“I’m an uninformed idiot.”
Conservatives are fiscally reckless. Look at every conservative president’s deficit spending, and economic crashes. Look at the states most dependent on federal funds.
Even if you had zero morals and voted 100% on fiscal policies, the best choice is very clearly not conservative.
I link this article every time the discussion comes up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._economic_performance_by_presidential_party
The first paragraph is a doozy.
Hence why republicans want to get rid of Wikipedia. For all of its faults they generally do a decent job of going slash and burn on any editors that cannot fully back themselves up or have clear political alegances.
Seeing the complete flopping of conservapedia, of course they want to get rid of it.
Anything that keeps a clear record of what people say or believe in, without that changing based on someone’s mood on a particular day is going to be a flop on that side of the spectrum.
I love yelling at my Facebook “friend” whenever gas prices go up a cent now. Under Biden it was all the damn time he’d cry about that but never acknowledged of it went down.
MUH EGGZ
Poes Law very much applies, but I’m pretty sure Conservapedia is a troll. Just look at their list of “Greatest Conservative Songs”.
it ain’t even edit protected
Don’t confuse “Republican” with “conservative”, especially on economic matters. Republicans are historically economically liberal, ie. they are for unregulated markets. A fiscal conservative likes to cut spending, yes, but not to cut revenue.
Not even economically liberal, just irresponsible and corrupt.
That’s kinda the inevitable result of economic liberalism, especially with the added zest of corporate personhood.
Does the fact that American “conservative” politicians are lying about it make it an invalid position to take?
Is it guaranteed they’re voting conservative when they say that?
Having grown up in a conservative household in a red state (US), and having thought this as I transitioned away to more liberal stances as I learned more about the world, I have to say: Spot on. I was an uninformed idiot.
The worst idiots are the ones who never admit when they’re wrong. Having the backbone to admit an error, change, and and move on speaks volumes.
True, I went through that phase as well. It usually came with a side of insecurity. Just happy to have grown in more than just age.
Look, I think there is something to it, but you really have to give details. I’m good with free access to healthcare, good with people marrying whoever they want (over the age of 18), transgender rights, etc.
All of that. I love it all. But I’d rather not be taxed to hell and have those funds horribly mis managed. I’m okay with taxes but I know there is so much waste with my funds. That’s where I’d like improvement. I suppose in some eyes that would make me slightly fiscally conservative.
No, that means you just like a functioning government. That has nothing to do with fiscal conservatism.
If you were a fiscal conservative, you would be against spending any money on healthcare, let alone giving “free access” to everyone.
“I don’t hate you because you’re a POC, a woman, or queer. I hate you because you’re poor.”
“I’m a prick but I also like to smoke weed”
Conservativism, in all forms, is not a real ideology. It’s narcissism. A conservative will redefine conservative values based on their own identity.
So the “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” idiot is lying to themselves about who they are. They want fiscal policies that benefit themselves, and they don’t want to be labelled a bigot, but they are fine with bigots in office as long as they get the fiscal policies that benefit themselves.
Ask them what they mean by “fiscal conservative,” and they will probably vaguely gesture and say “lower taxes.” What they mean is “lower taxes for me.” Fiscal conservatives still want to spend government money on programs they like. They want boondoggles in their backyard, earmarks and pork barrel projects, and social safety nets as long as they are the recipient (Medicare, Social Security, Veteran benefits, etc.)
They want to frame it as responsible restraint. Pull funding from programs they don’t understand, like scientific research, or don’t like, like foreign aid (except of course if strong ties to their home country).
And when they say lower taxes, when pressed, they will describe how their property tax or income tax or capital gains tax or death tax is really bad “for the economy.” They want good schools and roads and infrastructure, but they want someone else to pay for it.
Calling themselves conservative gives them license to be as selfish as they want to be without having to admit that they don’t actually have any values.
Either “I hate poor people but I love weed” or “I’m lying because my actual views would scare people off”.
“I don’t hate women and minorities but I don’t see anything wrong with an economy built off of their exploitation.”
As someone who said this when they were younger
“Uninformed idiot”
now that I’m older I’m fully liberal since i am more informed.
But don’t you know? YoU’Ll gEt mOrE cOnSeRvAtIvE aS yOu AgE! Biggest fucking lie of my life.
Same here.
“I vote Republican, but I’m self-aware enough to know that I should be embarrassed about it.” (In the US)
deleted by creator
Eliminating corruption is not “fiscally conservative,” it’s just fiscally responsible. Same with taxing the rich.
deleted by creator
Removed by mod
So many people with such brutal takes on it – helps to quantify who the audience is on lemmy I guess.
Socially liberal fiscally conservative, to me at least, means that the person is in favour of equality in the sense of equality of treatment from the government, but is not in favour of additional big spending projects to try and have equality of opportunity. They’re pro-choice, but likely against the government funnelling money into providing abortions for women (so abortions available, but not gov subsidized). They’re pro-trans rights in terms of being fine with whoever doing whatever they want with their body/partners of choice, but against government paying for trans-specific gender affirming procedures and parades to highlight those groups. They’re in favour of things like universal medicare/dental care, because those programs are shown to be a net benefit fiscally and socially.
In general, they support socially progressive ideas, so long as they’re fiscally costed out and beneficial to the public purse. They’re against increased government spending / reach, preferring ‘small government’, with the social components placed more on individuals to fund directly.
They’re in favour of things like universal medicare/dental care, because those programs are shown to be a net benefit fiscally and socially.
I’ve never met someone who was “socially liberal fiscally conservative” who believed this.
They’re usually pro good things, but they don’t want to pay for them, so they’re not actually pro those things at all.
“Small government” and “private individuals will handle it” typically means it just won’t happen.
For starters, the question wasn’t, as far as I know, asking how the ideology / stance fairs in terms of implementation / reality. Like you can give a description of what a communist believes, without having to try and explain Communist Russia / China.
In terms of medicare/dental care, yes, there are soc lib fisc con people that do believe that. Likely not people in the USA, where everything skews right wing – their soc lib is more like “I have a black friend! I’m not racist!”. In more sane countries, there are a good number of people who fall into that ideological mindset, who do support public utilities/health initiatives – it’s pretty common here in Canada, based on people I’ve spoken with.
Like a soc lib fisc con person I know, has previously suggested that we ought to change how roads / cars are handled – arguing that cities shouldn’t have anywhere near as many cars, and that common “paved” roads should be essentially relegated to highways/freeways due to the cost and ecological impact. In their take, city budgets are often bloated by road repair costs due to the over-engineering of what’s required for regular residential activity. Using other road materials would dramatically increase sustainability – and even if it results in more ‘maintenance’ cost/road tolls for car users who still insist on using cars, that’s up to the consumer. I don’t know if they were talking nonsense, but that’s the sort of thing I sometimes hear people in the soc lib fisc con camp say.
I suppose you this touches on how I’m in the US, where everything is skewed towards insane nonsense. It would be extremely unusual to find a conservative of any sort here that would support anything remotely anti-car, for example. Even if it would save money.
Yeah, it’s not too surprising that it’ll have slightly different contexts in different regions.
Euro perspective - When I hear fiscally conservative, that means supporting a governmental policy that is frugal with spending and responsible with public assets and finances.
This has several parts, here are some of the most important:
a) Keeping a balanced budget - the government should not be spending more than it is collecting from taxes and income. (A little debt in dire times is fine, but that should be payed off when possible)
b) Responsible management and long term planning - the planning horizon should be counted in decades
c) Focusing on core tasks: national security, infrastructure, healthcare, education etc.
d) Not raising taxes unless strictly necessary, lowering them if it is permissible according to the above.
Socially liberal => supports personal liberties
Now why does government debt even matter? Well, because debt is owed somewhere, and if it becomes large may mean that the government is beholden to other parties for the debt.
What party runs on the platform of fiscal irresponsibility?
Usually fiscal irresponsibility comes in the form of lavish promises (subsidies, tax cuts, projects etc.) with a jarring absence of an answer to the question “How are we going to finance this?”
Right, but (at least in the US) those politicians will turn around and tell voters that they’re fiscally conservative. And they will believe it.
Well, that’s just called lying - US politicians haven’t been fiscally conservative in a long time.
Compared to Sweden
Yes, they lie about it and their base eats it up.
Right, the entire phrase, at least in the US, is intended to short circuit the broader conversion about roles and mechanisms of government. It’s begging the question. What US conservatives call “fiscal responsibility” typically just means “I don’t think the government should spend money on things which don’t personally benefit me.” Or even “I want other people’s children to pay for my entitlements.”
Not raising taxes unless strictly necessary, lowering them if it is permissible according to the above.
The tax rate is never the issue. If the gov can push through a responsible plan for spending our consolidated resources so it costs less than we’d need to pay separately, then it’s a win. Fuckwit conservatives talk a about reducing taxes and conveniently omit how they’ll reduce costs to match. Hint: Here, it’s always food inspectors and anti-corruption.
The tax rate is never the issue.
Maybe not where you live, but here (Sweden) where the average worker pays ~60% tax on their earned income the perspective is a bit different :)
Right now certainly isn’t a time to be cutting taxes, but when the gov:t ends up… checks notes… spending 74mSEK on modern art for a rail link that had already overran its budget by 30% - it gets a bit jarring. Meanwhile hospitals across the country are in full cost cutting mode due to the ongoing recession and inflation.
As someone who has used the term before.
Social liberal: I think you should be able to do whatever you want in your personal life, even if it harms yourself. I’m willing to negotiate with harming consenting adults while recognizing the possibility, even likelihood, of an imbalance of power making it difficult to properly give consent, or for it to be recognized by the public at large, e.g., maybe Amazon workers aren’t really okay with peeing in bottles because they don’t have enough time or facilities for bathroom breaks, just because they accepted the job. Doing things that harm those you have guardianship over is not acceptable because they are not in a position to give consent.
Fiscal conservative: I want money in the public trust to be spent effectively. This doesn’t mean I want less taxes, I’m in fact okay with more. A city near me has 30% of its budget dedicated to police services, yet we have some of the highest violent crime in Canada. The simple fact is, a lot of crime is driven by poverty and lack of opportunity. So why are we paying to catch and jail poor people with no skills who are trying to survive and not paying for skills training, robust childhood education, and at least minimal supports so people don’t have to be desperate enough to risk their lives and mine so they can survive? It doesn’t make sense and there’s no indication it’s working. FYI, school meal programs tend to help the local economy to the tune of about $7 for every $1 you spend on them. That sounds terribly fiscally responsible to me…
100%. I want to loudly point out that you saying ‘jailing poor people not isn’t fiscally responsible and doesn’t benefit society, the money would be better spent giving people a better shot at success’ is a great example of social liberal (make society better) and fiscal conservative (don’t spend money on stupid things).
Nothing about what you describe has even the slightest thing to do with conservatism though, so I don’t know why you would describe that as being “fiscal conservative”.
Maybe not what it means currently in America. But in general it sounds fiscally conservative to me.
One of the definitions of conservative is cautious or restrained. How is not spending money in a risky way not conservative? How is making choices based on evidence from other experiences not conservative? How is not spending money and letting physical and social structures that are serving you well decay conservative?
But if we didn’t criminalize poor people, how well we justify spending billions on privately owned for profit prisons!?! You didn’t think of the stock holders! /s
By chance are you talking about Surrey BC?
Afraid not.
I hear a closeted MAGA.
You need to get your hearing checked.
If they’re American I would point out that they have no representation for their conservative views because there is no fiscally conservative party in the United States.
“I don’t actively hunt members of marginalized communities with one of my many obnoxiously customized firearms but I still have a weird kink for giving tax cuts to billionaires in exchange for a worsened quality of life because I have a 12 year old’s understanding of how the world works.”
I don’t like paying taxes to fund public services, but I don’t care what consenting adults do in their own bedrooms
but it’s also not a deal breaker if the guy I vote for wants to dehumanize them
Not necessarily. If someone is genuinely socially liberal, they won’t like politicians that dehumanize minority groups. They won’t necessarily want to pay to protect them, but they’d generally be in favour of laws to protect them, etc.
I am not fiscally conservative, but I’ve met people like this. Pro-gay marriage, pro-abortion, probably even pro-churches-paying-taxes.
But cutting funding to education to lower taxes? Sure. Anti-public transit (unless they’re smart and know that public transit can be more efficient). Anti-international spending. Stuff like that.
But I live in Canada, where we actually do have a “Centre-ish” party that’s generally fiscally conservative to an extent, but socially liberal. And our right-wing party isn’t quite as big on the dehumanizing aspect. Banning abortion isn’t really on the table, and banning gay marriage is generally an unpopular opinion for even the right-wing political leaders.
“I dont mind the gays, but I keep voting for Fascists because right wing talking points about how Unions make the prices of eggs go up.”
I prefer to use the term fiscally responsible.
It’s fiscally irresponsible to cut taxes for the billionaires and corporations when we have record deficits.
It’s fiscally irresponsible to cut the IRS budget when that results in less revenue.
Republican voters have been brainwashed into thinking that Republicans are somehow more responsible with the economy and budget, when history shows that Republicans drive up the deficit with irresponsible tax cuts.
It’s irresponsible to cut taxes and not cut spending.
Edit: spending more than yu take in creates debt and that is not responsible
Not related. It’s not a zero sum game. Spending on certain things can save money and allow for tax cuts, tax cuts can create business growth or income in other ways and allow more spending. Defering tax cuts to a certain time or spending to a certain time can lead to better results, ect ect ect.
Anyone who thinks it’s linked and must be Tax up=Spending up or Tax down=Spending down should probably not even be in charge of their own homes finances. Even children are taught how to save their allowance over time and then spend it, and I had occasion as a child to “borrow” my allowance to purchase a toy that was on sale.
Nothing about my statement is even slightly controversial from a finance or economic standpoint. If you know you are taking in less money from a tax cut then you should not spend more as you will increase your debt.
Unless spending more upfront reduces the debt overall in the medium or longer term.
…
Did you ever hear about investing, which is the act of spending money and getting value back?
