"Fiscally Conservative" - when have Conservatives ever been fiscally conservative?

[tenderfoot]

Every time I hear someone say "I'm socially liberal but fiscally conservative" my stomach turns.

Because the only time conservatives save money is when they take it from people/programs that don't have any in the first place. If anything, conservative fiscal prowess seems to do the opposite - driving up deficits, price hikes, blowing money on wars, etc... none that involve saving money or using it wisely.

So tell us lurking wiser-than-thou conservative fiscal geniuses, when have Conservatives ever been "Fiscally Conservative"? When have they ever been smart with money? I've yet to see an example of either... from Nixon and beyond.

I wait with bated breath.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. i used to describe myself that way, before the republicans made it a dirty word

[eniwetok]

2. I consider myself a debt hardliner

I think all this goes back to the master strategy the far Right developed in the late 70s and 80. I was a concerted effort to sabotage the tax base with irresponsible tax cuts, take over the federal judiciary, create a propaganda infrastructure with thinks tanks and a media presence, destroy union political power, defund the Democratic Party, suppress the Democratic vote... etc.

But there were certain contradictions in this plan. They were going to use fiscal IRresponsibility to starve the beast... but they could never admit it. So the Orwellian Right propaganda industry managed to find a way to redefine fiscally irresponsibility while still using the language of fiscal conservatism. And this is key to any successful propaganda campaign... it has to claim a noble goal and present a plausible explanation of why it can't fail. So the Orwellian Right talked of revenue booms and tax cuts paying for themselves. It was presented as a free lunch... so who could oppose these policies? There was no end of phony stats put out that the rich were "being soaked" because they paid a greater percentage of the tax pie... but that was because they tax pie had drastically shrunk.

In politics there will always be True Believers who sabotage their own intellects to tow the party line. This can metastasize when true believers run for office and start passing legislation to implement their newfound lunacy. At this point the lunacy can become self-perpetuating.

We see some of this with Dems as well. In 2000 they tended to be debt hardliners wanting to preserve the Clinton Surplus to pay down debt to get out of the Starve The Beast trap. But now big deficits and growing debt under Obama are no big deal. They're using the same "logic" that the Bush supporters did... see, the deficit is shrinking! Let's sweep the growing debt under the carpet. And while Dems were against Bush's irresponsible tax cuts... there was much support for keeping most of them when Obama wanted make most of them permanent... but wanted to put the top rate back up.

The bottom line is Party narratives change... and True Believers can do a 180 and not even be aware of it. That's why principle is preferable over Party... and I'm as much as debt hardliner as I was in the 90's. There's the moral issue that we've pissed away some 18 trillion on ourselves since 1981 and have refused to pay... instead sending the bill to our kids and grandkids. My, aren't we noble. And there's the issue of interest on the debt being the biggest waste of money in the Budget and we don't even talk about it. I forget the current interest payments but they're over 400 billion... and NASA gets only 20 billion.