Lyle, Shorewood's east side is hardly representative of the North Shore. Just ask Sandy Pasch. Do you ever travel north of Capital Dr.or west of I-43?

Terry is focusing on the softening of our kids, where everyone is made to be a winner and get what they want.

Totally different than the entitlement mentality where certain people expect everyone else to pay for their housing, food, etc.

Terry missed the mark by about 10 miles.

Yep, that's what a recession looks like. Amazing how 8 years of failed GOP policies could turn into such a cluster, isn't it Steve?

So obama is unable to fix it as promised and making it much worse. Thanks for confirmation non federal income tax payer.

@Bren: The national debt has gone up MORE in 4 years (less than 4 actually) of Obama than it did in 8 years of Bush. This is in no way a defense of Bush but this 'Don't blame Obama. It's all Bush's fault' bs is getting old. After 4 years of Obama this nation is not in better shape. We are MUCH FARTER in debt. We have massive new entitlement programs. The unemployment has been stuck above 8% for a very long time. Real unemployment is in the double digits. I have seen no evidence that Obama has improved things since he took office. And what are his plans? Raise taxes and spend more money. As if we didn't have enough of that already.

A NATION OF MOOCHERS AMERICA HAS BECOME.

Bren's buddy doesn't even know what the debt is at, or what caused it, or how to fix it, or well anything about it's pending doom on their precious government. Super awesome choice you picked Bren

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D55384wiUg

Actually the Democrats, Reid and Pelosi took took over the House and Senate in 2006. So really Obama and the Democratic policies has been going on since 2006. That is 6 years of Democratic control, not 4. This is the Democrats and Obama. Period. Sorry liberals that you have to start to own your own mess.

$50,000 a plate for dinner kind of suggests that most of the diners were 1% types. However, you can see the servers moving around preparing drinks, and at least one 47 percenter had set up a camera to catch Mitt acting naturally for once.

For the last 2 years Obama has been doing nothing but campaigning and has gone to more $50,000-$250,000 dinners then Romney did yet Romney is the only guy going after the rich people's money. Love to see how delusional Obama drones are and the fact they are jealous/coveting the success of Romney. They will be coveting the success of Romney even more when he follows rock star Scott Walkers epic landslide victory over his idiotic bubbling campaigner in chief. Obama should be impeached for his handling over the attacks and deaths of our Ambassador as it was an act of war and he does nothing but bow and show weakness.

That 47% includes the working poor, the elderly who paid income taxes all their lives prior to retirement, and even soldiers who are exempt from federal income tax on their combat pay. I guess Mitt Romney feels entitled to shift more of his tax burden onto those people. Way to insult people who are working and trying to make a go of it, Mitt.

The percentage of people who live off the government is much, much less.

Back that up, please.

But your article is based on what Romney said about the entitled society. Maybe you did not intend it to turn into a Romney v. Obama forum but considering the election is just around the corner what did you honestly expect? If you simply wanted it to be an article about the parents who think their little Johnny can do no wrong and deserves everything that he wants that could have been written without bringing up Romney and his (as you put it) "free falling campaign". Heck all you need to do is tune into one episode of American Idol when they are taking the first auditions. Someone whose singing sounds like a cat being skinned alive (not that I ACTUALLY know what that sounds like) have been told their whole life that they are a good singer. Not once did one of their parents say 'Johnny, you can't sing'. And when the judges tell them the honest truth they are simply shocked. Not only are they shocked, they think the judges are wrong. They actually think that they sound good and deserve to get picked by the judges.

If this article wasn't to be about Romney versus Obama and the whole entitlement issue, you probably should not have started it with a paragraph about Mitt Romney being right.

Spoiled kids are one thing, but i wonder why 'entitlement' has become such a dirty word. We ARE entitled to things. If I pay the Acme Life Insurance Company premiums for thirty years and then I die, my beneficiaries are entitled to the death benefit. If I pay thirty thousand dollars for a new car, I'm entitled to one where the wheels don't fall off during the first hundred miles I drive it. If I'm laid off from a job, I'm entitled to unemployment compensation while I look for new work. And if I don't make enough income to owe federal income tax, I'm entitled to not be called a moocher.

Unless you are a moocher.

Randy: Life insurance death benefits are not an entitlement- it is a contract....stop paying and the death benefit stops. The guarantee is if you keep PAYING, then you are covered. Far from an entitlement.
That 30 thousand dollar car warranty is not an entitlement, you payed for the warranty in the price of the car.
Unemployment compensation is also like insurance. The employer pays unemployment insurance. The first 26 weeks is paid for, how the hell we got to 99 weeks is nuts, talk about incentive to stay home.
Federal income tax is a joke. Low wage earners often get more back than they pay in, yet we supposedly got rid of welfare. In reality we found other ways to give entitlements without the naughty welfare word. How people can get thousands of dollars back from the Fed. when they barely pay anything in is an insult to those of us trying to support a Government that can't stop smoking the credit card.
We're all entitled to our own opinion...

That's not quite accurate, Craig. With whole life or variable life or whatever they're calling those policies now, even if you stop paying you do get a cash value. But what I'm saying is that the company can't take your payments for a $100K policy and then say, after thirty years of those payments, "Sorry, our company hasn't been doing as well as we thought. You're only getting $75K."

Federal income tax is indeed a joke, but if you will remember, things like the EIC and the childcare credits were put in place as incentives to work a job rather than take general assistance or AFDC. You will also find working people who qualify for none of these deductions and credits who don't make enough to pay federal income tax either. To call them moochers is incredibly callous.

I guess it all depends on how you define entitlement. You know very well that the 'entitlements' of Social Security and Medicare are on the line along with other social programs.

There are reasons some things are called entitlements -- if you pay for something you're entitled to the value originally agreed upon. Since you bring up birth control, people who work for religiously-based institutions pay their employee contributions for the insurance plans in force. Why should they pay the same amount of money in premiums as people working for secular organisations and not get the same level of coverage, simply because their employer is squeamish about certain things? Making birth control less accessible will not save on employee health costs and premiums overall.

Randy: I agree that it depends on how you define entitlement- especially at the political level. The whole welfare to work plan never did work out, as you can see we give tax credits to those who pay hardly anything into the system. There are two types of Social Security disability- the type you and I have paid for as an insurance plan, and there is the smaller amount ($588/mo) that is for the disabled who never worked. This is a form of welfare in and of itself. I have no problem with paying $588 to someone truely disabled, don't get me wrong.
We have to agree to disagree on the birth controll thing. I can tell you my wife pays the whole cost of her bc meds, if her employer changes the insurance company then it will be covered at 100%. This is STUPID....
If I want a Rx for viagra, I have to satisfy my $5000/ year deductible before I can have that covered (if it even is). This doesn't make me shout from the rooftops that Obama is against men.

Randy:

I take no issue with SS and Medicare being used by people who those programs are intended to help. I don't think that anyone has stated anything to the contrary.

As far as your insurance coverage comment, if people are getting less of a benefit, then they probably should be paying less toward that benefit. Insurance plans aren't all the same--employees working at different companies might be paying different premiums for the same level of coverage.

I just keep flashing to the women saying they were here to get "Obama money". They didn't know where he got it from but thought it was from his "stash".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOZ-Etb0k0Q

Of course then there is this "gem". Wonder if Obama is paying for her gas yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36x8rTb3jI&feature=related

While I agree with you that those things are not needed to raise a happy child, I would argue that having those things isn't necessarily a bad thing either. I think the issue is whether or not one views them as 'necessities', as 'luxuries' or as 'entitlements'.

...and in the spirit of full dislosure, our household does have an iPad, a Kindle, and an X-Box. We have 2 flat screen TVs with antenna reception only. We also have a family computer that is shared between the kids and me (my wife has her own computers that are used primarily for her work).

I'll bet they drove off in a Cadillac too.

@Randy1949 -

Funny thing about reality is that if you want to see a lot of Cadillacs concentrated in a specific area, all you need to do is cruise the ghetto - practically all you see is the Cadillac wreath and crest, and that's no lie! You also see $1k+ spinner wheels and loads of other kinds of excess!

Why do people that can obviously afford such excess need government assistance? Doesn't that outrage you? It should!