General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: FFS... the PURPOSE of ENTITLEMENT REFORM is to REDUCE benefits [View all]QuestForSense
(653 posts)Take a look at what they did in Chicago with regard to entitlement benefits. In a nutshell, the former mayor sold the parking meter system to a private corporation to close a budget gap. The private corporation sent a bill for $13 million to the City for a years' worth of handicapped parking. That's about $36,000 a day if anybody's counting, which they aren't. One of the City's newspapers did a big story about all the handicapped parking cheaters being to blame. Then the big public 'conversation' about why people should get free metered parking just because they're handicapped (the consensus being they shouldn't). Not one word about reforming the system to discourage cheaters. Then a state republican rep from a wealthy suburb wrote an amendment to the handicapped parking statute, and free parking for handicapped citizens in the City of Chicago disappears on January 1, 2014. Signed by Chicago's mayor, Rahm Emanuel, who is supposed to be a democrat. He signed off on it because 'he had to.'
Handicapped parking, unlike Social Security, truly WAS an entitlement that helped many who needed and depended on that benefit. But the rationale is that if you've got enough money to own a car, you've got enough to pay for parking. So now, handicapped people get to pay their money to a private corporation for the privilege of parking, just like regular people! And they get to walk half a block down the street to the machine to pay, then back to their car to place the stub on their dashboards. Not terribly progressive, but very egalitarian.
I wish I were a little less dubious about the chances of what you mention in your last paragraph coming to pass. But I'd feel a lot more hopeful if so many democrats in Congress weren't supporting their President 'because they have to.' They ought to feel that way about the public.