In sum, there are zero historical examples of conservatives mobilizing to make the deficit smaller. What is true is that most conservatives oppose increases in non-military spending when those increases are proposed by Democratic presidents.
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/07/conservatives-dont-care-about-the-deficit-4/
ProProg You are correct that the “Real” Conservatives will be working very hard to get control of spending, even in 95-2001 the Republicans were influenced by a lot of “Conservatives” in the House, (and the deficits were seriously reduced, giving Bill Clinton that Surplus you’ll love to brag about, the Rep. House gave him those surplusses), the gradual weakening of the conservatives in the Senate..followed by the 9/11 attacks which launched the crazy spending dealing with Homeland Security..a new department which seemed to be a bottomless pit of “defensive” / preventive spending. In the past few years most of our “moderates” and liberals have been purged. Spector, Voinavich, Bennett, Chaffee, “Jumping Jim” Jeffers and dozens of others in the House, Senate and State Govt. houses all across the country. Furthermore the “Left” has lost a lot of their moderates and blue dogs too. So if the Conservatives manage to take the House and/ or the Senate in Washington you will see a great difference even better than the 94 revolution because the Conservatives will be in the majority of the majority.
The Stat of Wisconsin is about to have a transformation as well. Scott Walker is much better to conservatives than Tommy Thompson ever was. The conservative leadership in both houses will drastically change the way Wisc does business over the next few years.
But I thank you for pointing out the difference. Hopefully in few years of proving the Conservative Republicans can govern like the Grown-ups we profess to be the term “Republican” will be synonymous “conservative and even Libertarian will feel better as part of the fold. The Progressive “Cheques” are now starting to bounce across the country and around the world. it’s time for the grown-ups to be in charge again.
One last point: On the weak kneed Republicans of the 2001-2006 era. The reason was that Jim Jeffords, Olymoia Snowe, Arlen Spector and even John McCain were constantly threatening to Jump and switch the Senate control if they didn’t get their way..which was always special interest items that ran contrary to “conservative ideals. Trent Lott, Bill Frist, or even Mitch McConnell and others caved rather than fight for a principle. We have a few left to purge and the Club For Growth and the TEA Party has been doing the job. Scott Brown might be a RINO..but he’s not Teddy Kennedy or Martha Coakley.
BTW next year when all the press is asking why we can’t a get along?? It’s because the Blue areas have voted in and kept the leftists while the rest of the country has installed conservatives and a few moderates. We are not very “purple” any more.
wow i am not sure what congress you have been watching, but I have a few questions.
1. tell me one republican, not named Ron Paul, who is in office who is a conservative?
2. You do know that once the repubs lost power their stated goal was to block every single thing the dems did and run against a “do-nothing” congress. Trent Lott admitted to that when he was speaker and things have not changed. You do know that there have been a record number of filibusters right?
3. Have you ever heard of Jude Wanniski?
Sure Paul Ryan, Jim Sensenbrenner, Eric Cantor, Michelle Bachmann, Darryl Issa and dozen’s of others in the House. The new Senate will have 36 to 40 Conservatives. We might even see Lindsay Graham and John McCain pretend to be a Conservatives again. Depend on how “maverick” they want to be. With a WHOLE lot of Luck McCain can be defeated by JD Hayworth, and the Conservatives can be done with this pretend Conservative.
I am in favor of the “do-nothing” congress. Nearly everything they have done since Jan 2007 including things Bush signed have been exactly wrong for the economy. Stimulus, raising the minimum wage, cash for kluinkers, Bank and AIG Bail-outs. They have not filibustered any Supreme Court positions …yet…I presume when the Right re-captures the House and Senate you will support blockages and filibusters. Most of the great accomplishments that Bush couldn’t get thru were because of Filibustering. Many of his top notch Court of Appeals judges never got a vote.
Jude Wanniski…never heard of him/ her? But I’ll look it up.
This post doesn’t make any sense. You won’t confuse Republicans with conservatives when it comes to cutting spending? So you are saying that Republicans do cut spending, while conservatives don’t?
Can you provide any historical examples of “progressives” mobilizing to make the deficit smaller?
What is true is that liberals acted like they opposed spending while Bush was in office, only to ramp up spending even more now that he is gone. Remember “pay go”? What ever happened to that? Pay-go, pay-go, pay-GONE.
Initially I was going to respond to this post, but when I re-read it, I just couldn’t make sense of it either except to parse it as you have above.
And reacting to points made in the (not quite) link:
Bush was not remotely a conservative. Period. Reagan was, but should be compared to wartime Presidents – the explosion of Defense spending helped win the Cold War and prevent a real one. Mutually Assured Destruction is still so horrific it’s almost unimaginable. But it also worked.
Sure. So long as you’re very flexible with your definition of deficit reduction package in the same way people were with the Stimulus package.
False.
While McConnell is a conservative, the individuals he’s referring to most certainly are not uniformly so.
Fixed that for them.
So out of the 5 claims, Mr.Yglesias gets maybe one half a point.
1. It amazes me that reagan is such a myth. The conservative reagan that the republican party holds up as the standard bearer is as real as Paul Bunyan. The Soviet Union was crumbling and Reagan had very little to do with it. All he did was spend us into a recession, but at least he rewarded his donors very well…. If the explosion of defense spending won the cold war, what was Russia’s answer to Star Wars?
My point isnt that republicans reduce spending and conservatives dont, the point is the current republican party is not conservative, and the only time they try and cut spending is when they are out of power.
George Bush was every bit a republican and had complete control over all 3 branches of government and yet we ran up tremendous debt.
3. is absolutely true as proven by George Bush inheriting a surplus and his first order of business was the bush tax cuts for the rich…
4. If Mcconnell was a conservative, where was his “conservative” values when bus hwas running up tremendous deficits? I think it is laughable to call anyone a conservative who voted for TARP.
You’re right, I guess it was Jimmy Carter who said “tear down this wall.” Our mistake. Give him another peace prize.
But you make most of your own points moot:
In fact, initially one of the largest elements of the Tea Party movement was conservatives angry with the Republican party. And the funny thing is, despite saying that, you prove the very title of your post wrong. George Bush was not a conservative. You can blame him all you want – I know I and most other actual conservatives certainly hold him responsible for the obscene spending and poor management of the budget.
Saying “tear down this wall” did not end the cold war, any more than saying “abracadabra” makes the magicians assistant disappear…
Yeah, only the current occupant of the White House can make something happen by simply proclaiming it. At least he sure seems to think so.
Again Urban the facts dont match the rhetoric. Here is the well known “conservative” JD hayworth…
As a Congressman, J.D. Hayworth was an avid earmarker who supported such pork as “$220,000 to renovate a Maine Blueberry farm” and “$5.8 million for a Vermont snowmobile trail.”
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jul/16/john-mccain/john-mccain-labels-jd-hayworth-avid-earmarker/
Proud….J.D. may not have had a perfect conservative record as I would have liked him to have. But he certainly recognizes the mood of the country right now. He would be a great replacement to John McCain the Bane of contemporary Conservatives..But It doesn’t look like he’s gonna be able overcome the current 30 point deficit in the polls. So It’s not really an issue. We’ll see if he can tighten the race in the week or so enough to re-kindle this debate.