[Jonty30]

Unfortunately, quite extinct amongst the political set.
Not amongst the average American

[jarwulf]

I don’t think its fiscal conservatives specifically that are rare its small government conservatives that are rare. Small government and libertarian conservatives mostly exist as a significant force in America and even here they’re not that popular on the national stage. Outside its mostly big government social conservatives or moderates vs big government leftists.

[Lurkinanloomin]

Congress only passes continuing resolutions now.
He shouldn’t have signed them.

[Jim Noble]

With no constitutional money and virtually all consumption procured by rampant usury - what would a fiscal conservative, you know, conserve?

[Theoria]

'Do fiscal conservatives even exist anymore?'

They never existed. Welcome to FR.

[Obadiah]

Fiscal conservatives? Sure, personally. But for government? Honestly, it seems like that ship has sailed. Thirty Trillion in debt and I see no way out - at all. At this point everybody with a hand on the government printing press simply want to keep on printing.

Thirty Trillion in debt and we just gifted Ukraine $40 Billion. What budgeted account did that come from?

[nickcarraway]

Good question.

[Renfrew]

This is another thing we need to thank Bush II for.

He lived by the maxim that voters don’t care about deficits as long as you keep them happy with gifts.

[PGR88]

No, you are correct.

But at this point, the only other alternative to massive debt, money printing and constant deficits is collapse.

I say bring it on, but we all know the DC permanent deep state will go full Bolivia before they allow that.

[rintintin]

“ The economic policies of Biden and trump are both to blame for the mess we are in.”

Did you speak out in opposition to the Bush-Cheney invasion of Iraq?

If you didn’t not a fiscal conservative and please be quiet.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

There were some attempts to draft bipartisan legislation to rein in the deficit. I believe Sen. Alan Simpson led one of these efforts. Also the Tea Party originally started out as a "good government" effort but got sidelined by libertarians and social conservatives.

Trump is a populist and populists are not known for being cost conscious when it comes to new programs.

Even if we got a fiscally responsible President what is he gonna do as the number of seniors increases while the number of working age taxpayers decreases?

Even Keynes would disagree with our current policies as he only believed in deficit spending during recessions, not every year.

[rintintin]

The invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq by Bush-Cheney has cost more than $3 trillion. If you didn’t oppose that invasion, you have no business lecturing about “fiscal conservatism”

[nathanbedford]

Trumps idiotic reckless spending is not somehow less damaging than bidens idiotic reckless spending just because he is on your team. Although both Biden and Trump spent under pressure, Trumps spending is different from Biden's spending in the following respect: Trump combined his spending with measures to offset the debt by increased GDP while Biden, to the contrary, combined his spending with measures calculated to constrict GDP.

For example, Trump cut taxes and cut regulations. Biden is a regulations monster who constricted the economy, especially in oil patch, and made it impossible to swim out of the hole dug deeper by the spending.

Further that spending that was required to ameliorate the Covid shutdown can be justified under Trump as occurring at a time when we simply did not know what we were dealing with and when the data, especially as it was trumpeted by WHO and Fauci, panicked the world-except evidently Sweden-and made spending virtually mandatory.

In contrast, the Covid spending under Biden came at a time when the evidence began to show that shutdowns did not work, that Sweden had been right, and were were not worth the cost. Long after the threat dissipated, Biden pushed through an additional $1.6 trillion in more spending.

While both presidents deserve some blame for the spending binge, at least Trump presented a plan to deal with it, to grow the economy to compensate, whereas Biden simply ignores it and, worse, actually and incomprehensibly pretends that more spending cures the problem.

[Observator]

We exist. :) But yes, a dying breed.

[SACK UP]

The difference is that Trump had a growth agenda hence normal rates of inflation. Biden has a regressive agenda hence shrinking economy and exploding debt. 7 trillion in the first year after we werrke on the other side of the pandemic. It’s fine if you don’t like Trump but you don’t need to mischaracterize or downright lie about it.Trump never ran on the debt whereas your buddy Bush ran on debt and proceeded to explode it.

[untenured]

Politicians discovered in the last few decades in a big way that they can buy votes now, and have the future pay the bills.

That someday investors here and abroad will say “No, we ain’t buying your bonds anymore” is something they never consider, because that will be someone else’s problem.

In the meantime, what we generally hear is “My Social Security is untouchable, because I paid into it all these years” (idiocy), “America is an unjust country whose taxpayers now and later need to fork over unlimited dough to make amends” (idiocy) and “We’re the most powerful country, let’s keep spending the future’s money to keep it so” (idiocy.)

The problem is not politicians,, the problem is stupid, selfish us.

[Freedom4US]

Wages went stagnant (adjusted for inflation) in the 1970s and haven’t budged since.

American trade balance went negative then as well, and hasn’t looked back. The economic tsunami has been brewing since that time, and cannot be blamed on the last few presidents. Nixon unilaterally severed the last remaining link tying the dollar to gold (because Fort Knox was being emptied) and from then on the currency floated against the others.

Some sort of petro-dollar arrangement was made, where the USD would still be used to settle oil purchases overseas. This means if Spain were to buy oil from Albania, they used US Dollars. This created a very large demand for dollars and effectively allowed the American government to export monetary inflation to some degree.

I don’t have a crystal ball, but if or when the music stops, it will be Epic. It will be “interesting” because some sort of standard or store of value must be acceptable for payment, and the current crop of politicians coming up has absolutely no idea how anything works. They can’t even change a tire. Their first inclination will be to print up a bunch of free money.

Right now they are insisting on forcing people to purchase expensive rechargeable battery electric cars, when rolling blackouts are the norm on an aging grid infrastructure, retiring nuclear power plants, shutting down coal plants, and demonizing natural gas and oil, shutting down pipelines.

[Beowulf9]

GOP believed/believes George HW Bush lost because he added a 31% tax bracket on top of the Reagan 28% top rate. Since then,…partly because of Hannity & Fox, GOP opposes any & all tax increases, while demanding more tax cuts….regardless of deficits & debts. Moreover, except for a few—eg, Jeff Flake who opposed “earmarks” & who proposed a 10% across-the-board spending cut to pay for the Iraq war & who opposed insipid “payroll tax holidays”….or a Rand Paul, who would take an ax to the whole federal budget & would take on the military-industrial complex with help from a Tucker Carlson——most Republicans cannot think of anything they want to cut except Social Security & Medicare spending, which is so politically unpopular, GOP mostly doesn’t want it anymore. Ted Cruz ran for president , pushing a 10% flat income tax with a zillion deductions—-just as much “la la land’ policy making as Nancy Pelosi’s absurdities. And Cruz didn’t want any payroll taxes, either. The only thing GOP has going for it is that Americans don’t like paying taxes & always want tax cuts paid for by “business” and “the rich”.

[Mariner]

We have already crossed the point of no return.

All the fiscal conservatives have been hung.

The American people love the free money and will not give it up.

[M_Continuum]

We exist for all it matters. It no longer matters if we the people want less spending, both parties are drunk on spending. My brother told me it was great Trump spent so much because he was going to kill the FED and we would owe nothing. As expected, that did not happen.