While I could think of hundreds of criticisms regarding liberals, I never grow accustomed to the extent to which many liberals advocate spending and wasting our money. It seems as if the big spenders have no regard for economic efficiency or money management concepts. Don’t get me wrong, many conservatives in Washington are equally guilty of inefficient spending, but liberals tend to advocate programs that carry huge overhead costs and waste precious funds.

This could be blamed on a fundamental characteristic of government. Government programs of all kinds require ridiculously large sums of money for administration and oversight.

Since liberals tend to favor government solutions to our problems, they more often support wasteful programs. Waste may come with the territory, so to speak, but politicians are responsible for supporting programs which include inefficiency.

Government waste is indeed proportional to its size. Take the U.S. Department of Education, for example. In the late 1990s, the department reported it was missing money. It happens to all of us, you might think, but to be more specific, the department lost one billion dollars. And with a slap on the wrist, the federal government went right on funding the department to the brim.

Huge government creates huge waste.

In the process of using the government as an active tool, liberals tend to support increased spending, therefore creating a larger government and more waste. Big government requires more overhead, and while the intention may be to help people, the government may take a dollar through taxes and give back 80 cents. This support for waste on the part of Democrats can be seen in proposals like a nationalized health care system and even further spending on a prescription drug benefit for seniors.

While Republicans have indeed constructed a wasteful and inefficient prescription drug coverage under Medicare, Senators Kennedy and Corzine, among others, firmly advocate a prescription drug benefit for all seniors that basically gives full coverage with little co-pay under all circumstances, regardless of their ability to support themselves.

Today’s seniors would indeed receive a benefit, because outside of a minimal premium, they would receive additional benefits from the same past income withholdings. Those of us who are not yet seniors will not benefit from increased spending, as we will still be the ones to pay for our prescription drugs though our own income loss.

The government would be the middleman who spends hundreds of millions of dollars just to administer a program we could have administered through our own personal savings. Not only would we pay the government for services most of us can provide for ourselves, but with the current pay-as-you-go system, we would pay for the increased benefits to today’s seniors.

Many politicians on both sides of the aisle need to be reminded that the federal government does not make money. It takes money primarily from workers, then through a corporate tax felt by shareholders (most Americans) and consumers (all Americans), through direct taxes on investors and the recently deceased, and the remaining bit through other means.

I would agree the government should have a limited redistributive role, but under all other circumstances the government does not provide benefits to individuals, it merely takes cash from them and returns it to them in the form of programs they may or may not need. The extra catch is that, with the government as middle man, huge administration costs are involved, essentially wasting millions of dollars every year that workers could have saved to support their families rather than the government.

Liberals are often accused of thinking more with their hearts than their heads. I would surmise that many liberal politicians see a problem, such as some seniors struggling financially, and feel as though the best way to help them is for the public to provide for all seniors. The problem is that enormous programs forcing the public as a whole to provide for the public as a whole do not help, and in fact hurt, the great majority of us who can afford to support ourselves without the wasteful hand of the government meddling in, say, our doctor’s bill.

If a small segment of the population has difficulty supporting themselves in some way, I, a conservative, would support a program that helps provide for their essentials and help them in an effort to work toward their independence from public assistance.

The public does have a moral responsibility to help those who cannot support themselves when giving it their best effort. But the responsibilities of government also include the avoidance of providing for those of us who have the ability to provide for ourselves.

These people are indeed the great majority of Americans, who are not being helped, but hurt, by government programs that tax us, waste a portion of our money, and return the rest of it to us in a very inefficient manner.

I find it hilarious that a program that goes by the name Social Security and contends to exist to provide just that, offers an average negative 40 percent return for those who made an average annual salary of $60,000 in their working years.

Liberals in Washington may want us to judge them on their intentions, but the results of their actions are more important. Perhaps they do not think with their hearts rather than their heads, but whatever organ they are using, it is quite often not their brain. A flood of compassion does help a struggling few, but without consideration of the effects of government waste and inefficiency, it damages the majority.

Americans of virtually all political ideologies demand a safety net, but conservatism demands limited government, especially when concerning citizens who can support themselves. This is a concept that uses one’s heart, but lets one’s head do the thinking.