Is fiscal conservatism dead?

[slickpoppa]

I thought Republicans were suppose to be against massive deficit spending. What happened to all the so-called fiscal conservatives in the party? The party seems to be so dominated by fundamentalist Christians and foreign policy hawks that balancing America's checkbook no longer matters.

[Jedi Flopper]

Like balancing the nations checkbook has EVER been a Dem priority [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[MMMMMM]

Just another good reason to support the Libertarian Party.

[Nepa]

[ QUOTE ]
Like balancing the nations checkbook has EVER been a Dem priority


[/ QUOTE ]

Clinton did it with the line item veto.

[MrSoul]

At least those that vote for Democrats know they will take their money and spend it. People who vote for Republicans based on the promise that they are fiscally conservative might as well carry around a bucket of grease.

[natedogg]

Bush sucks. Everyone knows it. No Republican has even tried to defend Bush's budget that I have found. Most of the support for Bush by fiscal conservatives is a mirror of Kerry's supporters. It's "Anybody but Bush" vs. "Anybody but Kerry".

Kerry will be fiscally worse than Bush. And that's only based on what he ADMITS he wants to do with the budget.

But Bush is certainly one of the all time worst in terms of being fiscally responsible.

Notice that the argument is usually about raising taxes to meet the spending limits or selling bonds to meet the spending limits.

The spending limits are not questioned by either side, as if the budget has no waste in it. No one on either side has ever hinted that maybe, just maybe, we are spending too much, giving away too much to special interests?

natedogg

[adios]

[ QUOTE ]
I thought Republicans were suppose to be against massive deficit spending.

[/ QUOTE ]

In terms of GDP it's the 17th biggest in history. Whether or not that is massive or not I don't know but there have been bigger deficits, much bigger.

[ QUOTE ]
The party seems to be so dominated by fundamentalist Christians and foreign policy hawks that balancing America's checkbook no longer matters.

[/ QUOTE ]

How are fundamentalist Christians responsible for the budget deficit? If you stack up the money spent on foreign aid against the money spent on entitlements it's not even close.

Go to the site cbo.gov (I've posted the link to the historical data many times) and following the links to the data on the budget and you'll get a much clearer picture on why the deficit exists and what mught done about it. BTW it isn't necessarily a bad thing to have debt and have a deficit. It's a matter of how much is too much. Being leveraged is the American way [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. How many people do you know that aren't leveraged and there aren't that many business that are debt free nor should they be. Let's face it U.S. Treasury bonds are very high priced at this juncture when looking at prices over the last 30 or 40 years. If governments are buying U.S. Treasury bonds at high prices, what happens when and if the economy gets really hot and those bonds decline in value?