In a post discussing deficits Yglesias says
But the question is: What about deficits matters? You often hear deficits discussed as a kind of morality play. Government should “live within its means,” whatever that means. Or else you hear conservatives—who don’t care even the slightest bit about deficits—complain about “deficits” when what they mean is “spending when a Democrat is in the White House.”Without discussing the balance of his argument, I want to differ slightly with his analysis of what conservatives mean when they complain about deficits.
In my experience, conservatives have no difficulty with a Democratically-held White House spending money on wars and tax cuts. It's when the Democrat residing there wants to spend money on the domestic welfare of the nation's population that they begin to shriek, moan and gnash their teeth.
Posted by Linkmeister at November 8, 2010 08:02 AM | TrackBack"Conservatives" seem to never understand that a tax cut without an accompanying (and matching) budget cut is just another government spending program.
Posted by: Harry at November 8, 2010 09:01 AMOh, the upper management understands that. It just willfully disregards that unpleasant fact. It's the proletariat that doesn't get it.
Posted by: Linkmeister at November 8, 2010 10:27 AMIME, when a conservative objects to government spending, it's because that spending will benefit someone outside the set {himself, his family and friends, his economic class, his religious group, his racial group}. Note that "his country" and "his species"} don't appear there.
Posted by: Bruce Cohen (Speaker to Managers) at November 8, 2010 01:55 PMI think Bruce is right. In their minds "deficits" are synonymous with "wasteful spending" and no money spent on themselves counts as waste but all money spent on "those people" does. It's similar with taxes. They think they're the only ones who work and pay taxes so they feel unfairly burdened.
Posted by: Lance Mannion at November 9, 2010 01:50 AMI have yet to hear which program is going to get cut in next year's Congress outside of a defunding of NPR in the wake Juan Williams's firing. Unless they show a clear plan that includes defense spending cuts and other upper-income "welfare" program reductions, I will not take the Republican leadership seriously.
Posted by: James H. at November 9, 2010 03:42 AM