They are called entitlements to make people think that some undeserving class is getting over...they think they are "entitled"...is the way that is put. It was done on purpose by conservatives. Its a dog whistle.
I don't think that comes from where you think it does. I think it comes from the fact that people are literally entitled to that money via the legal contract we've set up - it is spoken for.
Aside from employees, .gov gives people money two ways:
1) Contracts. 200 F-22 for $100B or so. $1M for the service contract for that server for a year. Usually involves a psuedo competitive bidding process, a lack of one is unusual enough that you get the phrase "no bid contract" because its an oddity.
2) Entitlements. If you meet these requirements, you get this money, or income tax credit, or whatever. You're entitled as a member of a class where that class is poor dudes or historic property investors or hybrid car owner or whatever. Usually doesn't involve competitive bidding or auctions at all.
You're just going to confuse people by mixing contracts and entitlements in the same line.
I don't see the relevance. All I'm getting is a lot of criticism of some comment Scalia once made which seems to have nothing to do with whether things should be called entitlements.
Further, if that was somehow your point, bear in mind that "everyone" in this context is pretty clearly something like "the vast majority". I could find traces of evidence of people trying to redefine the term, sure, but no evidence they're being particularly successful. Even the NYT calls them entitlements with no apparent irony. Call them mainstream or call them leftist, either way, it's evidence on my side.
Entitlements are simply something people are legally entitled to.
No one thinks that entitlements Social Security and Medicare go predominantly to minorities and a lazy underclass, and yet they're the biggest parts of our budget. (Some people do, however, labor under the impression that SS and Medicare make up 5% of the budget and the remaining 95% goes to welfare, foreign aid, and greedy public employees, but that's another issue entirely.)
You're partially right about the dog whistle, but the literal meaning of 'entitlement' is that you have title to something, ie a legal right of ownership and it is the correct technical term for these payments, notwithstanding the secondary political meaning (of false entitlement) that has been attached to it.
