew Bacevich, said, “…the powerful are determined to preserve arrangements that serve their own interests. Those who enjoy these privileges and the politicians who do their bidding-are determined to retain them.” And “…for the rich and well connected, inequality translates into privilege“. Isn’t privileged synonymous with entitled?

When it comes to this year’s campaigning, the heated rhetoric insists it’s Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid bankrupting the country, not a word about the trillions in entitlements we’re giving to Wall Street bankers and war machines.

Dislike for one another is gaining momentum, and it’s being used as a political platform for the privileged to maintain their entitlements, while the rest of us lose entitlements, like dignity in old age.