One "entitlement program" down (welfare) and two to go (Social Security and Medicare) according to Tommy Thompson.
Thompson said just that in a recently unearthed editorial page meeting with Milwaukee Jounal Sentinel:
MJS Editorial Page Editor, David Haynes: So what would you point to as your conservative credentials?
Tommy Thompson: '91 tax cuts... and also, I uh, eliminated one of the entitlement programs. We had three entitlement programs: Medicare, we had welfare and we had Social Secuirity and I -- against alot of opposition, including this paper-- came in with a work program and we were able to pass that and start welfare reform.
Then a few moments later Thompson brags about killing one of the "entitlement programs," saying:
I will argue with anybody that I am the most conservative person because I started these programs and was the beginning of the conservative revolution. Nobody else has ever been able to... you point to another governor who had '91 tax cuts, you talk to another governor, anyplace, that has ever eliminated an entitlement program-- you can't because there has only been one that's been elimanted: welfare. And school choice was started here... all the, all the major conservative initiatives, I initiated.
Clumping "welfare" with Social Security and Medicare is ridiculous and has long angered senior citizen groups like AARP, who argue that their Social Security and Medicare benefits are called "entitlements" because they spent their whole lives paying into each program and when they retire, they are entitled to them.
Much in the same way as when you go to a dealership and pay for a car, you are entitled to drive the car home and put in your garage.'