For what its worth, I concur about Bush Jr. Guy is spending money like its water. The spending needs to go down significantly. I think you're focusing too much on poverty programs. They really are a very, very small percentage of the tax money that gets spent, if you ignore healthcare (which is a huge, nebulous topic that warrants its own discussion irrespective of this discussion).

If you downsized "defense spending" (its laughable that they call it that, we aren't using much of it for defense) and restructured education and social security to be more forward thinking we'd at least be in a much better position to reduce taxes and have a more stable long term financial position. Additionally, by consolidating our taxes, eliminating pork spending, replacing federal income and capital gains taxes with a consumption tax, you'd be 90% of the way there.

As an added measure, healthcare system needs a huge overhaul, but that's another discussion.