Trump’s first year back in the White House closed with the U.S. national debt roughly $2.25 trillion higher than when he retook the oath of office, showing how fast Washington’s red ink is piling up even amid DOGE hype and promises to pay it down. Over the calendar year 2025, the growth in the national debt was even higher, some $2.29 trillion.
If I ever hear the phrase fiscally conservative again in person, I’m going to knock someone’s teeth out
You won’t because they dropped that term during Bush second term.
What if someone is actually fiscally conservative? Like I have seen the studies where it’s cheaper to house the homeless than leave them on the streets. We need to cut wasteful spending on corporate welfare and spreading out the costs of things like AI datacenters to the local community. We need to balance the budget by taxing spending instead of income tax, taxing the absolute dogshit out of billionaires, and adding exceptions for necessities (food, hygiene products, someone can come up with a better list than me). While we’re at it, bake the tax into things into the cost. So if my subtotal is $100 I’m paying $100 instead of $108.25 or whatever.
None of that requires the least bit of empathy or caring. It requires only looking coldly at the numbers and seeing that the country was in a much better spot financially when we had a strong middle class and taxed the dog shit out of the rich.
There’s more than this by a lot. Empathy demands even more than that. But anyone claiming to be fiscally conservative while not discussing forcing companies and the rich to pay their sharing is lying or duped. Anyone wanting our tax dollars paying for folks who live in the street rather than in houses is cruel or duped, not conservative, because it significantly reduces healthcare costs, justice system costs, and emergency services costs. It’s prudent to house folks because it will cost the country less overall. Progressive taxes instead of income taxes makes far more sense, reduces manpower, and reduces government spending.
The people calling themselves fiscally conservative are not. They’re shitbags or they’ve been tricked.
The things you are proposing are fiscally responsible, not conservative.
But yes, anyone that chooses to use that phrase is either an asshole or stupid, but one thing is for sure, they’re trying to hide their racism behind it.
I always assumed the conservative in fiscally conservative meant to conserve the status quo, which would be the rich looting and killing us.
It’s messed up. When I was young I thought that’s what it actually meant. Do the things that cost us the least while getting the largest return on investment. Because conservative means you want to reduce risk, right? Apparently fucking not. I was duped when I was young by the phrasing.
Yeah same, that was I think my first true lesson on their horseshit deceptive tactics. Nothing they say can be taken seriously, but their actions always should. If they accuse anyone of anything, it is as good as an admission of guilt.
With just those rules, you can see through them as if they’re telling the truth.