Is receiving a payment for services rendered an "entitlement"?
Is the check you were promised, either from a program you paid into with money over decades, or the promise that if you were injured in the service of your country, your needs would be taken care of, an "entitlement"?
I would rather forgo the former than see those who were injured and disabled in the service of this nation not get the medical care and support they have earned.
Our veterans are truly "entitled", and this, too, was promised to them.
But if veterans and even those who have paid into Social Security are receiving "entitlements", by what reasoning are those who only by virtue of their presence, who are physically and mentally capable* of work, collecting an "entitlement"?
What makes them "entitled"?
IMHO, spawning another generation with no visible means of support does not 'entitle' them to anything, but the subsidy of such practices only guarantees the problem will continue to get worse.
*For those who don't believe that the welfare set is mentally capable, within the enclaves of EBT people there are commonly those who know the laws of their State or jurisdiction in regards to welfare benefits and free sh*t programs better than the people who administer the programs. The gibsmedats do pretty well for themselves by gaming the system, by knowing every possible benefit and how to squeeze it--all legally, if not defraud it. No existing weakness in that system will go unexploited, often with the apparent cooperation of those administering the programs.
For some reason, it seems handing out more free stuff to those who haven't earned it is a plus within those departments which do that, while those who have truly earned the benefits they seek are thwarted at every turn with the blessings of those who administer those programs.
When I worked at the unemployment office with welfare moms the social workers who had transferred over from DHS told me something very similar to what you said. They said don’t try to tell these people what they can and cannot do or get from the programs because Suzy, who is otherwise functionally illiterate, will quote you chapter-and-verse out of the regulations and show you that she is entitled to X due to rule 15.4-c on page 386.