SNIP
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>No where in our rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of hapiness" does it say "entitlement." Conversely, I have every right to expect gov't not to be an impediment to such rights -- e.g., taxes (especially capital gains, marriage & death taxes), spiralling budget deficits, national debt, corruption, self-serving politicians, lawyers, activist judges, illegal immigration etc.

I'm having a bit of a problem figuring out what it is that government should "do", based on your statement above.
Now I agree that deficits (spending what you ain't got) are a very bad thing, and worse when done by government than by persons.

But in general "government", at least in a democracy, is intended to be "... for the people". That "entitlements" exist is by the will of "the people", "the people" affirming that they wish to have minimum standards of living for those around them.
I believe that "entitlements" are the MAIN PURPOSE of government.
However, I also see that far far too many well-placed people believe that where there's big money (i.e. entitlement programs) it is their right and duty to extract as big of a slice of that pie as they can, legality being a side-issue. So much so that many medical systems that claim to medicare/medicaid, at least in CA, have been found to have cheat algorithms built right into them! Things like submitting false claims for people who have not been seen for nn months and stuff like that. When caught their fines are pittances.
Before you scrap entitlement programs specifically, clean up the rest of the crap that is so wasteful. Government subsidies all over the place, government tax breaks to the richest corporations, laws and regulations favouring corporations over people, wars that make connected corporations richer, wars that make Iraqi oil valued at probably over $1,000 per barrel but when Exxon gets it hands on it it will be at "market price" (the taxpayer having subsuidized the difference).

Entitlements should be the last problem on your list, not the first.