And they do it as only leftists can: by blaming nasssssty Republicans for magically changing how the voters feel about the word “entitlement”, which now begins to sound bad.

From the linked article:

Obama Programs Derided by Republicans as Pejorative Entitlements …Republicans have been working to convert the once-neutral entitlement label into a negative… …“‘Entitlement’ used to be a fairly positive thing,” said historian Edward Berkowitz, an expert on social-welfare policy at George Washington University in Washington. “Now, the term is being changed. Entitlement is this form of social spending that’s getting out of control.”

Look, Mr. Berkowitz: If Republicans’ power to mold language/voters were that good, Romney would have won in 2012.

But further down, some facts creep into the article:

…Obama [ed: yes; not Republicans] last week proposed changing the formula for calculating cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security recipients [to reduce future benefits]… Spending on Social Security and…Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and jobless benefits — rose 40 percent over the decade ending in 2012…more than twice the inflation-adjusted increase in the size of the economy… …while Democrats portray the most costly entitlements as benefits that voters have paid for, typical wage-earners retiring in 2010 will receive at least $3 for every $1 they contributed to [Medicare]… Social Security’s disability trust fund is expected to be exhausted in 2016…A two-income couple with both individuals earning an average wage of $44,600 who reached age 65 in 1960 received more than seven times as much in lifetime benefits as they paid in…

Golly, do you think maybe the facts are what make the word “entitlement” seem bad? That maybe entitlements are a “form of social spending that’s getting out of control”?