Who's afraid of inflation

It depends on the party in power:  in 2007, 55 percent of conservatives and 78 percent of liberals expected inflation to go up; in 2009, conservatives were more likely to expect inflation than liberals (67 to 58 percent).   If we take the average of those two surveys:

                 Conservative     Moderate    Liberal

Up a lot             27             18           25

Up a little          34             40           43

Same                 26             26           21

Down a little         7             12            8

Down a lot            4              1            1

So moderates were somewhat less worried than either liberals or conservatives.  That's surprising:  among economists and politicians, conservatives are more likely to warn about inflation.  And as with confidence in institutions, moderates aren't in the middle.