Yes, as Kevin Drum says they care about cutting spending for "undeserving people" to some degree, but that's different than saying they care about cutting aggregate spending. There are some programs Republicans don't like that Dems (sorta) do which they'd happily cut, but there's a pretty good chance they'd just turn around and throw it all at the DoD or on farm subsidies or whatever.
They point is they don't really have any ideological commitment to "small government" as measured by the amount of money the government spends. They want the spoils to go to their team, and they don't want rich people to have to pay for any of it.
