# Do Conservatives Understand That Liberals Don't Really Like Government Spending? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 8, 2013, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-understand-that-liberals-dont-really-like-government-spending/652428 "2013-03-08T21:09:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-understand-that-liberals-dont-really-like-government-spending/652428/101 "2013-03-11T20:01:55Z")
Liberals are willing to spend money now because they think it might save even more money in the future. They are right. It might save money. Conservatives think liberals are willing to spend money now even though it might not save any money in the future. They are right. It might not save money. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-understand-that-liberals-dont-really-like-government-spending/652428/102 "2013-03-11T20:14:25Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > This may be what you have in mind but it is not what you get. Headstart has spent $180 billion since inception and studies show it does not work. Obama just proposed a new program of universal preschool and Headstart is not going away. > Real per pupil spending on education has tripled in the last 40 years and test scores have stagnated during that time. The only change liberals want is more money. > Comprehensive sex ed courses have been shown to be ineffective for the last 30 years and yet they are still getting funded. > Sugar subsidies cost the consumer around $3.5 billion a year and are the reason HFCS is in everything we eat, and yet they have been around for 80 years. > The Nation Resource Conservation Service spends $800 million dollars a year and there is no difference in soil erosion in areas that participate. > The Rural Electrification Administration was created in the depression to bring electricity to rural areas. It is still going seventy years after the depression ended and is costing over $200 million dollars a year. > I could go on but I am sure you will need the space to catalog all the failed programs that liberals have ended. OK, let’s get some cites for these, please. Because a bit of Googling has indicated that \* every single one\* of your examples is either completely wrong or, at the very least debatable. And this is based on just 15 minutes of noodling around on the internet, so I really have to wonder where you’re getting your arguments from. I’ll start. A bit of googling indicates the US has [pissed away billions](http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/1487) on \* abstinence-only\* sex ed in the past 15 years. E.g. NOT comprehensive sex ed. And guess which party is the biggest supporter of abstinence only sex ed? But guess what, abstinence only sex ed is [inversely correlated](http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/04/10/461402/teen-pregnancy-sex-education/) with the [rate of teen-age pregnancy.](http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0024658) Comprehensive sex-ed, on the other hand, seems to work pretty well. [The Rural Electrification Administration was terminated in 1994.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_electrification). It was replaced by the RUS which apparently works to make sure that rural areas are served with water, electricity, and telecommunications. Seeing as I know areas even in Massachusetts that don’t have cable (and therefore internet), this seems like a reasonable use of government money. The attempt to repeal sugar subsidies is [a bipartisan effort](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/14/a-fresh-attack-on-sugar-subsidies-current-congress/), one of whose main writers and sponsors is a Democrat (and at least in theory, a Liberal). So this seems like a counter-example to your main point in that it is an example of wasteful government spending that liberal legislators are trying to shut down. There’s no way of knowing where you got the statistics on soil erosion, but I did find[these charts from the NRCS](http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detailfull/national/technical/nra/nri/?&cid=stelprdb1041678) that seems to indicate that \* something \* is working, because soil erosion is well down from 40 years ago. This [article on Head Start](http://home.uchicago.edu/~ludwigj/papers/NYAS-LudwigPhillips-HeadStart-2008.pdf) seems to indicate that the cost/benefit ratio is positive. I admit that the Head Start administration might be perceived to somewhat biased, but[from their web page, here are statistics on their success rate.](http://www.nhsa.org/research/research_bites) ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-understand-that-liberals-dont-really-like-government-spending/652428/103 "2013-03-11T20:15:44Z")
Well of course a claim that any faction wants to spend money for its own sake is moronic. But the question can legitimately be asked “Does the liberal political philosophy favor cycling as much of the national wealth through the government as possible”? ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-understand-that-liberals-dont-really-like-government-spending/652428/104 "2013-03-11T21:08:30Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > I am old enough to remember teachers used all of those things and when all we had to distract us was the opposite sex. Now there are computer labs, smart boards, and class webpages. The purpose of all those things is to help students learn. Yet the evidence shows that students do not learn any better than they did then. Since student achievement is the point and not spending the evidence says that all the spending has not helped, so the conclusion is removing it will not hurt. It makes sense that conservatives refuse to acknowledge that education requires more money because of new technologies that students and teachers must now be familiar with, because these same conservatives are the ones who see the huge increase in productivity of the American worker for decades but attribute it to the CEO class and thus are big fans of the stagnant/declining American worker wages. (I can’t remember which one of you suggested to me before that if a company pays for a computer/equipment that makes you more productive before, that said company should pocket all the additional profit from said new equipment with no increase in wages from increased productivity, but it happened here on the SDMB). If conservatives had to admit that students and teachers are forced to learn more in the information era, they would have to admit that workers are doing more in the information era and thus are deserving of higher pay than they were so many years ago, and paying workers more is a very BIG conservative no-no. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-understand-that-liberals-dont-really-like-government-spending/652428/105 "2013-03-11T21:50:18Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > The attempt to repeal sugar subsidies is [a bipartisan effort](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/14/a-fresh-attack-on-sugar-subsidies-current-congress/), one of whose main writers and sponsors is a Democrat (and at least in theory, a Liberal). So this seems like a counter-example to your main point in that it is an example of wasteful government spending that liberal legislators are trying to shut down. The sugar subsidy is the prototypical government program. Liberals hate it, conservative hate it, everyone else hates it, and yet it remains. The executives in the sugar industry have a strong financial motivation to defend their subsidy, strong enough that they hire lobbyists to fight hard in favor of it. The rest of us have a financial motivation to eliminate the subsidy, but our motivation isn’t terribly strong since sugar isn’t a main part of our financial lives. Hence we don’t hire lobbyists to fight against the subsidy, and the pro-subsidy side carries the day. The same basic story plays out in a thousand other industries, and thus we have government as we know it. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-understand-that-liberals-dont-really-like-government-spending/652428/106 "2013-03-11T22:29:36Z")
As a libertarian conservative, I think that those to my Left have not yet been able to build the budget that they want. In other words, there are more places that they believe need money, and they want it. In that sense, they would like more government spending. Now - at one point I thought that the conservatives would cut (aside from the military) once in power, but the first two years under Bush 43 disproved that. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-understand-that-liberals-dont-really-like-government-spending/652428/107 "2013-03-11T22:37:55Z")
> [@Algher](#): > > Now - at one point I thought that the conservatives would cut (aside from the military) once in power, but the first two years under Bush 43 disproved that. I don’t understand, how can any “conservative” not see we need deep military cuts? I am not asking why they like a big military (I think I understand the reaons why) but why they consider themselves fiscally conservative when it comes to everything BUT the military which apparently no expense needs to be spared. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-understand-that-liberals-dont-really-like-government-spending/652428/108 "2013-03-11T22:42:35Z")
What do sugar subsidies have to do with High-Fructose _ **Corn** _ Syrup? ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-understand-that-liberals-dont-really-like-government-spending/652428/109 "2013-03-11T22:44:57Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > I don’t understand, how can any “conservative” not see we need deep military cuts? > > I am not asking why they like a big military (I think I understand the reaons why) but why they consider themselves fiscally conservative when it comes to everything BUT the military which apparently no expense needs to be spared. I think that the conservative wing embraced all things military awhile ago, and today just can’t bring themselves to back off. CATO at least lists cuts, but that is also why I ID myself as more a libertarian conservative. [http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/defense](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/defense) ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-understand-that-liberals-dont-really-like-government-spending/652428/110 "2013-03-12T00:02:53Z")
> [@Lamar\_Mundane](#): > > What do sugar subsidies have to do with High-Fructose _ **Corn** _ Syrup? There are certain foods that have to be sweetened with something. Government policy has been to drive up the price of sugar while encouraging the production of corn, which drives down the price of high-fructose corn syrup. Hence almost all processed food is now sweetened with the later, while the former is rarely used. ---
**Author:** ![IClaudius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c37758/32.png) [@IClaudius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IClaudius)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-understand-that-liberals-dont-really-like-government-spending/652428/111 "2013-03-12T03:47:37Z")
The idea in the OP is a nonsense contention of course which defies the charitable principle that we must take ideas seriously and characterise them in their most robust and defensible form. Only the weak-minded attack ideas in their inferior genus, whether that means a real poor-man version of something or a confected strawman. The only reason a serious minded person might propose such a silly idea is if they are genuinely confused about liberalism. For liberalism is a big tent, which admits of many mutually incompatible visions of a good life and human flourishing. This naturally means it contains voices calling for mutually incompatible programs which might necessitate trade-offs in spending. That has nothing to do with spending for spending sake - it simply means liberalism defers to democratic process to resolve these prioritisation issues and doesn’t assign priorities from first principles. ---
**Author:** ![IClaudius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c37758/32.png) [@IClaudius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IClaudius)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-understand-that-liberals-dont-really-like-government-spending/652428/112 "2013-03-12T04:01:32Z")
I can see how the above would be somewhat confusing to someone with a much more unitary idea of political economy which settles how they see their tribe’s priorities. They can’t accept that liberals can’t be held accountable as a monolithic entity, rather than as disparate individuals, because they fail to understand the pluralism that is at the heart of the liberal project. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-understand-that-liberals-dont-really-like-government-spending/652428/113 "2013-03-12T12:06:09Z")
I just wanted to say that “Confected Strawman” sounds as if it could be pretty tasty. Something you’d find in Better Homes abnd Gardens, or Martha Stewart’s magazines. Especially if not made with High Fructose Corn Syrup. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-understand-that-liberals-dont-really-like-government-spending/652428/114 "2013-03-12T15:45:30Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > There are certain foods that have to be sweetened with something. Government policy has been to drive up the price of sugar while encouraging the production of corn, which drives down the price of high-fructose corn syrup. Hence almost all processed food is now sweetened with the later, while the former is rarely used. Michael Pollan’s book, _The Omnivore’s Dilemma_, goes into this quite a bit. It’s a great example of best intentions of the government having bad unintended, and largely unforeseeable, consequences years and years down the road. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-understand-that-liberals-dont-really-like-government-spending/652428/115 "2013-03-12T16:48:38Z")
> [@IClaudius](#): > > … the charitable principle that we must take ideas seriously and characterise them in their most robust and defensible form. Only the weak-minded attack ideas in their inferior genus, whether that means a real poor-man version of something or a confected strawman. Bravo. + + + + + All too often we attack the weakest point posted by the weakest debater. I’m sometimes guilty myself. It would be sweet if, before attacking a position, a Doper felt obligated to recast the argument he opposes into its strongest, most intelligent form. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-understand-that-liberals-dont-really-like-government-spending/652428.md?page=5)