We've been in a recessions since the 90s, dude. Where have you been?
Most people round here blame the previous governor, Engler, and Granholm for not doing enough to help right things. But yeah, the collapsed auto and manufacturing industries, draining work force, horrid infighting in our term limited state government, and general incompetence over the past 30 years has brought this state down.
Tax hikes were about the only way to deal with the massive budget deficit without cutting road services and state police forces, and ballooning the costs of going to college for people like me.
Fine, replace Dem with lib and Pub with con. The ideology of spendiness is the left. Republicans may not adhere to fiscal conservatism as much as they should (which is why I identify with conservative ideology over the Republican party) but the Dems start from an ideology of spendiness.
d00d, the federal government is deeply, deeply in debt because, starting with Carter, each successive administration has refused to deal with the long-term structural deficiences inherent in the way we govern ourselves. I honestly don't care if you insist on labeling it with an ideology, but if you must, do it accurately. Conservatives, including those who identify themselves as deficit hawks, like Phil Gramm or Warren Rudman (both Republicans) or Fritz Hollings (a Dem), have had repeated chances to take a sledgehammer to government spending and have not been able to come up with the goods. Folks who are more liberal have had equal chances and have not. Folks who were middle-of-the-road have had chances have not. What's the theme then?
Elected politicians of all stripes are not capable of addressing the long-term federal deficits.The one high-profile candidate (Ross Perot) who made deficit reduction a central part of his campaign was treated as a loon
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Re: Deconstructioning this threadcaspian_xMay 29 2008, 05:54:15 UTC
A fair point. I did dismiss the challenge because it doesn't really address my point. I'm sure you can find examples of occasional pork barrel or other unnecessary spending by normally staunchly fiscal conservatives. That doesn't prove anything because I am fully admitting that Republicans fail to uphold fiscal conservatism to the standard they should.
My point is that as far as the political ideologies are concerned - conservative versus liberal - it's the conservatives that disapprove of such spending while the liberals whole basis of existence is tax, spend, repeat.
I threw the parties back in at the end because Republicans align more with conservatism and Democrats align more with liberalism, obviously. So while it may be true that Republicans can be shown to be spendy from time to time - it's when they are betraying the ideology of their base, as opposed to Democrats who are fulfilling it.
That's the difference, and simply shouting back "Republicans are spendy too!" doesn't address that difference.
Most people round here blame the previous governor, Engler, and Granholm for not doing enough to help right things. But yeah, the collapsed auto and manufacturing industries, draining work force, horrid infighting in our term limited state government, and general incompetence over the past 30 years has brought this state down.
Tax hikes were about the only way to deal with the massive budget deficit without cutting road services and state police forces, and ballooning the costs of going to college for people like me.
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Elected politicians of all stripes are not capable of addressing the long-term federal deficits.The one high-profile candidate (Ross Perot) who made deficit reduction a central part of his campaign was treated as a loon ( ... )
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My point is that as far as the political ideologies are concerned - conservative versus liberal - it's the conservatives that disapprove of such spending while the liberals whole basis of existence is tax, spend, repeat.
I threw the parties back in at the end because Republicans align more with conservatism and Democrats align more with liberalism, obviously. So while it may be true that Republicans can be shown to be spendy from time to time - it's when they are betraying the ideology of their base, as opposed to Democrats who are fulfilling it.
That's the difference, and simply shouting back "Republicans are spendy too!" doesn't address that difference.
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