If spend less, get more is the conservative myth, the liberal one is that we know what would work if we could only get the money to spend. Mostly we don't know. Looking again at jobs, for people on welfare and others, conservatives along with liberals generally accept the wisdom that the key is more training. Unfortunately, almost all the evidence points the other way. At least for welfare recipients and other people with limited skills, training has very little effect on long-term job prospects.
Some exceptions exist, but they have proved very difficult to replicate on a large scale.
Similar doubts arise regarding many other social programs, even such a highly touted one as Head Start, for preschool children. Head Start does have immediate effects, but much of the evidence indicates that they fade as children go through the regular school system. The fault is almost certainly with the schools rather than with Head Start, but that criticism carries the dismal implication that everything must work for anything to work. In fact some programs do work on a stand-alone basis. We should do what we know how to do, but that's limited.