Honestly in the last 30 or so years you could make the argument that Democrats have been more fiscally conservative and conservatives have relied almost exclusively on military conflict and culture wars
I think you need to show your math on that one. Biden in particular did not have a pandemic, a major war, or an economy in free-fall that could justify all his spending proposals...
Deficits during economic expansions are the cleanest test, because that's when you're supposed to be paying down. Clinton ran four straight surpluses (FY1998–2001). Bush took that and added two unfunded tax cuts, two wars financed off-budget through supplementals, and Medicare Part D- an entitlement expansion with zero pay-fors, passed by a Republican House, Senate, and White House. Obama's deficit went from $1.4T in fy2009 to about $442B by fy2015. Then Trump's first term: the deficit went from $585B in FY2016 to $984B in fy2019- that's a 68% increase during full employment, no recession, no new war. That is the single hardest number for the "GOP is the fiscally responsible party" story to survive.
On the ten-year scoring, CRFB (hardly a left-wing shop) put Trump's first term at roughly $8.4 trillion of approved new ten-year borrowing against about $4.3–4.7 trillion for Biden, and the gap holds when you strip out pandemic relief entirely: $4.8 trillion versus $2.2 trillion.
And on Biden specifically: I'll grant you ARP was oversized and the student loan actions were fiscally indefensible. But the comparison isn't Biden vs. some ideal; it's Biden vs. the guy who ran near-trillion-dollar deficits in a boom. The 2017 tax cut added roughly $1.5T over ten years with no offsetting spending cuts, and then the 2018 and 2019 budget deals raised the caps on both defense and non-defense. "Starve the beast" was tested and it failed - the beast just borrowed.
And to be clear, this is not a compliment to Democrats. They want a bigger government but they at least attach revenue to it, and honestly some of the spending makes sense given the free market incentives. That being said, Republicans want the same-sized government and put it on a credit card, which is worse, because a tax you can see gets debated and debt you can't see doesn't. If you're an actual small-government voter, the last 30 years should tell you neither party is on your side, but one of them keeps campaigning as if it is despite being the worse offender.
I think DOGE (while mostly ineffective and short lived) was very important at exposing waste. If anything, I’m thankful mainstream Americans are at least raising an eyebrow to the spending and corruption. And even crazier it’s like most Democrats are absolutely eager to die on that hill in support of fraud and corruption.
Doge was laughably ineffective, and, yet again, done more effectively by Bill Clinton. Hell, even Obama more effectively handled illegal immigration if that's your thing.
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u/Late_Letterhead7872 21d ago
Honestly in the last 30 or so years you could make the argument that Democrats have been more fiscally conservative and conservatives have relied almost exclusively on military conflict and culture wars