In general, spending on national security and the military is considered appropriate, spending on new social welfare entitlements is not - with a few exceptions for popular items like prescription drugs.

The party does not advocate welfare entitlements.

Socialist theory recognised that individuals had claims to basic welfare services against the state and education was viewed as one of these welfare entitlements.

The strong support for ending the welfare entitlement that has existed since the New Deal has developed, most scholars and politicians think, not because Americans have become less compassionate.

But liberal critics of "welfare reform" have been forthright in enunciating the compassionate and communitarian values of welfare that lie behind the welfare entitlement.

That, indeed, was the result predicted by some of those who advocated doing away with the welfare entitlement to begin with.

Never mind that she didn't even try to stop her husband from repealing the welfare entitlement.

Those with limited means may need help with welfare entitlement.

Individual enforcement of welfare entitlement requires the kind of legal aid funding states emphasising collective enforcement were more likely to provide.

President Clinton's struggle in Chicago to persuade liberals to support his abolition of basic welfare entitlements is likely a precursor of intramural struggles ahead.