I have extensive experience budget cutting.  It's not one and done.  You make several rounds.  Cutting welfare is easy and fair.  Take every state service by town, divide by the number of people living in the town to get a per person rate.  Take the best rate (probably Anchorage) and that is the new spending limit per person.  We have 120 towns with less than 1000 people, most don't have property or sales tax, they live totally off the state.   If people want a certain lifestyle that is fine, just don't ask me to pay for it.