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It's not even ideology, it's fear, hatred and tribal identity. Ideological conservatives would have leaped at that deal Obama and Boehner hammered out.
by jbooth 15y ago
It's not even ideology, it's fear, hatred and tribal identity.
Ideological conservatives would have leaped at that deal Obama and Boehner hammered out.
- Benjo 15y agoAgreed. It's not ideology, it's partisanship. It's the illusion that it's okay for the country to suffer now, because it will benefit my party and after the next election my party will make up for it with the great legislation we will be able to pass. I'm trying to think of the last time this actually happened. Civil War?
- gnaritas 15y agoNot if their ideology includes never raising taxes as a fundamental principle.
- btmorex 15y agoThat's not really a conservative ideology though (at least in the traditional sense). For example, Reagan raised taxes a number of times. The whole never raise taxes thing is quite new and comes from the Tea Party, not Republicans or conservatives in general.
- nerfhammer 15y agoThe never-raise-taxes thing was started by Grover Norquist and has been going since 1985/1986: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Tax_Reform#Taxpayer_Protection_Pledge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Tax_Reform#Taxpay... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist#Americans_for_Tax_Reform http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist#Americans_for_T...
- jcromartie 15y agoI don't understand how the politicians who subscribe to never raising taxes can function. Do they not understand how governments work? Would they like to propose how a zero-tax system would work?
- tomjen3 15y agoThere is a no reason a government has to increase taxes to function.
- btilly 15y agoIf a government is free to reduce taxes to pander to special interests and voters, but is unable to ever increase taxes, the result is an eventual ratcheting downwards in government taxation until you hit a crisis. As an example I give you California. It is politically impossible to get any tax increase through, but not politically impossible to get tax decreases through. The result is that Arnold Schwartzenegger got elected on a promise to reduce the vehicle licensing fee. Ever since we've had a structural deficit that is about the size of the reduction in the vehicle licensing fee, and no way to fill it. See http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/11/local/la-me-cap-budget-20110711 http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/11/local/la-me-cap-budg... for verification.
- glhaynes 15y agoYou feel comfortable with that statement as a universal?
- anonymoushn 15y agoI don't think so. While many people have put forth proposals and claimed that they would cut half or more of the deficit, the largest cut in any of these proposals is less than $400 billion. We would need four times that to balance the budget.