Entitlements are what all people think they are entitled to. That includes not just the middle class or poor people, who paid for their entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) out of their paychecks, but also the millionaires, billionaires, corporations and wealthy CEOs whose entitlements are the tax breaks and loopholes that they gained by sometimes slashing their work force or employees’ retirement security. In other words, greed.

Those entitlements are not included in U.S. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s plan nor the Simpson-Bowles safety net-shredding strategies. Oops — they are not considered “entitlements,” right? Well, the wealthy feel that they are entitled to their wealth, so they are entitlements.

This fix-the-debt campaign is a fear-mongering campaign to convince the American people that the deficits the United States has run throughout its history have suddenly metastasized into a cancer that will destroy this country from within. It is a campaign to exploit the fight over the fiscal cliff, debt ceiling and the sequester. It includes prominent Democrats and Republicans and CEOs who head firms that pay a negative tax rate.

Isn’t it odd that the Simpson-Bowles Committee met with their base to announce that their mission now is to pressure Congress to deal with their views. Their base? Billionaire CEOs. And of course their initiatives found significant support. Well, its not odd when we know that Erskine Bowles now serves on the board of Morgan Stanley. He really wanted to fight for the “little man,” right?

In November, voters denounced Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles. Their fix was tested, and it lost.

Voters are all for balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility, but they have no taste for an agenda that is one-sided and uses the entitlements of the 99 percent to pay for making the 1 percent a whole lot wealthier.

BEVERLY MITCHELL

Hertford