[nucklepunche]

In spite of its claims the Republican Party is not fiscally conservative. I am a fiscal conservative. The Republican Party of Eisenhower was fiscally conservative but the Republican Party of today is not. The GOP of now is fiscally libertarian. In other words their primary aim is low taxes and low regulations. They will fight for this regardless of whether or not it raises the deficit. The deficit is merely used as a rhetorical tool to cut spending which in turn will be used to justify further tax cuts. The way I see it an authentic fiscal conservative is the following...

1. Somebody who wants a balanced budget and favors both spending cuts AND tax increases to get there.

2. Somebody who might support a social safety net but demands accountability.

3. Somebody who views the budget as a unified whole and does not hold up military spending as holy, sacred, or untouchable.

4. Somebody who supports capitalism along with necessary regulations to keep capitalism stable.

A fiscal conservative is not...

1. Somebody who will support a balanced budget only if no tax increases are considered.

2. Somebody who opposes all social safety nets since it conflicts with more tax cuts for the rich.

3. Somebody who calls for smaller government while demanding more military spending and acting like only non-military programs can count as "Big Gummint."

4. Somebody who believes there is no middle ground between laissez-faire capitalism and socialism and who would rather see capitalist economies collapse than intervene using government.

Eisenhower may have been the last true fiscal conservative in the Republican Party and Clinton was the last true fiscal conservative president.

To me New York mayor Michael Bloomberg explains true fiscal conservatism in his speech to the British Conservative Party in 2007.

Being a fiscal conservative is not about slashing programs that help the poor, or improve health care, or ensure a social safety net. It's about insisting services are provided efficiently, get to only the people that need them, and achieve the desired results. Fiscal conservatives have hearts too — but we also insist on using our brains, and that means demanding results and holding government accountable for producing them.

To me, fiscal conservatism means balancing budgets — not running deficits that the next generation can't afford. It means improving the efficiency of delivering services by finding innovative ways to do more with less. It means cutting taxes when possible and prudent to do so, raising them overall only when necessary to balance the budget, and only in combination with spending cuts. It means when you run a surplus, you save it; you don't squander it. And most importantly, being a fiscal conservative means preparing for the inevitable economic downturns — and by all indications, we've got one coming.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Bloomberg#Economic_issues

In the GOP by contrast the attitude is, "Gimme tax cuts. I don't care if we git us one o them thar deficits. It only counts if the libra soshulists do it like Barack Osama Bin Bama. And it ain't none got to do with our boys in uniform. The way I see it the libras just wanna cut the military to help the terrists win. More tax cuts and more military! Cut welfare and make negros git a jerb but keep yer hands offen mah Medihcarr! Mitt Romney 2012! Derka derr!"

[Rei Murasame]

The deficit is merely used as a rhetorical tool to cut spending which in turn will be used to justify further tax cuts.

Yes, it's basically part of their idea that they can place the state and thus the economy in general into crisis 'artificially', and continue to short-sightedly 'save money' by 'starving the beast'. It's so 'smart' that it actually is incredibly stupid and risky for them.

The school system, civic organisations, social services and other state-funded groups play a vital role in grooming workers, conferring political legitimacy onto the political class, and maintaining social stability. When the government continually uses the state to reallocate wealth to themselves and their sponsors, at the expense of and to the detriment of those stabilising services, they create a crisis of social re-production.

The realities of human society must always take revenge in the end. Today they would seize funds and yank them out of the school system and the civic organisations, tomorrow they would find that they have unwittingly created a generation of children who are increasingly difficult control because naked inequalities and flaring contradictions would neither be explained away by the system, nor smothered by it.

It is in that environment that radical political narratives - narratives about the need for total systemic change - may begin to flourish, along with the possibility that such narratives may be elevated to a coherent methodology and subsequently some form of revolutionary action.

[mikema63]

because the welfare programs dont need to be reformed and the millitary is one cut away from utter oblivion.

also i object to the idea that they are fiscally libertarian, they most certainly aren't even close

[nucklepunche]

Yes, it's basically part of their idea that they can place the state and thus the economy in general into crisis 'artificially', and continue to short-sightedly 'save money' by 'starving the beast'. It's so 'smart' that it actually is incredibly stupid and risky for them.

They have been starving the beast since Reagan and it has gotten us nowhere but debt.

The school system, civic organisations, social services and other state-funded groups play a vital role in grooming workers, conferring political legitimacy onto the political class, and maintaining social stability. When the government continually uses the state to reallocate wealth to themselves and their sponsors, at the expense of and to the detriment of those stabilising services, they create a crisis of social re-production.

A complicated way of saying, "The state is a great stabilizing force and take it away and it no longer functions that way." This is dangerous in a world where there are few collective identities anymore.

The realities of human society must always take revenge in the end. Today they would seize funds and yank them out of the school system and the civic organisations, tomorrow they would find that they have unwittingly created a generation of children who are increasingly difficult control because naked inequalities and flaring contradictions would neither be explained away by the system, nor smothered by it.

This is the point I have always raised. If we want capitalism to flourish and avoid social revolution and far leftist movements we must alleviate some inequalities. This is what makes it supported by the majority.

It is in that environment that radical political narratives - narratives about the need for total systemic change - may begin to flourish, along with the possibility that such narratives may be elevated to a coherent methodology and subsequently some form of revolutionary action.

A point I have raised time and time again. I have warned the right that if they get their way the fears of the socialist boogeyman may prove very, very true. America avoided socialist movements having much political power due to a lack of a de jure class system. Now a de facto class system is rising up. There are fewer and fewer examples of Rockefellers and Carnegies, rags to riches stories. If income mobility goes down so does the standing order minus great repression by the upper classes.

[Dr House]

I'm not sure why this should be news to anybody. Or why it would be surprising that this would happen in a democracy.

That said, it's difficult to find exactly where to cut the military budget without endangering a country's international strategic position, and as the leading superpower (and given imminent bipolarity rising in the world again) this applies doubly to the US.

[mikema63]

our military budget is 10 times that of china's, which is number two, are you suggesting we wouldn't be able to kick ass if we lowered it to even 9 times the size of china's?

[Soixante-Retard]

The Republican Party is not fiscally conservative.

No, you don't say...

[Dr House]

our military budget is 10 times that of china's, which is number two, are you suggesting we wouldn't be able to kick ass if we lowered it to even 9 times the size of china's?

It's a lot more complicated than that dude. The main strategic imperative in the Sino-American cold war is not actually preparing for a Chinese invasion so much as containing China, which among other things requires: securing control over resources necessary for Chinese development (primarily oil -- which requires strategic control over the Middle East); and containment/deterrence of China against America's allies in the Far East, whom China makes a regular habit of bullying around.

Further, lest we forget, China's defense budget dwarfs America's because the Chinese economy so far still dwarfs America's too. China is nevertheless the fastest-growing economy in the world, and has five times America's population -- what do you think will happen to that figure if China's output per capita is allowed to reach American levels?

Of course, that's not to say cutting the military budget is impossible. Some places the defense budget can be cut include trimming the officer corps and ground personnel, closing unnecessary bases at home and abroad (we could close bases in: Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. Bases in Asia and the Black Sea strategically necessary), ending "up or out" (which costs billions of dollars of unnecessary soldier training a year), reforming procurement procedures, and ending R&D and equipment programs that harm military capacity. All of this together would probably save $150 billion a year or thereabouts. What I'm saying though, is that we need to be really careful about where we cut, because cutting in the wrong places can easily hurt key strategic imperatives.

[mikema63]

containing china from what? what are the Chinese doing that we are going to "contain" the only thing i can imagine the military would be good for stopping them is an invasion that you say isn't the reason.

it seems to me that the word "contain" has lost all meaning, we want more trade with china so its not in that sense, are we trying to stop china from having diplomatic relations with its neighbors? what, besides the use of their military, could you possible mean?

are we still trying to keep the reds from spreading?

[RhetoricThug]

containing china from what?

Simple growth. As long as we tread carefully, The United States could be an unchallenged world power longer than expected.

The thing is, lately... We don't tread-softly. Now we must work on containing China's global influence- economically of course, gaining power through their military just isn't feasible at the moment.

[Dr House]

containing china from what?

Bullying US business partners, snatching business partners away from the US, and most importantly developing to a point where they can endanger the US militarily -- which given their colossal, intelligent and disciplined population wouldn't even take that long. Even if you're not interested in the US retaining its hegemony for its own sake, the rise of China as a superpower is very, very dangerous to the US.

[Rei Murasame]

They have been starving the beast since Reagan and it has gotten us nowhere but debt.

Pretty much, big business seems to always want more.

A complicated way of saying, "The state is a great stabilizing force and take it away and it no longer functions that way." This is dangerous in a world where there are few collective identities anymore.

I agree, but I would clarify again and say that the state has not gone anywhere. The capitalist state has in fact only become larger in terms of the funds that it commands; just it has also undergone a bifurcation where a larger proportion of that funding is pulled away from social services and placed instead into propping up the ever-more financial enterprises which happen to underpin the state.

The argument of "big state versus small state" is one that we all have to careful not to fall for, since framing it like that obscures much of what has actually been going on, and only plays into the hands of libertarians who have designed their rhetoric around that argument.

This is the point I have always raised. If we want capitalism to flourish and avoid social revolution and far leftist movements we must alleviate some inequalities. This is what makes it supported by the majority.

Of course I would argue that it will not be possible any more to do that, because it is not bad apples or bad policy choices in a vacuum that have caused this, but a tendency of the capitalist state to gravitate in this direction. Given that the same people who control the capitalist state are the people who 'lost' stupendous sums of money in mal-investments during the previous economic boom, it was only logical that these same people when strapped for cash would use the state as their lifeboat.

However, in doing this, they have shown a whole generation of people the truth behind the so-called 'democracy'; the actions of the capitalist state exhibit the revealed preferences of the financier class, because it is a 'democracy' for them and by them.

You seem intent supporting some reform of this. Yet so long as they are in charge of the state I don't see how you'd be able to change anything.

[hip hop bunny hop]

God, how I hate these, "____ is not conservative" posts. Why do you even bother listing these items in a bullet-point manner? Do you really expect people to just see one liners and magically agree with you?

And, really, you're quoting Bloomberg to get your point across? The man is about as far from conservative as you can get, as noted by his ludicrous wars against trans-fat, cigarettes, and salt .....

[No Just Us]

as Quoted from nucklepunche: The deficit is merely used as a rhetorical tool to cut spending which in turn will be used to justify further tax cuts. End Quote
Yes, it's basically part of their idea that they can place the state and thus the economy in general into crisis 'artificially', and continue to short-sightedly 'save money' by 'starving the beast'. It's so 'smart' that it actually is incredibly stupid and risky for them.

The school system, civic organisations, social services and other state-funded groups play a vital role in grooming workers, conferring political legitimacy onto the political class, and maintaining social stability. When the government continually uses the state to reallocate wealth to themselves and their sponsors, at the expense of and to the detriment of those stabilising services, they create a crisis of social re-production.

The realities of human society must always take revenge in the end. Today they would seize funds and yank them out of the school system and the civic organisations, tomorrow they would find that they have unwittingly created a generation of children who are increasingly difficult control because naked inequalities and flaring contradictions would neither be explained away by the system, nor smothered by it.

It is in that environment that radical political narratives - narratives about the need for total systemic change - may begin to flourish, along with the possibility that such narratives may be elevated to a coherent methodology and subsequently some form of revolutionary action.

It's such an overload of missed understandings that I need to figure out if you are towing another parroted agenda or just confused.

There isn't enough time to dissect everything:

You think they (who ever THEY are) are trying to put the economy in general into crisis 'artificially' - really?

What's happening is that they are trying to put us into a global dictatorship and both sides are giving them the way to do it and the people are so busy calling each other stupid that no one notices they are BOTH clueless and severly wrong!

You haven't noticed what places like Iceland, Italy, Greece, and Hungary are going through with they entitlement economies?

Do you understand that EVERY PERSON in just the USA owe the global economy over $45,939.00 (each and every person)? To pay that would take over $22.00 an hour (with NO payroll deductions)
times 40 hours by 52 weeks for every person to pay that off in one year.

That's artificial? ... that's really serious to me considering that those wages are considered middle class and too many people have been forced into a lower class income due to a faltering economy.
Seriously; can YOU afford one portion of that debt? I can't!

ALSO STATED WAS: short-sightedly 'save money' by 'starving the beast'

Whats long sighted? Spend UNFOUND money to feed the beast?

... the money is gone! Nothing left! When your pocket is empty - you can't spend any more. That is the reality of everything.

[mejustjustin]

Your post is right. Conservatism should be about fiscal responsibility, but it is not. I think it's because we've gotten nothing but moderates in the White House recently. George Bush was a moderate, his father seemed moderate, and Reagan was forced to compromise with a Democratic congress. However, Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress brought Clinton to balance the budget, which shows there is still some hope. We need a real Republican in there, someone like Paul Ryan, or Chris Christie. If we keep electing these moderates (ie: McCain, Romney, etc.), our party will forever be viewed as economic failures because their policies are too liberal.

[Joe Liberty]

our military budget is 10 times that of china's,

Not to mention every other line item in the budget has increased dramatically, not decreased (their idea of a "cut" is reducing the rate of growth, remember). If that's "starving the beast" they're using a different dictionary than everybody else is.

[Kman]

Bullying US business partners, snatching business partners away from the US

By offering superior products? What ''bullying'' are you referring to here exactly?

and most importantly developing to a point where they can endanger the US militarily -- which given their colossal, intelligent and disciplined population wouldn't even take that long. Even if you're not interested in the US retaining its hegemony for its own sake, the rise of China as a superpower is very, very dangerous to the US.

Non-sensical scaremongering, the US has nukes and because of this invasion of the US is pretty much impossible without having your homeland destroyed.

[Dr House]

By offering superior products?

Uh, no, are you retarded or something? By using their position as the local military and economic heavyweight to essentially force other local countries to do what they want. The same thing that local powers always do to countries within their sphere of influence; which is why for example the entirety of Eastern Europe were pretty much vassal states to the USSR.

the US has nukes and because of this invasion of the US is pretty much impossible without having your homeland destroyed.

And? Already every nuclear power is developing a nuclear defense shield which if extensive enough renders the nuclear deterrent useless. And that doesn't mean, either, that we should welcome China getting fucking nukes as well.

[Kman]

Uh, no, are you retarded or something? By using their position as the local military and economic heavyweight to essentially force other local countries to do what they want. The same thing that local powers always do to countries within their sphere of influence; which is why for example the entirety of Eastern Europe were pretty much vassal states to the USSR.

That is straight up invasion and empire building you are talking about here and so far I have seen little inclination in the chinese leadership for this. Also even if they did this it doesnt mean the US should start a war with China, they would just be spreading capitalism since they are more capitalistic than the great old USA these days.

And? Already every nuclear power is developing a nuclear defense shield which if extensive enough renders the nuclear deterrent useless. And that doesn't mean, either, that we should welcome China getting fucking nukes as well.

Can a nuclear shield stop nukes being used on the battle field or launched from close to your city via a sub? I doubt that these systems are fast enough to catch a nuclear missile launched just outside Shanghai for example.

Also I am fairly sure China has been armed with nukes for several decades already.

[Dr House]

That is straight up invasion and empire building you are talking about here

No, that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is using the threat of military repercussions (or other repercussions like refusal to trade or outright blockade) to harass other nations. A big power can do that to a small neighboring power without having any real intentions to invade. Hell, many imperial domains in olden days were protectorates rather than formal colonies -- the British Empire often offered military protection to countries in exchange for concessions (first preference or even monopoly in trade, shared defense of trade routes, etc.).

So far I have seen little inclination in the chinese leadership for this.

That's funny, they've basically called for restoration of their Tang Dynasty-era power. Note that this was their era of focus in the prelude to the 2008 Olympics.

Also even if they did this it doesnt mean the US should start a war with China,

Of course not, that'd be stupid. The US should, however, contain Chinese growth lest it become another USSR and threat to American hegemony.

they would just be spreading capitalism since they are more capitalistic than the great old USA these days.

Capitalism has fuck-all to do with this. China sees itself as a budding superpower, and unless it is contained it quite frankly is. China likes using its regional power status to harass its neighbors, many of which are allied to the US, and as they gain power and thus power projection capabilities they will try to assert global dominance by seeking to contain us. Which means that, left unchecked, eventually they will begin using global influence to try and rob us of trade partners and needed resources in order to starve us. And as they're fast on the economic rise and their population is so much larger than ours, left unchecked they will become more powerful than the US.

It might help if, rather than trying to compare the situation with the Cold War, you compared it with Russia's previous cold war with Britain, which was explicitly a competition for hegemony rather than stated as an ideological conflict.

Also I am fairly sure China has been armed with nukes for several decades already.

Shitty and few.