We tend to distrust government control of anything we don't want the government meddling in our bedroom, our computer, or our income. Though socially liberal, like the young people throughout history, young X'ers are far more fiscally conservative than past generations. Though many Boomers may have lost faith in the federal government, X'ers never had faith. We know that we are paying social security to support or parents, Medicaid to support our grandparents, and taxes to support wasteful projects like ethanol energy and corporate tax loopholes. We never expect to benefit from large government programs.
Many people think of the political spectrum as one-dimensional either liberal or conservative.
In a one-dimensional analysis, X'ers and Boomers have roughly the same distribution of liberals and conservatives. Here is where an X'er differs from a Boomer. While Boomers tend to have an even distribution over the y-axis, X'ers are skewed more toward the Libertarian end. Current university students are more likely to agree with Milton Friedman than with Franklin Roosevelt. Since Generation X is not yet a voting powerhouse, neither major political party has worked address our concerns.