Explain why fiscally conservative people would vote for Reps over Dems

[skipos]

considering the deficits under Reagan, HW Bush and W Bush, vs. the surplus under Clinton? I don't understand the logic.

I just saw Clinton on CSpan, and I am looking to learn more about the deficit, how it can effect us, what people want to do about it, etc.

[Neocondriac]

1. they vote on......

more important stuff like gay marriage and the illusion of national safety.

[catmother]

2. well i consider myself fiscally conservative

and i'm a democrat. don't get me wrong. i'm not cheap. i just try to save as much as i can and not have debts.

i'm 64 and my husband is 58. we worry that his good paying job will be outsourced.

[madrchsod]

6. dam you guys are just on the edge....

i know how exactly how you feel. i`m 58 making 9 an hour and paying 4000 for health insurance and my wife lost her 14 a hour job now she`s making 10...good thing we are paying a dirt cheap mortgage or we would be screwed. we have never been more "conservative" in our lives...

[catmother]

9. we're doing better than that

but we still worry. when we were younger living in new york we just pissed money away. my late father in law used to lecture us all the time about car payments, credit cards, etc. now wherever he is i'm sure he's very proud of us. but then again remembering how he was he would probably say "well you can cut out this or that". LOL

i've been listening to financial advice for years, i.e. suzy orman, ben stein. ben stein says if you want to live well in retirement you have to live under your means when you're younger.

[Cosmocat]

3. It just is mindnumbing ...

How incredibly intelligent people are so easily blinded by the cut taxes mantra ...

[EFerrari]

4. They watch television

and get their information from Cr@pNotNews, AllBullCr@p, MendacitySpoutedNightlyByCrackpots and our favorite, FromOldXfiles.

[ruggerson]

5. Because

a) they are well informed and selfish. And they sacrifice the long term well being of the nation and their own grandchildren for their short term interests in tax cuts

or

b) they are not well informed and duped into voting against their own self interests by the wedge issues/scare tactics the Republicans offer up every election cycle. (Wedge issues we never respond to with effective wedge issues of our own, btw.)

[Lexingtonian]

7. because that's not what 'economic conservative' means to most people

They say they all care about deficits and such. Most of them don't really.

Far more important is whether they are net getting richer personally and depriving "government" (read: the rest of society) of money they don't want to give. Giving money across American caste and class lines- to 'the poor', to blacks and Hispanics, to 'welfare mothers', to 'the rich'- strikes many people of some financial means as a pure loss transaction on their own part for which there will never be any gratitude given, let alone a return. Well, they actually excuse 'the rich' more than the rest by knowing that 'the rich' also spend or invest the money on stuff that ends up for the public good like university buildings and wildlands and on construction jobs for some people rather than pure consumption.

Deficits and accumulated public debt are sort of abstract stuff. As long as it doesn't affect the average voter's life, or only marginally, only ideologues- pennypinchers and people with economic theories or large scale designs- really care.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. They got hoodwinked by the three. Especially after Reagan ran up a tab

The Republicans are the Borrow and Spend party, which is dishonest given their rhetoric.

[Sgent]

10. Perception

they believe that in the '80's the D Congress caused the deficiets -- not Reagan, and that Clinton would have done the same if not for Gingrich.

They also believe in fiscal conservatism. In my experience they are usually libertarian in their viewpoints (get the Goverment the hell out of our lives).

Its not just a balanced budget. As long as they view the D's as trying to grow the size and power of government, they are going to have problems voting for D candidates.

[skipos]

12. Interesting response. So how exactly

do people measure the size of government? How do Reagan, HW Bush, Clinton and W Bush compare in that regard?

[Sgent]

14. They were all about equal

IMHO, they all significantly grew the size of government -- which is why so many fiscal conservatives are pissed off with the current bush admin, and were upset with pappy.

They view the medicare expansion, education expansion, etc as unworkable. Even though Clinton didn't grow the size of government -- and many of them voted for him in '96 -- he proposed the most massive intrusion into individual lives of any president in history in the way of the healthcare nationalization.

I know all of this for a few reasons -- first, during the 80's and 90's I was one of those fiscal conservatives, and two, my parents still mostly are.

After working in a non-profit that provided healthcare to the uninsured/underinsured, my views are vastly different than they were 10 years ago.

[skipos]

16. This is off topic, but what is a better solution to

the health care problem in your opinion? It sounds like you weren't into Clinton's proposal.

[salin]

17. Ironic - given that if you look at Reagan budgets

and compare them each year to the house budget and senate budget - the dem controlled house budget ALWAYS was the lowest deficit budget. Go figure - political myths pushed by the right - that fiscal conservatism was a thing of Reagan.

[Orangepeel]

11. they don't. When reps say "fiscally conservative", it is code

for "I don't want to pay taxes."

[OnionPatch]

13. Yep

I think they are extremely enamored by the idea that they can pay much less taxes and it will even make the economy better! Imagine, you have your cake and eat it too. Very hard to have to face the reality that this supply-side economics (trickle down) stuff is basically snake-oil.

[Kickin_Donkey]

15. Old habits die hard ...

They're still buying into the "tax and spend Democrats" canard.

[guajira]

18. Because Dems allow ourselves to be labelled "Tax and Spend"

Labels are what counts. Look what happened to Kerry as soon as he got labelled as a "flip-flopper". He didn't get rid of the label and it stayed with him the entire campaign!

Dems need to get out the word that we are not Tax & Spend Democrats. We can do that by not raising taxes and by insisting that all government agencies become accountable for our tax $$$. No more fraud, waste and mis-management in government.

[skipos]

19. I agree but

that is probably a lot easier said than done.