I looked up the word "entitlement" in my 1960-edition Webster's Dictionary. It wasn't there. "Entitlement" is that word we use to refer to Social Security and Medicare.
"Entitle" was there: "...to give a right to demand or receive; as, his labor entitles him to his wages." I checked out the 1979 edition, no "entitlement." It finally appeared in the 1993 edition.
Could "entitlement" be an invented word meant as a pejorative? It is consistently used even by the Fourth Estate to describe hard-earned taxpayer money being gratuitously shoveled to nonworking old and disabled people.
Back in the 1980s, as the amount of money in the Social Security "locked box" began to creep skyward, it started to smell like fresh kill to the hyenas of Wall Street. That's when they launched their full-court press to privatize Social Security.
After a few Wall Street crashes, that argument grew stale. Now, the cry is: "Social Security is bankrupting the federal budget and will soon run out of money."
The Social Security Trust Fund is not part of the federal budget, although Congress does keep using the money for other federal spending. The fund is almost $3 trillion; good, without tweaking, until between 2035 and 2040.
Payroll taxes for Social Security, FICA, is supposed to be 6.2 percent (it's been cut to 4.2 percent the last couple years) up to $110,100 in 2012. Today, a guy making $212,000 pays 3.1 percent; $424,000 pays 1.55 percent. Do the math: At a billion dollars, you end up with pocket change.
If every person were taxed for Social Security, up through the top 1 percent, there would be plenty of money in the fund. We could bring the rate down, even removing wage earners making below poverty wages.
CLIFF AMMON
Saratoga Springs
