Pearl River      Entitlements are like rights, except applied to benefits.  Anyone who hits the mark on eligibility requirements is entitled to receive the benefit.  Entitlements are not “capped”.  Literally, everyone who is eligible is guaranteed the benefit without a limit to the amount the government would be required to spend to provide it.  In the United States there are simple examples.  SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly called food stamps is an entitlement, historically based on income in relation to the poverty level.  LIHEAP, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which provides support for families with a certain income to pay their cooling or heating bills is not an entitlement.  Though a federal program, it is administered by the states and is essentially “first come, first serve”.  When the demand from eligible recipients hits the capped supply of allocated funds, they are out of luck.  Full stop.

Generally, conservatives hate entitlements, although there are political caveats of course.  This has been the argument against welfare assistance for the last fifty or more years and before.  The pushback on US entitlements, whether welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, EITC, child care credits, or food stamps has largely been a battle over the eligibility criteria.  What is often missed, but is becoming more obvious in the wake of Trump’s Bad Budget Bill is that entitlements can also be attacked bureaucratically in the access and application process.  This is an American anomaly and not the same in other countries.  In many advanced economic nations entitlements are administered to eligible beneficiaries so that they are enrolled automatically.  Pandemic benefits were close to an entitlement, because the process to receive the money was streamlined, though now despite the relief offered and the businesses saved, some conservatives harp on the errors, rather than the benefits.

Politics is embedded in this process.  Social Security, for example, is jointly paid with participation by the individual worker, their companies and the government.  It is not administered automatically, but the process is simple and speedy.  It is a popular and necessary program for all parties and usually a third rail politicians hesitate to touch.  Trump’s bill gaslights Medicaid and food stamps by initially claiming that he would not cut these programs, but doing so by doubling certification requirements, extending work obligations, and imposing unilateral penalties on the states to force them to pay more for the program, all of which dilutes the recipients right to receive the benefits to which they are entitled.

Trump and the Republicans desperately fear defeat in the coming midterm elections, but having eroded entitlements, he is forced to try “giveaways” by throwing money at the problem and the people.  He promises $5000, if Republicans maintain their majorities.  This is not an entitlement, but a promise, since Congress would have to approve.  He sends $500 to one-million people who used the Affordable Care marketplace by claiming this is a refund against the higher insurance prices, despite having cut the subsidies and support which jacked the rates.  This is not an entitlement, because it is only going to people in the thirty states that use the marketplace.

Then there is the baby bond, which is an even better example of this paradox.  Trump established the program to give $1000 savings bond to babies born during a specific time window.  Parents would have to know about the program and go through the application process in the usual American way.  Suddenly, on the even of the midterms, there is an announcement that the process has changed, and in effect made the baby money an entitlement.  There had not been enough political benefit, because too few parents had been able to navigate the application system.  The administration has now authorized the Internal Revenue Service to automatically enroll all babies born during the prescribed period into the program so they could be gifted the money.  An entitlement is thus born out of the frenzy to induce votes with money.

The campaign needs to be not just about changing the rules so that they aren’t so Draconian to access peoples’ rights by law to entitlements, but about changing the delivery system from onerous applications to automatic enrollment.  The baby bonds, despite the administration’s cynicism, demonstrate how easy the process might be if too many politicians didn’t believe that every glove has to hide a fist.