First, I should note I was considering approaching the issue from the angle "employment is important, and so it is inevitable that government spending will increase possibly paid for by higher taxes on the rich" vs "wasteful spending is important, so it is inevitable taxes will be lowered to increase the pressure to eliminate wasteful spending".
This would also include the concepts of inflation as the reason to limit the gap between revenue and spending, and unemployment as the reason to increase it. As seen historically 'lower taxes' would be seen as a way to focus attention to wasteful spending, with the amount of assumed waste being proportional to the deficit. Spending might be seen the same way with a low deficit being seen as clearly indicating that more spending is possible.
The relevant paper is referenced by this blog post.
From the paper:
(no attached zip)
About 25% of the participants classified as liberal, less as conservative. The paper explains the results as that people made decisions based on the demonstrated preferences of the associated group, not on policy details, but also notes that everyone was more likely to agree to a policy when the demonstrated preferences contradicted the policy details.
The paper explains it as "This result could reflect people’s preference for moderates over extremists, their tendency to consider the merits of expectation-violating messages more carefully than those of expectation-consistent messages, or their trust of communicators who express positions contrary to their assumed biases, beliefs, or self-interests."
However, another explanation is that people tend to make decisions they think will lead to successful results, and information on the demonstrated preferences of each party is only used as an estimate of probability of success. If the 'opposing' political party is willing to agree to something that seems to be against their interests, it is unlikely a better deal could be reached by the party which continues to oppose it.
"In the Democrats favor condition, the report noted that the policy was supported by 95% of House Democrats (and 10% of Republicans). In the Republicans favor condition, these percentages were reversed. The reference group information was buttressed by including policy-relevant rhetoric . . ."
If people assume that a certain issue, or group of issues is of overriding importance, this might affect their perception of the competence of people who disagree with that assessment—the idea that people who disagree are either crazy or malicious, and that this will eventually be revealed for any given issue. However, if a proposal seems to be extremely favorable to an ideology and yet the supporters of that ideology continue to refuse to support it, the possibility exists that those supporters are, in fact, the ones who are being irrational and 'breaking ranks' becomes more likely.
So extremists believe that other people are crazy... but only up to a certain extent.
Since people are more likely to make a decision on a choice they think is optimal, it seems the way to convince people is to show that their faction has, in fact, 'overextended' and is irrational...
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