Man that crowd can be frustrating because often they are neither. I’m embarrassed inused to self identify as such.

so you think these people are often fiscally liberal and socially conservative?

They're often people with either bad opinions or no opinions about politics, public policy, how things actually work in public policy, etc. They use the line of being "Libertarian-Light" because they have found a defensible viewpoint in the eyes of their friends that requires very little critical thinking beyond "Just you do you and I'ma do me". They have put very little thinking into the fact that being socially liberal often requires some form of economic redistribution, and that being fiscally conservative is a horrendous philosophy that applied correctly to Economics in 1977 but when applied now just creates massive windfalls for rich people and leaves everybody else holding the bag.

Basically, people who identify as "Libertarian" and don't own 40% of their net worth in physical gold are the CasualFan.jpg of the Politics world. They will spout a few convincing cliches about how the offensive line play has improved, but when the Packers are down 14 with 10 minutes left to play, they'll be yelling at the TV about how they're losing because they've now abandoned the run game.

As I would define them yes.

If you don’t support military cuts you’re not fiscally conservative.

If you whine about some or all of hearing all this #metoo stuff and those gays seem everywhere on TV now and why is Star Wars got so few white guys and bro g so “PC”, then I don’t want to hear how you’re socially liberal because you’re cool with gay marriage.

I'm not sure that there is anything in the definition of fiscal conservatism that contradicts the redistribution of wealth. The closest I can come to it is the idea that a fiscal conservative would like to reduce government spending, but that could be done in areas that don't impact the redistribution of wealth.

What part of fiscal conservatism is at odds with this?

Obviously, some fiscal conservatives are just straight up horrible people, but I think that's a separate issue as its nothing implicit about fiscal conservatism.

90% of people that I've come across define their fiscal conservatism by "tax less, spend less". They do so without any regard for how to provide social services that fall under their umbrella of "socially liberal" nor do they really ever articulate how we can implement tax cuts and spending cuts that don't massively harm the poor and help the rich.

I can get behind this.

I'm wondering because I would identify as such.

I want lower corporate taxes, a closer to balanced budget on average (but balancing it through cycles is a lot more important than on a 1-5 year basis imo), less government spending in some areas and more in others, deregulation to a large degree, and free trade.

However, I also support the #metoo campaign and thought there were lots of white people in Star Wars.

ohio just legalized it medicinally. they took 185 applications to grow, which was double what they expected. apps cost either 20k or 3k depending on the size. they awarded 12 large growers and 12 small.

this certainly wont go over well here. esp since it was rich white republicans who are in charge and who won all the bids.

Lowering taxes and spending without hurting the poor is trivially easy economically, just not politically.

You just lower the rates in lower brackets and raise the ones in higher brackets until you achieve the desired tax cut. You can even cut corporate taxes to 0 if you want in this scenario as the rich accrue that benefit the most (through business ownership or investments) and this is some insulation from a higher personal tax rate. Seems like the most simple solution ever.

On the spending side you just cut military spending and increase spending in areas that help the poor by an amount smaller than the military spending cuts. That also seems to require very little mathematical or economic rigor.

It doesn't take a college degree in econ or polisci or even a lot of thought to understand either of these things. Whether people support these things in actuality is a whole different conversation though.

CDL,

I think the current and recent macroeconomic environment strongly argues against lower corporate taxes fwiw.

Also, I am in the “how do we optimize tax revenue vs growth” camp in a vacuum.

why do you think this? I think there is a strong argument that corporate profits are double taxed as they are then taxed again when the gains to the underlying owners are taxed upon sale. In general, I believe this is a bad policy.

Secondarily, and this is a separate argument, I believe the corporate tax structure is needlessly complex (as is the personal tax structure) and that the ability of companies to accrue tax assets or shield some profits from taxes using structural means is a net negative when compared to a tax rate of 0 that would encourage capital to be redeployed as the company sees fit without tax concerns. The nature of tax law also creates a wide variety of tax rates across industries which I do not think are productive.

Fiscal conservatism is in theory supportive of decreasing the deficit/debt and lowering taxes. The problem is that tax cuts don't pay for themselves, so you need to choose which is more important. The current Republican Party seems to think that lowering taxes is the priority. It's debatable whether they actually care about decreasing the deficit or just use that as a rhetoric to justify punishing poor people.

I basically don't think that anyone who believes that tax cuts pay for themselves should ever be in charge of economy policy.

Fiscally conservative, socially liberal = Let me do whatever I want, but **** poor people

The problem isnt so much the idea of fiscal conservatism. Its that literally zero "fiscal conservative" politicians actually are, and it's mostly due to military spending.

My favorite is the boomer crowd that gets ready to throw a fit any time someone threatens the mortgage interest deduction on their investment property and then turns around and rants about entitlement spending and the deficit in the next breath.

"Fiscal conservative" as a term is poorly defined.

In a classic sense, a fiscal conservative is one who expects the government to spend in accordance with its income - to live within its means, rather than expending more than it takes in and financing the deficit via borrowing, printing money and accounting gimmicks.

It's also entirely unimportant as there are very few politicians for whom fiscal conservatism is actually a priority. It's almost always subservient to other interests, whether it be military spending or throwing a bone to some special interest to get a deal done.

I don't agree that one must to be in favor of cuts to the military budget to be a fiscal conservative - a fiscal conservative would, however, require cuts elsewhere or additional revenue to pay the cost of maintaining the military budget at the desired level. It's a side effect of other aspects of conservative ideology that the preferred method tends to (in theory) be cuts to other spending.

I agree strongly with the bolded. To elaborate, there is nothing about fiscal conservatism that is at odds with raising taxes and raising spending so long as it is done in a balanced manner.

The word conservative just ******ed im general. Shoukd be "fiscally responsible" or something.

well fiscal conservatism and economic liberalism are similar concepts. I think "fiscal conservatism" as a term is more of a political tool than anything else. As a conceptual idea it could more appropriately be argued that being conservative fiscally is the opposite of being aggressive fiscally rather than being liberal fiscally.

OH (victor-ponied) and FL both voted in medical marijuana in the same year they also voted in Trump. FL's ballot provision coasted easily at 71%. It's not just blue states.

ETA: Colorado's GOP senator threatened today to hold up DOJ nominees going forward over it, and claims Sessions flat out told him prior to Sessions' confirmation that he wasn't going to change the policy. Whether or not he's to be believed is another matter I guess.

right, and you have the CO (R) Senator flipping out. Weed, in general, is popular across both parties, especially in states that have invested in it

this is another example of what happens when your administration doesn't have organizing principles. Sessions goes after weed for his own ridiculous reasons, and I doubt Trump (or anybody else) fathoms the downsides for him.

Fiscal conservatism is about the worst position in the current economic system.

Also when polled apparently most people want lower taxes but also don't want to cut spending too any particular thing, so there you go.

I don't agree with this at all. I think financing through debt on the national level is fine or even good at times, but it is almost impossible for it to be wrong to balance the budget. It can, at times, be too conservative (read: cautious) to operate in this manner, but I don't see how it is anywhere near the worst position.

Heavy regulation, no free trade, and a corporate structure that falls heavily under state control also have their negatives and its not hard to argue they outweigh the positives.

Spectacular