The picture below is from the Republican National Convention. It's called as an example of poorly placed signs. I was born in 1975. Reagan is the first President I can really remember. To me, the picture reflects what "fiscal conservative" has meant my whole life. A fiscal conservative is a horrible thing. They complain about "tax and spend Democrats" when in fact the fiscal conservative spends way more and doesn't tax enough to even hope to cover it. The difference comes in where they spend. The tax and spend crowd spends money where it'll encourage future growth and enhancing the existing military. The fiscal conservative deregulates banks and polluters while buying the military things they don't want.
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| Needs some Obama data. Use this instead. [link] |
This is about the only area where I agree with the Tea Party. The deficit needs to go away. The debt needs to be paid down. I just realize that spending cuts must be done responsibly. You balance your budget so you can spend your way out of a recession. Like the one we're coming out of now. Then you use the good times to pay down the debt. Like what Clinton had set up before Bush took it apart.
So fiscal conservatives can sod off.
1 comment:
This "profligate Democrats" mythology is a very persistent one, despite its misalignment with reality. Thomas Frank in his book "The Wrecking Crew" goes into some detail about how--as your graphic shows--the Repubs are the real spenders. I think the myth rests on, and is supported by, the notion that anything defense-related is "patriotic" while social spending is "weak" and "degenerate." This notion will not even admit to the idea that our defense spending may be out of hand--to say nothing of it being effectively a form of corporate welfare for the military-industrial complex.
Of course, Obama's place in this graph would be anomalous to the other Dems; this is dealt with by now, ex-post facto, denying the necessity of the stimulus which makes for much of Obama's budget. Their ire at deficits is feigned when almost all of them were silent during W's reign of fiscal terror.
I quite agree that the budget must be made to align, and that it will be painful for us to do this. But we cannot do this and fix the economy at the same time. We need to save our deficits for times of need--like now--and run surpluses to pay our creditors back when times are flush. Both parties have been pretty bad at this.
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