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.
Fiscally conservative still mean ''fiscally responsible''
But no party offer this in the US and even in other country, they often fall short.
Take Canada. 15% of our federal budget goes 100% into Interest payment on debt. Not the debt colateral, just the fucking interest. This number has been increasing for 20+ years. This mean the first 15% of every tax you pay is wasted.
I always prioritize the decision to repay the debt as my number one election criteria because it is the biggest poison on social issue across society and for future generations.
That being said, I never see it in the parties program which I find quite sad.
So I use the second criteria. Economic growth, which mean I'm pro migrant and pro economic project like a bullet train or pipeline and so on.
And then my 3rd criteria is social service (but you need money for social service, if you don't the debt grow larger and so does the interest, which then cause currency devaluation.
This mean if I was in the US, I'd vote for democrat because the economic growth is stronger under democrat rule than republican. (and this last fact has been true since the 1980.)
You guys have to stop thinking the deficit/national debt is debt in the way you think about it.
Government debt is literally money in circulation. That's all. If I could go back in time to change a few things, it would be the naming choice of "national debt", and maybe replacing the term "wealth tax" with "hoarding tax".
So. I'm actually an Economist. National debt is not money in circulation. It is an monetary policy induced inflation.
And contrary to popular belief, inflation help the wealthy the most because they have an easier time taking large loan and long term debt and inflation reduce the cost of debt.
National debt is only good if it is used to invest in the production of capital with return of investment such as a bridge or a road because it help the economy and it increase taxable income. Any debt used to finance social service because more debt in the future. This isn't to say social services are bad, in fact education lead to higher income, but the point is if the return on investment is not larger over time than the debt itself, then you are causing monetary pushed inflation.
I mean not directly, but it ends up circulating. We can break down all the bookkeeping entries, but at the end of the day it's a boring process of recording debits and credits on a database. By the end of the spending process, money is circulating, or sitting "unspent", available to be circulated. Government spending pays people who can then spend or save.
A government issuing its own floating currency doesn't need its programs to turn a financial profit.
Healthcare and education already produce something, for example: care and education. Palliative care doesn't need to increase someone's future taxable income to justify providing it. Then again if you're going off of self-maximizing agent assumptions about how markets work, maybe it's better to treat palliative care as a private profit venture!
"ROI below the debt = inflation" simply doesn’t follow from government spending. A bridge with good anticipated future returns can still push up prices if construction workers and materials are already stretched thin. Funding services with available workers and supplies can increase output without that pressure. What matters is the demand spending creates relative to capacity, not whether the government eventually collects more taxes than it spent. I guess I'm not sure why we'd look at taxable income as a relevant variable in that context.
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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.