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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   29254 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025

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So I am a little confused what you actually want if it's not "Assume everyone is in defect mode and loot what we can.

I am rejecting the Russell's Conjugation of "My entitlement spending is investing in the future of the American people, your entitlement spending is defection and looting." Notably, I'm rejecting it both ways, and precommitting to accept whichever half you or others prefer. If you believe that Entitlement/Defense spending has heretofore been defection and looting, than I am willing to agree that I am endorsing defection and looting of the exact sort that has been the bipartisan norm for my entire life. If you believe Entitlement/Defense spending has heretofore been investment in the future of the American people, then I agree that I am endorsing that my party should make such investments also. In neither case do I believe my faction should act unilaterally as the "adult in the room" who imposes hard-nosed, unpopular restraint on spending. The purse is common. Its benefits and costs should be common as well.

This is prompted by repeated claims here by a number of posters that MAGA should disapprove of Trump due to his fiscal irresponsibility and the fact that his budget bill results in considerable deficit spending. I understand that the Republican Party has previous held opposition to deficit spending as a shibboleth. The Republican Party has also held foreign interventionism as a shibboleth. Things change, and it seems to me that this change is preferable to the alternatives.

But it's not a binary, it's not as simple as one party being the "responsible adults" and the other party being spendthrifts. Unless you are an ancap, almost everyone will agree that some level of defense spending and social welfare is necessary, or at least desirable, and everyone has some threshold at which it's excessive, and then we start getting into favorite or least favorite programs and Russell's Conjugations.

Neither party is ever going to be happy and get everything it wants. I would rather neither of us precommit to maximal defection. So you actually think the responsible thing to do is make unpopular budget choices, but you refuse to do it because you're afraid your party will suffer for it and the other party will enjoy the benefits? Yet you reject bipartisanship.

This is prompted by repeated claims here by a number of posters that MAGA should disapprove of Trump due to his fiscal irresponsibility and the fact that his budget bill results in considerable deficit spending.

Any MAGA who honestly believed that Trump was serious about reducing the deficit and thought this was a good thing should presumably be reconsidering their position. If you never cared about that, then sure, you're consistent in supporting Trump for other reasons. OTOH, if you were one of those who was against deficit spending, and now that it's clear Trump played you, the MAGAs switching to "This was the plan all along and it's good" strike me as merely the worst sort of defectors. If Trump announces a new Smaller Prettier Bill tomorrow that in fact reduces the deficit, will deficit spending suddenly be something to oppose again?

The problem is that "deficit spending" isn't a thing. It's two things, the revenue side and the spending side. The Democrats generally want to increase taxes, not just for revenue but as primary policy. The Republicans generally want to reduce them (or so they say, anyway). Both sides want to spend, just differently. A deficit hawk generally wants to reduce spending and increase taxes. This means Republican deficit hawks have no leverage against the Democrats; they can't really trade reduced spending that they want for tax increases the Democrats want, because the Democrats know they want those tax increases too.

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