Americans like both the rhetoric and reality of low taxes, but they also like the programs that taxes fund. They thrill to politicians who talk of personal responsibility but want a safety net tightened if they, or those they know and love, fall. This dynamic is so well known, so easy to see, that we miss how often it gets reality backward. In many blue states, voters exhibit the same split political personality, but in reverse: they are symbolically liberal but operationally conservative.
