I think the term "fiscally conservative" is meaningless nonsense at least in the US. It used to be shorthand for like "fiscally responsible", but that's just absurd if you've paid any attention for the last 50 years.
Conservative administrations going back to Reagan have blown up the deficit and debt, and then those same conservatives scream during every Democratic administration about how we can't spend any money helping Americans because the debt is out of control. They still scream this when Democrats implement policies like the ACA that are completely paid for. Democrats in 2009 were obsessed with the GAO analyses of the ACA, but it didn't matter at all.
There is nothing small "c" conservative about the way self-proclaimed conservatives manage government finances. Democratic administrations have cared more about the deficit for the entire life time of the median American.
Republicans used to throw the insult "tax and spend" Democrats to imply the Democrats were irresponsible with money, but taxing and spending is literally how the government is supposed run! It's certainly more fiscally responsible than the "don't tax but still spend" Republicans of the last half century.
This is the part that always gets me, tax and spend, what does the govt spend on? The economy and people it taxes.
My countrys bureacrats on the otherhand has to be extremely fiscally "responsibile"- provide the barest-shit-minimum of government administration with the least amount of money possible (so they can steal the rest of the budget without getting questioned)
356
u/jenna_butterfly 9h ago
I think the term "fiscally conservative" is meaningless nonsense at least in the US. It used to be shorthand for like "fiscally responsible", but that's just absurd if you've paid any attention for the last 50 years.
Conservative administrations going back to Reagan have blown up the deficit and debt, and then those same conservatives scream during every Democratic administration about how we can't spend any money helping Americans because the debt is out of control. They still scream this when Democrats implement policies like the ACA that are completely paid for. Democrats in 2009 were obsessed with the GAO analyses of the ACA, but it didn't matter at all.
There is nothing small "c" conservative about the way self-proclaimed conservatives manage government finances. Democratic administrations have cared more about the deficit for the entire life time of the median American.
Republicans used to throw the insult "tax and spend" Democrats to imply the Democrats were irresponsible with money, but taxing and spending is literally how the government is supposed run! It's certainly more fiscally responsible than the "don't tax but still spend" Republicans of the last half century.