People get more conservative as they get older because they realize things cost money, how hard they have to work to earn it, and how bad the government is at spending it for them. I'd say modern day conservativism is more akin to individualism - don't let others spend money for you because you spend your money more wisely, and if you don't it's your fault. I think you'll find most young people don't even make the correlation that everything governments spend costs money and that money comes from their own pockets. They usually consider the government to have infinite money and have barely stopped being taken care of by their parents or still are. You even see cities like Detroit going bankrupt because, no, governments don't have infinite money. You do have to pick and choose what to spend it on and you can't get everything that just sounds nice.