Social Security and Medicare are not 'entitlements' , they are government sponsored social safety net programs I have paid for with my taxes for the past 40+ years. The only sense in which I am entitled to them is that I paid for them.

The right wing loves to use the word 'entitlement' as if SS and Medicare are some kind of affirmative action or welfare program for senior citizens. They are, more accurately, retirement programs that I continue to invest in during my working career. Using the word 'entitlement' only perpetuates the mistaken belief that we have no vested interest in them.

Incredibly, this cretin Paul Ryan has been called 'courageous' for proposing an end to Medicare and dooming senior citizens to the mercy of amoral insurance corporations. If Ryan had any balls he would call for an end to perpetual war and tax evasion by mega corporations. But then again, he'd never get reelected. I guess it does take a kind of courage to consign an entire generation to the meat grinder. The kind of courage that allowed Hitler to consign the Jews to the gas ovens, that is.