Author:  Jennifer Keitzer - Scholarship Recipient, June 2003
"Runner-Up Essay"

There are many reasons why fiscal conservatism is something that every community should practice. There are also many benefits to a community whose elected officials believe that fiscal conservatism is a good thing to have. The benefits include being able to spend your own money, keeping government spending our money wisely, and it also helps the local economy to grow stronger. The first benefit is very important to a lot of people. Most people would agree that they would rather decide for themselves what their money is going to, rather than the government. Many people need the money that the government takes away from us with taxes. For example, everybody who owns property must pay property taxes. The money collected from property taxes goes to programs in the state like schools, libraries, roads, and fire stations. While these are important things to every community there is even a greater importance in the fact that some people do not have the extra money to pay taxes. For some people, even feeding their children could be a difficult job, let alone paying the government for things that they may not necessarily need. Another benefit of fiscal conservatism is that if the government has a lot of money to spend, it may choose to spend it in a way that is not wise. Just imagine when you have an extra $20 that you do not need for anything in particular. Are you going to go out and spend it on something that is worthwhile, or on something that you do not need? Most likely, it will be on something insignificant. I believe that the government is the same way. Any extra penny they have they spend, whether it is spent well or not. That is why fiscal conservatism is such a good thing for a community to practice. One of the values of fiscal conservatism is that while lowering taxes the government must also lower spending. This would limit the government from spending our money on unnecessary items. If the government did have extra money then it would put it to something worthwhile, like education. Another reason that I believe that fiscal conservatism benefits communities is that when the government lowers taxes it promotes people to spend more money which can raise the economy in the area. As soon as business' pick up business they can contribute more to the community by hiring more employees. When a company hires more employees the whole community benefits because if people know that there are jobs available they will stay in the area and continue to spend their money there. When a community has people that stay it can grow larger and larger into a bigger and better community. The last reason that I believe that elected officials practicing fiscal conservatism benefits the community is that it focuses the community on only things that are important. In conclusion, elected officials practicing fiscal conservatism benefits the community in many ways. They include: being able to spend our own money, keeping the government spending our money wisely, and helping the economy to grow strong.

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