Are you being disingenuous or are you really unaware of the treatment of poverty as an acceptable justification for a social safety net among individuals generally opposed to such governmental spending?
Pells grants, food safety inspections, basic research, and a functioning judiciary are not part of the "safety net." Benefit for those below the poverty line is not the primary purpose of those types of programs. Because the programs are (putatively) justified even without reference to poverty reduction, no one should rationally think "the point of this spending is to help those in genuine poverty."
Gwern and I had a parallel discussion here.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/over-60000-welfare-spentper-household-poverty_657889.html
60000 dollars per year per poor family, if the article is correct.