John Sides recently blogged about conservatives and spending. Despite being ideologically in favor of spending cuts, when asked about specific government programs, conservative are reluctant to cut funding to those programs.

Here's his corrected graph:

I supposed his findings aren't earth-shattering. Spending went up during the Bush administration. Reagan wasn't able to eliminate programs that he hated, specifically the Department of Education. There's always been a gap between the reduced spending rhetoric and actual practice.

His graph was most interesting for the ranking of what conservatives are most willing to cut – aid to foreign countries and anything that helped poor people and kids. Law and order matters are the most popular. Social security was also important to them.

I was itching to see a comparison of policy priorities between liberals and conservatives.