It wasn’t something that was an important issue for President Trump, and so many of our base voters align themselves with President Trump. It’s almost like now debt, deficits, spending become abstract issues that a lot of folks aren’t paying attention to and should be,” [John Thune] said.
Th old guard seems content to blame Trump and populism for this evolution but I disagree. Fiscally conservative political groups have consistently failed to address the most important problems that americans face in a satisfactory manner, and they are falling by the wayside on their own demerits.
Yep, Sad but true. And We had all three branches and did nothing. Hard not seeing this lead not to inflation. I know my house value is skyrocketing. The sad part is we will get little value. Biden admin is not Eisenhower making the interstates. Who knows how they will define infrastructure? I’m sure we will all be poorer for it. JUst like Cal and NY. The poverty capitals of the US when COST OF LIVING IS CALCULATED IN…
And who cares? I don’t think that most voters look backward at the numbers that past POTUS put up.
However some of them will remember that Trump promised to eliminate the national debt in eight years.
And perhaps that was on some of the voters minds.
And by the way, Trump added almost $9T to the debit in four years. So we will have to see what the Democrats do.
However one thing that looks like it is going their way is the polling that has been done on the Covid relief bill and the proposed infrastructure bill. Both very positive. And the numbers show that about half of Trump voters are in favor of both.
It is sad but true we crossed that road probably more than a decade ago. All one can do is hope that everyone that says debt doesn’t matter are correct.
Yeah, while the GOP certainly wasn’t fiscally conservative under Trump, this is one that I can’t lay totally at Trump’s feet. He certainly didn’t help matters any, but I was active in GOP leadership at the district / state level back during the Bush 43 era, and was doing everything I could to try to preach fiscal conservatism back then. It fell on deaf ears. The GOP has had this particular problem for decades now.
Every sentient human hates austerity in practice because it’s stupid and pointless, as a practical matter—unless your goal is to destroy the government or piss people off. Republicans (and foolish Democrats, too) put on their green eye shades when it’s expedient. But a lot of the kludgy, inelegant aspects of the ACA (for example) are that way because Democrats (let’s hope for the last time) tied themselves in knots to get the budgeting “neutral”; this naive nonsense was repaid with . . . endless bad faith and lying.
Yes, and it’s sad. Although a lefty, we need fiscal conservatives to keep things balanced. But all know the story of conservatism over that last 40 years. Some of its bedrock principles became superseded by other things. Think it’s too late to recapture those the principles that have become diluted?
What’s going to happen when interest on the debt constitutes the entire federal revenue stream?
(And it doesn’t even have to be further explosions of spending that gets us there. A Carter-esque rise in interest rates would bust the federal budget.)
I don’t think they will any time soon. Why bother? By itself, what constituency would austerity draw to the party, if everything else stayed the same? The culture war stuff is much better for raising money and activating voters and making soundbites on Fox and OAN. It’s better than campaigning on turning Medicare into an ACA-style voucher system or cutting other programs most people like in practice, regardless of their party.
