YOU'RE A WHAT? PART 2

 Today, we're back on conservative and liberal - this time as regards to economics.  Everyone knows what it means to spend conservatively or spend liberally.  Conservative thinkers tend to want to spend as little as possible.  Liberal thinkers tend to want to spend as much as is necessary to fulfill their wants.  Conservative thinkers want to limit the budget and to stick to it.  Liberal thinkers want to expand the budget and exceed it if necessary to satisfy their wants.

Taxation is tied closely to spending out of necessity.  Conservative thinkers strive to limit taxation as much as possible.  Liberal thinkers are willing to increase taxation to meet the needs to fulfill the programs they think are necessary.  

Closely tied to both spending and taxation, on the federal level, is the size of government.  Conservative thinkers would like to limit the size of government by reducing the number of programs the government would sustain and thereby limiting spending.  Liberal thinkers are willing to increase the size of government in order to provide for the programs they feel are necessary.  

Unchecked, either philosophy could be a problem for viable government.  The two-party system we have controlling our government is theoretically ideal.  Each party, one of liberal thinkers and one of conservative thinkers, balances the other.  

It used to work well.  What happened?  I'll discuss that in next week's entry.

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