Compare/contrast

            
            
             Liberals and conservatives are essential to the workings of representative democracies. Liberals are represented by the Democratic Party and are called the left wing. Conservatives are represented by the Republican Party and are called the right wing. Although we cannot always detect clear differences between the two, conservatives and liberals both offer different views about the role of government. These differences are most clearly demonstrated by their views on issues such as education, taxes, public health care, the environment, and national defense. .
             Conservatives and liberals disagree about where education dollars should be spent. The liberal belief is that public education efforts and money should be directed towards public schools. Liberals believe that the worst thing one can do to help public schools is to take money and quality students away from poor performing schools and give it to private schools ("Issue Contrast: Education" 1). On the other hand, conservatives believe that federal money should be granted to state and local governments in the form of vouchers. They also believe that the solution to the problem of poor performing schools is to give students vouchers so that they can attend religious and private schools. They believe that children in non-performing schools should have the option to go to private school at public expense. Their view is that competition between public and private schools will improve both (Fiorina 578).
             Liberals" and conservatives" beliefs about tax policy are different. Liberals seem to believe that taxes are a federal entitlement. They want high taxes for high level of government services and state control over the economy. They believe that tax money should be spent by the government on large government programs that provide services to people instead of by the taxpayers themselves. Furthermore, liberals believe that tax policy should be used to provide wealth distribution from the rich to the poor.