House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan is a champion in the cause of entitlement reform, arguing that the only way to break the cycle of rising deficits and surging debt is to reduce entitlement spending. This conversation includes programs such as welfare benefits, unemployment insurance and food stamps.
But it is Social Security and Medicare that are most often the targets when people refer to reforming entitlements, even though these are programs funded for the most part by recipients throughout their working life. Incidentally, payments to retired government workers and the military as well are defined as entitlements, more specifically “government payments required by law.”
Given the declining birthrate, when the current wave of retiring Baby Boomers starts to ebb around 2030, it is expected that Social Security spending will decline and stabilize at around 6 percent of GDP, no longer a major contributor to deficit spending. In addition, as the impact of the Great Recession has lessened, there has actually been a steady decline in spending on programs, such as welfare, unemployment and food stamps.
Stories of abuse of government-funded entitlement programs are legendary. Anecdotes regarding the notorious welfare cheaters and fraudulent individual abusers make for compelling campaign rhetoric while subtly instilling bias against the poor, the unemployed or those in some way disabled. There are those who willingly subscribe to the theory that people in poverty somehow deserve it.
Admittedly, there are examples of individual recipients guilty of taking advantage of the system. Yet there is another category that gets little attention: the entitled, defined as those who feel themselves inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment due to their status.
A 2012 article in Forbes reported that government studies found that for the most part, fraud is not the product of “scheming low-income beneficiaries.” For example, the majority of food-stamp fraud appears to be generated by supermarkets trafficking in food stamps.
Medicare and Medicaid fraud has been found to largely be committed not by patients but by providers; unscrupulous doctors and hospitals billing for procedures the patient didn’t need or didn’t receive.
Following Hurricane Katrina, the federal government reported about $500 million misused funds; not by the poor hoping to replace lost homes, but often by officials at government agencies, shifty contractors or in some cases, crooked charities.
Included on the Forbes list of major abusers of government largesse were defense contractors, to the tune of as much as $100 billion per year.
That sense of entitlement is evidenced in the government’s EB-5 visa program. To attract wealthy immigrants to invest $500,000 or more in a project that creates jobs in the United States, they are granted a path to securing a green card and the ability to sponsor their spouse and children, bringing them to America.
Included in the First Amendment is the “right of redress.” Intended to give citizens the right to address the government concerning matters affecting their lives, most individuals find they are limited to such contact via an email, letter or phone call. The practice is more commonly known as lobbying. A lucrative industry of professional lobbyists bankrolled by corporations as well as influential individuals utilize this right to its fullest advantage gaining privileged access to legislators as well as high-ranking government officials. Thus even the Constitution seems to have bestowed favored status to those most “entitled.”
Anyone who has played a round of Monopoly to its conclusion can attest to the fact that a tipping point is reached when the inevitable outcome is obvious; as any one player accumulates most of the property and money, the others no longer stand a chance. But then that’s only a game, right?
Kathie Moore, rural Hutchinson, is a freelance artist, retired from the U.S. Postal Service. Email: klmnews45@gmail.com.