Houston Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee has the conservative blogosphere in a tizzy again today. The target of right-wing wrath is the liberal Democrat’s contention that Congress should look “carefully at how we reform entitlements that are not handouts but they are earned.”
Video of Jackson Lee’s speech quickly ricocheted around the Internet. Comments on a Fox News blog post were almost universally negative: The Houston lawmaker was labeled “a disgrace” and “increasingly appalling.”
Some critics immediately assumed that Jackson Lee was talking about “welfare” programs, Food Stamps and other social safety net programs that are frequently deemed “entitlements” in the bureaucratic language of Washington.
But two of the three “entitlements” mentioned in her speech are not means-tested programs but government guarantees to elderly Americans who pay into the trust funds for those programs through their entire on-the-job earnings. The third, Medicaid, is a government health-care program that largely benefits the poor.
Here’s what Jackson Lee said on the House floor:
“I believe it should be pronounced here today, that the reform of the entitlements based upon shipshod, reckless, deliberations — or should I say actions — are a non-starter,” she said.
Read more at www.chron.com.
