Image of the Day

[Those whom, the powers that be, now call the ‘Forefathers of the
Constitution’, were the ones who led the counter-call to the Declaration of
Independence.
Instead of codifying the constitution to guarantee our “certain
unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness”, they refused to include the 1776 Virginia Declaration of
Rights and even the 1689 English Bill of Rights in the original draft of the
constitution! — Roland Sheppard, Their ‘Founding Fathers’ and Mine]
In September 1974, Gerald Ford's Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) introduced a new term into the English language: "entitlement
program."
Journalist Edwin L. Dale Jr. (who later joined Ronald Reagan's OMB
as budget spokesperson) explained in the September 22, 1974 New York
Times that the term "covers all those cases where the law creates a formula
of some kind that entitles individuals or, in a few cases, state and local
governments, to qualify for federal payments."
Since Richard Nixon had just resigned on August 9, the nation may
not have been paying much attention to technical briefings from the OMB.
To read more articles by Salvatore Babones and other authors in the
Public Intellectual Project, click here.
Ford's OMB divided the federal budget into four categories, a basic
division that is still used today. First came contractual obligations like
interest on the debt. Interestingly, the OMB placed corporate welfare
programs like federal mortgage insurance and farm price supports in this
sacrosanct category.
Second came "entitlement programs" like Social Security, Food
Stamps, Medicare and Medicaid. The OMB assumed that these could not
realistically be cut because the people receiving them would raise hell if
they were.
These were the programs that Nixon wanted to get rid of, but felt he
couldn't. He left Ford in no position to pursue an ideological crusade
against them. Ford needed every vote he could get.
Third came defense spending, ring-fenced as always.