I'm sure our right wingers will start caring about deficits again when a D is in the WH. Happens every time.
Some of us care about them regardless of who is in the White House.
I'll repeat something I've started saying in a number of places: a principle is only a principle if one stands on it when it hurts. What do I mean?
Well, I regularly see people say they are conservative, say they are concerned about deficits, but do things like defending Trump's tax cuts or Bush's despite their budget-busting results and continuing to vote Republican. "But the Democrats care even less," they inevitably say.
No, and no for several reasons:
Someone who continually votes Republican despite the fact that deficits keep exploding under Republicans (at least Reagan, Bush II, Trump) and keep getting lowered under Democrats (Clinton, Obama)
shows through his or her actions that they do not care about deficits. It's the same thing with "small government" claims because the Republicans themselves like "big government". Republicans hardly do any different and even if they nibble at government by removing regulations that stop coal mines from poisoning communities or removing regulations that block the kind of trading that caused the financial crisis, they beef up other things, like the military: something like a 70 billion dollar of government expansion via the military.
If they really cared, they would vote big-L libertarian or other independent, and for a candidate that either promised for the first time or better yet had a track record. They don't because beating Democrats is what they care about more than anything. Deficits and the size of government are just talking points, because a principle means little if it goes *poof* when standing on it might cost something.
But really, if you care about deficits then you need to vote Democrat or some sort of third party with a track record. Voting Republican is no matter on the deficit front, and historically it is worse*
Caveat being: a president can only do so much for the economy or deficits. But one thing a president can do that directly and immediately affects them, provided they have party support, is the kind of tax cut Reagan, Bush, and Trump liked. Namely, a tax cut aimed more towards the richer than the poorer (in the name of the trickle down lie). That immediately craters government revenue, which raises deficits.
And you can't tell me they do this intending to cut spending next in any seriousness. Even if you could let me read their minds and see they meant it, the simple fact is they never really succeed. And they know they can't get rid of the programs they keep saying they want to since a lot of their own voters are poor. Remember the "get government out of my medicare!" sign? Real or staged, yeah,
that. Once government actually got out of providing these things, they'd be screwed and they would at least be aware enough to know their guy did it.
If you've started a thread raging about Trump's idiotic deficit-exploding tax cut, I missed it. But then I'm not in every last subforum. I'm in enough to see that DP right-wingers do not care about Trump's deficits. The vast bulk spend their time defending everything he does and attacking alleged liberals. The 'reasonable' ones keep their head down and fight side-skirmishes.
And again, actions can speak far louder than words. If big deficits really were that much of a problem to even a marginally significant amount of right wingers, there would be regular threads on it
while a Republican was president.
