Ricardian many people, me included, don't have a problem with saving money per se, if they are sensibly targeted, based on good evidence, with adequate safeguards, and especially if they aim to improve efficiency. If you are spending other people's money, then the onus is in you to do so honestly and efficiently.
I hate this dichotomy that has been set up, that suggests that if you are in favour of having functioning state services that you are also in favour of inefficiency and waste and corruption.
The problem with the most recent round of cuts (to tax credits notably) is that they don't do what they say on the tin - increase the incentive to work. And if they end up being watered down, as may well be the case, they will be watered down with concessions that will be a less efficient way of ensuring that poorly paid workers have an adequate standard of living than simply paying tax credits in the first place (raising the NI threshold would be very expensive, and the benefit of doing so would go very largely to people who don't need the extra money - raising the tax threshold has the same effect).
In the same way, I don't personally have a problem with clawing some money back from pensioners, who now account for a very large percentage of "welfare" spending - as long as the pensioners who lose out are not those in the bottom half of the income distribution, and as long as the costs of any changes don't outweigh the benefits.