Are Republicans really fiscally conservative?

joepistole

joepistole

Deacon Blues
Valued Senior Member
Now days it is popular for Republicans go represent themselves as fiscally conservative. But what does history say about their spending? Does it support their claims? I think not. This is what the recent Republican Vice President, Dick Cheney said about the government spending:


Shortly before he was fired, he confronted Cheney about the Administration’s latest proposal to cut taxes by another six hundred and seventy-four billion dollars over ten years, pointing out that the country was “moving toward a fiscal crisis.” The Vice-President stopped him. “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter,” he said.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/01/26/040126ta_talk_cassidy#ixzz0fbuYXrRA


http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/01/26/040126ta_talk_cassidy

"Deficits don't matter" I think that sums up the Republican historical position on the matter.
 
No, many are not fiscally conservative. W was not. But he was the best damn POTUS ever. Barack Hussein Obama has outspent him and all combined past presidents several times over. W looks like a tightwad compared to Barack Hussein Obama. Obama has spent us into oblivion.
 
I'm not sure that the term either the Democrats or the Republicans can plausibly call themselves fiscally conservative, they seem to both to be broadly Keynesian with the exception that very rarely run surpluses (which they should be doing during a boom so they could at least be vaguely consistent).

So I think the term has been so heavily used by people behaving in a way that is totally disconnected with what the term is supposed to mean that its just been relegated to noise that people expect to hear in a speech, presumably to reassure them, rather than as an actual policy description.
 
I guess what you're saying is trivially true.

Why do you think the Teabaggers have gained so much popularity?
 
Here we have a Republican senator holding up votes on Obama appointees because he wants money for some pet projects (pork) in his state. Correct me if I am wrong, but was it not the Republicans who were banging on Obama for allowing pork on some of the initial bills congress sent him? And now we have the very same people banging on him because Dems are not allowing the pork.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.co...to-make-recess-appointments/?fbid=LiiRYW6-9qg
 
joepistole said:
Here we have a Republican senator holding up votes on Obama appointees because he wants money for some pet projects (pork) in his state. Correct me if I am wrong, but was it not the Republicans who were banging on Obama for allowing pork on some of the initial bills congress sent him? And now we have the very same people banging on him because Dems are not allowing the pork.
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Let he who is without sin cast the first stone...

How did you get your friend from Nebraska on board with health care...errr, sorry, health insurance reform?
 
Republicans are supposed to be fiscally conservative, but they're not; the only true Republican that sticks to the party roots and the constitution is Ron Paul.

I'd like to see the Libertarian party win a few seats, though.
 
superstring01 said:
As the minority party? Sometimes.

As the majority party? Never.

~String
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Interesting observation...

I think ideologically the Republicans are more fiscally conservative than the Democrats. But when they are in power they have to be more centrist, so they end up spending more than what they'd liked to. That's why Bush jr. got elected initially, wasn't it?
 
otheadp said:
I think ideologically the Republicans are more fiscally conservative than the Democrats.
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The Republicans have no real ideology any more. They sold our their remaining "conservative" principles, already hollowed out a bit by Randite erosion, when they went along with Nixon in his Southern Strategy; with the goal of bringing in another 27% of the vote and winning big.

With Reagan, it all paid off.

That 27%, ideologically on a par with the Klan or the Crips, then used its political muscle from below to purge the Party of principled conservatives - by 1994 any remaining foundation of fiscal "conservative" ideology had been undermined to the point that it could not bear serious political pressure. The pressure from the talk radio crowd was serious, the Randites knocked off the ivory towers, and here we are amid the debris.

The ideological leader of the Republican Party is Rush Limbaugh, and that has been true for fifteen years or more now. Discussion of whether Limbaugh is "fiscally conservative" or not is an exercise in futility.
 
iceaura said:
With Reagan, it all paid off.
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To be fair though, most of the budgets Reagan submitted to congress were loaded with more pork by the time they came back to his desk; then he signed it.

All too often congress adds a lot of deficit spending pork to the budget, so they're to blame too. Same with Obama, he's proposing deficit spending and on top of that the congress adds even more deficit spending......

Republican Newt Gingrich tried curbing government deficit spending with the amendment in "Contract with America" to control that spending, but the Senate blocked it of course.....:bawl:
 
pasta said:
To be fair though, most of the budgets Reagan submitted to congress were loaded with more pork by the time they came back to his desk
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That's not being fair - that's an attempt to pass the buck. Reagan's budgets passed Congress essentially as he wrote them - his remarkable success in getting what he wanted from Congress is well documented and much praised among his admirers, Congress's spineless capitulation to his agenda is (and was then) much derided among leftist intellectuals.
pasta said:
Republican Newt Gingrich tried curbing government deficit spending with the amendment in "Contract with America" to control that spending, but the Senate blocked it of course
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The vote was 65/35, in a Republican majority Senate.

As I pointed out:
by 1994 any remaining foundation of fiscal "conservative" ideology had been undermined to the point that it could not bear serious political pressure.
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Whether Newt would have even introduced such a bill if it had had any chance of passing (he could count votes, especially a 2/1 deficit) is not known.

It is certain that no such bill was pushed by the Republicans after they won control of the White House as well as Congress.
 
It may be instructive to ask a larger question: are Americans fiscally conservative?

I have no doubt that someone can produce a poll or whatever showing as much. But the history of governance by referendum in my own state is illuminating here: the citizenry can be reliably expected to vote for a balanced budget, decreased taxes and increased spending, simultaneously, and by huge margins. Absent any constraints, everyone approves of all three: it's only when forced to choose between those three options that a preference for one of them is meaningful. And since ballot measures don't put the public in such a position, they reliably produce self-inconsistent demands.

But I digress: there's another way to square this circle, and it's to note that there is a way to fulfill all three preferences: high growth rates. So it appears that what people - and, by analogy, political parties - really want is not any particular set of preferences about taxes, size of government and deficit spending, but rather sufficient growth that they will not be forced to make any difficult decisions. And this makes sense, of course, but founders on the fact that one cannot legislate economic growth as such. So we see the consistent pattern of political parties only hewing to these questions during lean times - and typically when they're out of power, to boot. When in power, especially during fat times, the temptation to indulge is far too great to be resisted by politicians.

If anyone has any data on which option voters prefer if forced to pick only one, that'd be interesting to see. I've yet to see any polling that puts the question in those terms.
 
sandy said:
No, many are not fiscally conservative. W was not. But he was the best damn POTUS ever.
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StarTrekSpockFascinating1.jpg


please elucidate.
 
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