How should the US address the problem of poverty?

We’re a rich enough country to do it. The US GDP is the largest of any nation on Earth, and this even though China and India each have three or more times the population. I’m not suggesting we just hand out money for not working. The problem we face is generational poverty. To be fair, China and India have generational poverty as well, lots of it. But they are working to reduce it, and succeeding. The Republican Party here seems determined to add to the rolls of the poor, seeking to balance the out-of-kilter budget entirely on the backs of the poor, middle class, and elderly so billionaires and multinational corporations can have even more. Are our billionaires so at risk that we should impoverish everyone else to support only them? Or have they just bought the legislators and the judges and set them about rigging the rules of the game so only the owners win?

If we take the game out of the hands of the greedy would-be oligarchs, how can we change the rules so generational poverty begins to disappear?