“Principled Conservatives,” What Are Your Serious Ideas For The Budget & Debt?

The only things that matter in terms of cuts have the most loyal bootlickers attached. It won't be easy. That's why guys like Massie and Amash end up hated by populists.

Serious as in likely to be passed?

I fear the ship may have sailed now that conservatives have become "populists". I'm not one to be emotional and say things like "X is our last chance", but if a sizeable portion of the non-Left now promote Leftist spending habits, then we are doomed.

We have to get professed conservatives back on the fiscal conservative platform or else there is nothing we can do.

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I fear the ship may have sailed now that conservatives have become "populists". I'm not one to be emotional and say things like "X is our last chance", but if a sizeable portion of the non-Left now promote Leftist spending habits, then we are doomed. We have to get professed conservatives back on the fiscal conservative platform or else there is nothing we can do.

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Who was the last conservative leader in DC?

Newt Gingrich in the mid 1990s?

Conquest and imperialism.

How's Justin Amash's Chinese tool business doing?

Put power and budget back in the hands of State governments, who are generally more responsible and accountable than Congress. This includes the Repeal of the 17th Amendment.

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Deficit spending is one of the issues i have with all presidents...including Trump, who I support!

WE MUST STOP DEFICIT SPENDING!

Simple math: spend less than you take in! It isn't hard math.

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It's obviously not an important issue if you support Trump. It's probably at the very bottom of whatever your political hierarchy is.

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suggest a freeze on tax rates for 10 years and cut non mandatory spending for the same period by 2.5% a year and we should be able to grow our way to balance.

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We've reached the point where that is probably not enough to get us to a balanced budget. We aren't growing out of this. You'd probably need to cut defense spending by 20 percent before your 2.5 percent idea is implemented. And you'd need to generate significantly more revenue.

But don't worry no one is actually interested in fixing this so neither one of our ideas would get any consideration.

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GWB was conservative, but we just had the terrible luck of 9/11 while he was on duty.

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I said be serious.

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During his eight years in office, President Bush oversaw a large increase in government spending. In fact, President Bush increased government spending more than any of the six presidents preceding him, including LBJ. In his last term in office, President Bush increased discretionary outlays by an estimated 48.6 percent. During his eight years in office, President Bush spent almost twice as much as his predecessor, President Clinton. Adjusted for inflation, in eight years, President Clinton increased the federal budget by 12.5 percent. In eight years, President Bush increased it by a whopping 53 percent. One reason offered for these large budget increases is that entitlement programs are growing rapidly. Although Social Security and Medicare spending growth outpaced most other programs in the mid-1990s, spending growth in discretionary programs has accelerated in the last 15 years, especially during Bush’s two terms. Between FY2002 and FY2009, discretionary spending rose 96 percent.

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President Bush added thousands of new federal subsidy programs during his eight years in office. In 2008, there were 1,816 subsidy programs in the federal budget that spread hundreds of billions of dollars annually to special interest groups such as state governments, businesses, nonprofit groups, and individuals. The number of subsidy programs has grown by 30 percent since 2000 and by 54 percent since 1990.

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Link

Populism is not inherently left or right. “The people” and “the elite” are filled in differently: socio-economic on the left, often socio-cultural plus nativist “others” on the right.

So the conversion of BOTH parties to populism reflects an inability of government to address basic needs of the citizens.

In order to address budget and debt, we need to first address the more important issues facing the citizens which Congress has been neglecting. If and when they begin to take action, we can focus on the money.


Look at Caleb Hammer and his videos. Often, the source of debt isn't managing the money, but ancillary social problems that are a roadblock to money management.