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Given that Santorum is referring to federal GOP, he is evidently clueless that the states have never delegated to Congress, via the Constitution, the specific power to tax and spend on behalf of the poor. The Founding States had made the 10th Amendment to clarify that the Constitution's silence about issues like the poor mean that such things are automatically unique state power issues. This is evidenced by the following excerpts.

“Our citizens have wisely formed themselves into one nation as to others and several States as among themselves. To the united nation belong our external and mutual relations; to each State, severally, the care of our persons (emphasis added), our property, our reputation and religious freedom.” —Thomas Jefferson: To Rhode Island Assembly, 1801.
"Simply this, that the care of the property, the liberty, and the life of the citizen, under the solemn sanction of an oath imposed by your Constitution, is in the States and not in the federal government (emphases added). I have sought to effect no change in that respect in the Constitution of the country.” —John Bingham, Congressional. Globe. 1866, page 1292 (see top half of third column)