Reply #28: A true fiscal conservative is one who can manage money

[UnapologeticLiberal]

And is dedicated to balanced budgets. In the long term, deficits are bad news for those of us who are dedicated to social justice. Right now, at least 20 cents of every dollar we send to Washington is spent paying interest on the national debt. This figure will probably grow as the Bush tax cuts take effect and the baby boomers start to retire. This is an enormous waste of money. I believe the federal budget passed this year was about $2.2 trillion. 20% of this would be $440,000,000,000. Think about all the social programs we could create or improve if we had an extra $440 billion to spend without having to raise taxes.

There is a reason that Republicans have abandoned traditional fiscal conservatism and begun to embrace deficits. It is a mentality called "starve the beast," in which they deliberately run up deficits so that it will be hard to justify new spending on social welfare programs, and so that eventually they can make the case that we have to drastically cut back the ones we have because we cannot afford it. It is no coincidence that they are doing this shortly before the baby boomers start to retire. They hope that the less solvent they make the system, the sooner it will have to be privatized to keep it from collapsing, or, better yet, that it will collapse completely.

You will notice that in order to make room for the massive tax cuts this year, the House Republicans initially tried to pass a budget that had drastic cuts to food stamps, TANF, Medicaid, Section 8, and other anti-poverty programs. That budget was designed to try to show that they could balance the budget on the backs of the poor without hurting the middle class. So when there are out of control deficits, the poor will be the first to be shafted, since they have the least political clout. So it is the poor in particular who would benefit from a balanced budget, because that would make it a lot harder to justify cutting anti-poverty programs.