While there may be a nicer way to say it, I’m bothered by the downvotes you’re getting. Fiscal conservatism is the motivated reasoning that bridges or abstracts values and logical steps people often cannot even consciously admit to themselves.
It’s like how moralizing homelessness and feelings of disgust toward them protect oneself from the fear of becoming homeless, by manufacturing a distinction.
Nobody doesn’t believe in spending money wisely and sustainably.
I’ve called myself a fiscal conservative, and I have a lengthy comment in my history about it. I’m not finding a link.
Most of the proposals by people who call themselves fiscal conservatives don’t want to spend money now, and don’t want to think of spending money later. This doesn’t solve the current issues and does nothing to prevent those issues from recurring in the future. They also seem to think that policing and incarceration are free, and that poor people have no interest in eating or shelter, which means they obviously won’t break the law to achieve those goals. They also ignore that a good education for everyone, not just their kids, is one of the best predictors for a financially successful future (and that financially successful people are less of a financial burden to society), and that hungry kids don’t learn as well. In spite of that, they don’t want to pay for public education. They also don’t want to pay for school lunch programs in spite of all the studies showing that wherever they are implemented they provide a net economic benefit of at least 6 to 1.
The only conclusion I can come to is that most people who call themselves fiscal conservatives don’t want to spend money, not even wisely, and fail to recognize that the costs will still be there - you just get to choose whether you want to spend it on education and social services or policing and prisons.
Wish I could upvote this multiple times. It is consistently a pay now or pay later equation. Often spending money to avoid a problem costs you less than paying for the fallout later.
The bedrock of their economic calculus is a disbelief that they could ever possibly net profit by spending on other people. As I said in the last paragraph of this comment, it is their concept of society itself that is limited/constrained in scope, and that has nothing to do with money.
You’re weighing the cost of fixing a problem now vs later, and they’re clinging to the idea that because they’re not the victims of that problem (currently nor in their own optimistic projections), it would be best to simply never solve it at all. But talking about cost to (an intentionally vague) us is generally more acceptable (and compelling) to a liberal society than its counterpart – dehumanizing whomever currently pays it.
I never thought of it that way before. Yeah, it’s not like democrats believe money should be pissed away, but conservatives will tell you that spending money on things like human rights is “pissing it away”. Gross.
While there may be a nicer way to say it, I’m bothered by the downvotes you’re getting. Fiscal conservatism is the motivated reasoning that bridges or abstracts values and logical steps people often cannot even consciously admit to themselves.
It’s like how moralizing homelessness and feelings of disgust toward them protect oneself from the fear of becoming homeless, by manufacturing a distinction.
Nobody doesn’t believe in spending money wisely and sustainably.
I’ve called myself a fiscal conservative, and I have a lengthy comment in my history about it. I’m not finding a link.
Most of the proposals by people who call themselves fiscal conservatives don’t want to spend money now, and don’t want to think of spending money later. This doesn’t solve the current issues and does nothing to prevent those issues from recurring in the future. They also seem to think that policing and incarceration are free, and that poor people have no interest in eating or shelter, which means they obviously won’t break the law to achieve those goals. They also ignore that a good education for everyone, not just their kids, is one of the best predictors for a financially successful future (and that financially successful people are less of a financial burden to society), and that hungry kids don’t learn as well. In spite of that, they don’t want to pay for public education. They also don’t want to pay for school lunch programs in spite of all the studies showing that wherever they are implemented they provide a net economic benefit of at least 6 to 1.
The only conclusion I can come to is that most people who call themselves fiscal conservatives don’t want to spend money, not even wisely, and fail to recognize that the costs will still be there - you just get to choose whether you want to spend it on education and social services or policing and prisons.
Wish I could upvote this multiple times. It is consistently a pay now or pay later equation. Often spending money to avoid a problem costs you less than paying for the fallout later.
The bedrock of their economic calculus is a disbelief that they could ever possibly net profit by spending on other people. As I said in the last paragraph of this comment, it is their concept of society itself that is limited/constrained in scope, and that has nothing to do with money.
You’re weighing the cost of fixing a problem now vs later, and they’re clinging to the idea that because they’re not the victims of that problem (currently nor in their own optimistic projections), it would be best to simply never solve it at all. But talking about cost to (an intentionally vague) us is generally more acceptable (and compelling) to a liberal society than its counterpart – dehumanizing whomever currently pays it.
I never thought of it that way before. Yeah, it’s not like democrats believe money should be pissed away, but conservatives will tell you that spending money on things like human rights is “pissing it away”. Gross.