One of the longest running conservative platforms...

has always been to call liberals "tax-and-spend" and argue that they (conservatives) are for little people by always wanting to cut taxes, since individuals know how to spend their money better than the big, bad government. This always comes up, in any republican campaign, and there are often difficult issues countering the argument. People always want their money. I would love to not be taxed, and not worry about giving money to the government, but I understand the necessity of taxes for the purpose of supporting those in society that need a safety net, and for myself long into the future, when I would presumably benefit from the social programs that I contribute to as a worker.

My question is, how do we, as liberals, counter the anti-tax message of conservative republicans? We've already shown that Bush Co. is not fiscally conservative, but the message won't necessarily fit against a conservative that actually is fiscally responsible. Do we, as Democrats, try to reverse course and show how we, too, can be fiscally conservative? Do we propose pay as you go measures, and other sensible budgetary policies? Or do we continue to run as the party that is seen as the taxers, the people that want to increase the size of government for the purpose of helping the weak, the poor, the poverty-stricken, and ignore the claims of the conservatives that we want to tax, tax, tax?

What campaign measures, proposals, issues can we point to to show that we are fiscally responsible, that we want an "ownership society" wherein people save money and invest? I think that candidates that are, and have been, fiscally conservative (one Howard Dean comes to mind...) need to use this in the future. We need to stop running away from claims that we are tax-and-spend liberals, and show that the REPUBLICANS have been worse than we have been over the past 5, 6, 10 years, and that we are responsible with money, using it for the proper things, and not interested in tax cuts that only benefit the wealthy, those that don't need the money back. We are interested in maintaining a safety net, interested in helping out middle- and low-class workers by giving THEM money back, if we do cut taxes, if we can afford it, if we somehow are able to return to a budgetary surplus.