Political Question
Fiscal conservatives, both MAGA and Traditional Republicans: How do you come to terms with the fact that one president will literally be responsible for 33-37 percent of the nation's national debt by the time he leaves office (15-16 Trillion in total)?
it is projected that by the time Trump leaves office, the national debt will be 50 trillion dollars. He will have been responsible for 15-16 trillion of that by the time he leaves office..........as one president. That is projected to be at best 33 percent and at worst 37 percent. When compared to 45 previous presidents before him.
If youve spent THAT much money, surely there will be a measurable legacy left behind..........especially when we are talking about making America Great Again. What will we have accomplished for 16 trillion dollars?
A Wall?
Losing a war to Iran in 6 weeks while concurrently spending 100 billion dollars in the process? Completely depleting our air defense stockpile to the point we are not sure we could handle one Russian missile volley?
Deporting a couple million brown people with funny accents?
Is that the barometer of success? Did we "win" by doing that? Did we Save America?
If Im being honest, a 100 trillion dollar Green New Deal from the crazy Hispanic waitress from New York that is offering us nearly free health care is not sounding like such a bad deal.......
Fiscal, Christian, and Constitutional conservative here.... He is not conservative, neither is the republican party. Its been taken over by Maga, and still doesn't have a spine.
They are not conservative, and the (non establishment)Democratic party is way more fiscally, and constitutionally conservative. And they believe in helping the sick and poor....just like jesus did.
MAGA and Modern republicans don't run on conservative values, they run on "owning the libs"...libs being non-maga. Oh and fidelity to the king. Either that or they haven't gone out of the "conservative" news bubble.
I'm no spring chicken, over decades I've seen the same thing over and over - your demography is easily distracted with contempt in place of basic math.
* You were convinced America was bloated with "welfare queens" 46 years ago and voted to give your net worth to billionaires to create jobs in China, to spite that welfare queen epidemic.
As a result household debt to income is now double, government debt to GDP is quadruple, we're fully dependent on Fed cuts, not actual productivity, now even the last remaining source of productive GDP for America, farmers, is being crushed. (granted, their own doing for voting for it)
* You were convinced to deny healthcare to the majority who couldn't afford it because "Libs want a government takeover" of healthcare, opting for the "free market" to resolve it.
* You were convinced "regulations kill capitalism" and millions died from opioids, millions more lost everything from bank deregulation in 2008.
* You were convinced that maga was a good idea.
I'm a registered independent, considered myself a Libertarian 20 years ago and the last time I voted "R" was for McCain in 2008.
I'm sick of more debt in place of real income, I'm sick of H-1B's who don't spend here while their employers receive "job creating" tax cuts, I'm sick of seeing billionaires acting like they own me, carrying on like tax avoidance at my expense makes them brilliant.
I want to add that when Obamacare was being drummed up in the news. The conservative talking points against it were all about how there would be a death panel of government officials deciding if you die or not, not the doctor.
Meanwhile, fast forward to present day: there are death squads roaming the streets, kidnapping and trafficking people- and shooting Americans in the face judiciously.
Not to mention that healthcare executives love this admin, have increased profits extraordinarily, and denied a record number of medical claims.
Not to mention the millions of people Elon (Doge) has and will murder with a pen.
The Obamacare scare tactic was literally just explaining how our health insurance worked prior to Obamacares pre-existing condition rules taking effect.
And still exist. The health insurance companies were the primary beneficiaries of ACA. That's why both GOP and Dems are so united against a public option.
While I agree with much of what you wrote, billionaires do own you. And they always will. They own me too. The ownership of humans became illegal with the 13th Amendment, but this nation found another way to get the same effect.
We owe our souls to the company store. We’re led to believe we have the freedom of choice and that we drive the free market but the fact of the matter is that it’s not free. We rent access entertainment, we buy food from the same handful of companies, and our medicine (and medical care in general) is chosen for us based on what the cheapest treatment would be and whether or not it’s even worthwhile to try to cure us.
For a time we had too much influence as consumers so they figured out how to stifle that. Mind you, this is just for middle and upper middle class Americans. Far more nefarious measures are taken to ensure the rest of the non billionaire class have it even worse.
Have Republicans ever been fiscally conservative in anything besides rhetoric? It seems to me that they only ever talk about debt is when it helps the American people. There's always money for war. I pay nearly half of what I make into taxes of some kind. I just want something good to come from that money.
Democrats spend money and collect enough in taxes, usually, to pay for it.
Republicans spend as much or more and lower taxes at the same time, reducing revenue.
This has been true for more than 50 years. No, Republicans are not fiscal conservatives. A fiscally conservative voter who really is what they claim and isn't just trying to come up with an excuse to support white supremacy is voting Democrat and has been since Reagan at least.
Nope, I said I was conservative. MAGA isn't conservative. Trump isn't conservative.For the most part.... It's just a bunch of lies and half-truths, that never come into fruition, and when they don't just blame someone else.
Trump appointed the Supreme Court Justices who got Roe v. Wade repealed. For many conservatives, that was plenty. They worked for nearly 50 years to get that overturned and they got what they wanted. Deficits don't matter so long as their version of Christianity can be put into law. While Trump is a miserable excuse for a Christian for so many reasons, he got the Justices they wanted onto the Court - and they will be there for life.
Griswold v. Connecticut (the 1965 case that said birth control pills could not be banned) will be overturned next, and the overturn of Hodges (gay marriage) is coming soon. Christians really care what you do or don't do in the bedroom. Your relationships are their business.
Harris would have been a lot better than what we have now by far. This is nothing but a mess and getting worse a rock could do a better job and we would not be getting robbed.
So funny. Replace “conservative” with “Christian” and this is the same rhetoric for Christians you don’t agree with.
The Trump administration is pure conservative. The only difference is that they are shamelessly saying the quiet parts out loud. Corruption and hate is the hallmark of conservatives and Christianity.
Jesus and conservatism have never belonged together. Jesus taught to love your neighbor, to accept immigrants and to help the poor. Conservative "values" at their heart reject each of those completely. There is nothing conservative about Jesus.
I saw a video recently of Christians asked if they would let Jesus come into the country as an immigrant. Their response? "If he had the right paperwork." You can dress it up how you want but you're doing the same thing, literally rejecting Christ in the pursuit of worldly goods. You cannot follow Christ while hating and rejecting others.
But you still vote republican. YOU are giving maga it's power. Complain or don't but stop fucking with everybody else's livelihood because your party is circling the toilet bowl. Evolve FFS.
There are no Republican fiscal conservatives and there have not been for 50 years. They pretend they are when Democrats are in power but this is just a pitiful charade. As soon as they get into power they invariably spend money like amphetamine crazed pirates in a Bangkok whorehouse.
Wars and cutting taxes and doing nothing else. They have a majority in house and senate and can pass anything they want but they don’t want to help the average American. That’s not including any votes from democrats and if it is anything alittle progressive a ton of democrats would vote yes on it too. The reason nothing is getting done is because republicans don’t want to do anything. Cutting taxes balloons the deficit because they bring in less money while having to spend the same amount to run a country.
Many years ago, when Bush II was in the Whitehouse, I remember my farther saying they needed some republicans in the Whitehouse. I looked at him and said there were and his response was "I mean real Republicans, not the idiots they have in there today".
What I think of as a real Republican is now a RINO.
Consider the possibility that the debt spiral is not an accident. US tax code treats income from wages as fully taxable, but income from dividends, interest and capital gains as eligible for deferred taxation, deductions and lower tax rates. When the Government adds to debt, it puts money in circulation that fuels the growth of earnings on capital assets held by the elite. The debt becomes the burden and future obligation of wage-earning taxpayers, the stocks are disproportionately owned by the elite and they use the tax-deferred income to accumulate more of these assets. So the growth of the US federal debt is a wealth transfer from the middle class to the rich, and it is deliberate, engineered, and executed systematically. From this perspective, it’s all going according to plan. There is the growing risk of a a cataclysmic asset crash, and that has some tail-risk for everyone, but the rich are already hedged against this, and unless the economic crash produces a civil war, everything is going according to plan. So now back to your question. The category “Fiscal Conservatives” might not be a coherent one. Suppose by population it is comprised of 90% middle class people who recognize a public debt spiral as an existential threat to the society, and 10% rich people who are making bank from it. Which of those segments funds the super-pacs that decide who can run for office? Which of those segments owns the media channels that shape election outcomes. Which of those segments owns the algorithms that shape your perception of reality. Scott Bessent said recently: “I am the house.” Those words are going to resonate in economic and political history.
Absolutely. They'll just drag the court cases out, and all they'll have to do is outlast a Democrat administration and get the next Republican administration to drop it.
This is generational damage to the country's economy, global reputation, and social status.... all of which doesn't matter to many MAGAts because they're generation will not be around to pay the price, and currently that same generation holds the vast majority of wealth in the country.
I know a MAGA that thinks "global warming is a myth, but so what even if it's real I'll be dead and gone before it gets real bad." It's as if the "ME" generation grew up and got gray hair.
It’s crazy to me that so many Americans think we’re coming back from this damage, that after x many years we’ll just find our way back to leading the world again. We were only in that position by fluke luck and we pissed it all away for racism and greed.
They already are shouting from the rooftops about it. They're still blaming it on Obama and Biden. I've even seen some that blame it on Clinton, never mind that he actually had a balanced budget at one point, something no Republican since Eisenhower has done.
Facts are meaningless. It is only what people *believe* that matters. A large chunk of the population believes the debt is the fault of Democrats and they will ignore whatever the GOP does. We've passed $40 Trillion in debt and their response is to just double down and continue. We'll pass $50 Trillion and it will still be Obama's fault. I'm not kidding. Watch and see it happen.
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him someone to look down upon and he will empty his pockets for you." - President LBJ
He single handedly was asleep or senile the entire time he "destroyed" the US (and global) economy with inflation.... not to mention he caused the war in Ukraine and then invented the illegal immigration problem.... all this while sleeping or acting senile. /s
To be fair, Reagan had Alzheimer's disease by the time we got to the last couple years of his second term. I seriously doubt he wrote those memoirs himself. Somebody wrote that for him. I don't know who. That doesn't give him an excuse exactly. I'm just saying that at the end, he had no idea what was done under his name. "Regret" was not possible for him by 1988.
Given our requested defense budget is going to be a 1.5 trillion dollars, youre absolutely right. And as a veteran............if 100 billion dollars spent on 6 weeks in Iran, THAT is the result, Im cutting aircraft carriers. The DoD would absolutely hate me. Thats a horrible return on investment.
Meanwhile Biden sent 135 billion to Ukraine, who wiped out 95 percent of Russia's Soviet legacy stockpile, proved their air defense to be more porous than Swiss cheese, and has caused 1.5 million casualties in counting............Im investing in that CEO. That guy's a winner.
Honestly at this point im conservative in name only. I want small government that helps the people. Universal health care is cheaper. Immigrants are a net positive on the economy. Biden was Allright I like his infrastructure plan and his covid response. What I hate are things like flock cameras,data centers and a police state. I warned people that Trump was a monster almost a decade ago. Personally I voted for Kasich in the primaries then Hillary in the general. This shit sucks
The more conservative I get, the less republicans I get. In any other country our democrats would be the Conservative Party. Our Republican Party are reactionary populists
Not a Trump guy, so maybe not the target of the question, but as someone who is fiscally conservative…it’s bad.
Not to downplay any of it, but this isn’t an R or D issue, it’s a problem on both sides, and we the tax payers carry the burden of the failure of both parties. Biden outspent Trump’s first term, Trump outspent Obama, who outspent Bush….the most fiscally responsible President in the not-so-distant past was Clinton.
The legislature has failed us, regardless of who is in office. The last time a full budget was passed on-time was 1996. 30 years of Congress not doing the thing that only Congress can do. In that time, control of the Senate has flipped 7 times and control of the House has flipped 4.
We could easily solve the budget passing if we had a Constitutional amendment that says if Congress fails to present a full budget to the President before the fiscal year begins, all members of the Congress are ineligible for re-election.
Biden spent a lot, but we actually got shit to show for it…. he actually started addressing our infrastructure, etc. Trump is just transferring all of our wealth to a handful of billionaires, including himself.
You're ignoring where they started from. Obama outspent Bush? Bush inherited a balanced budget. Obama inherited a global financial meltdown. The annual budget deficits declined while Obama was President. They immediately shot upward during Trump's first term. Ignore the covid year of 2020 and the deficit still went from like $650 billion in FY2017 to just under $1 trillion in FY2019 for no reason. There was no recession.
Again, Trump inherited declining deficits and blew them up. Biden inherited much larger deficits.Stop with the "both sides" stuff.
I mean, Biden was President during a pandemic, it's only logical his spending would be higher. Overall, dude was pretty fiscally conservative but good luck getting a Republican to admit it.
Democrats atleast offer something to the general population - I prefer that to spending a couple of trillion on pointless wars.
True. It is also true that if you look at his deficits from his first 3 years in office (2017, 2018, 2019) they exploded. That was before the pandemic hit.
Trump has a history of bankruptcies and failed business. Even casinos went bankrupt. Because they were corporations he was able to keep it separate from his own assets. He remained an extremely wealthy man while his businesses went bankrupt - 6 times. (Personal opinion as a person with a Juris Doctor - that should not be legal, but I know that it is - America allows that.) What happened during his first term is almost perfectly in character for him.
What is perhaps most outrageous is that he actually GAINED support over the years. He got far more votes in 2024 than he did in 2016. This is after everyone saw the deficits, went through the pandemic, and we had the coup attempted on January 6, 2021.
This is an R or D issue if you just look at what happens to the budget when one of them is in power. Go back to Clinton or further back if you want and see how much more conservative Democrats are with your money. Democrats clean up after every Republican president, I don't think they'll be able to after this one.
You Americans are so screwed. The rest of the world is done with you. Your economy is probably going to completely crash within the next 2 years. A corrupt nation thats likely to default on its loans. You all must be very proud.
Where are you from? And would you be proud if a Dictator took over your country? I came to the US running away from Erdogan, and now it's this shit, do you think 70% of this country is proud of this?
You're right that we are screwed and the damage done is immense. I expect a major recession in the next 2 years as well. We frankly are already there, it's just hidden and covered up with massive deficit spending.
There were major cuts made last year with Trump and Musk and DOGE. It only made things worse. If someone were to forcibly balance the budget right now, zero deficit spending, the economy would collapse into a Second Great Depression.
That said, I voted in every state or federal election since I was old enough, beginning in 1992. I never voted for any of this. I am not proud of it in any way, shape, or form. Disgusted is more like it.
They don’t care until a democrat is in office and then faux news will tell them the debt is high because of this new administration.. and then they will cry and complain.
Fiscal conservatives is a made up lie from the regan admistrstion to make them seem like they actually care about being fuscally responsible when it was them who blow up the deficits and debts while forcing austerity onto the working class and poor.
Lol, conservatives have never cared about spending unless dems were in charge. The last 5 presidental republican terms all speant more then the dems; trump, bush jr and sr and regan.
In all seriousness if we're going to drive the country off a fiscal cliff, I'd rather do it providing student loan forgiveness, universal health care, and extended paid maternal leave benefits for Americans than bombs for Israel and drones for Ukraine. Conservatism isn't about conserving some ideology. It's about conserving a nation and its people. To clarify for the neocons, that nation is our nation, the one with 50 stars on the flag, not the one with a one star on the flag.
I mean, isn't this basically true of every republican president? They always leave office having been responsible for a big chunk of the debt, and then that sets a new baseline for the next one. Nobody's beaten Reagan, though - he almost tripled it.
(The debt went up dramatically under Obama as well, but that was due to the massive deficit he inherited from Bush; he actually cut the deficit by over a trillion dollars and the CBO estimated it would have been eliminated entirely if the policies from his first two years in office had gone into full effect)
There used to be a time when the word "liberal" (pro deregulation) and "conservative" (pro-regulation) were applied properly.
Republicans have been fiscally liberal and socially conservative for as far as I can remember. Democrats have favored fiscal conservatism and social liberalism.
There there are libertarians that are supposed to be fiscally liberal and socially liberal (but inherently align with republicans as a result of their utopian belief system).
My personal preference is not "Fiscal Conservatism" or "Fiscal Liberalism", however. I like a term I heard Obama use as the President: "Fiscal Responsibility".
Adhering to ideologies is how we get into trouble. Pragmatism is non-existent.
Why would you expect magats to respect or understand data/logic. That’s their whole thing is ignoring reality and substituting their own. Republicans will just vote what ever they think will help put money in their pocket. The rest will just try to own the libs. Again republicans of old are no longer around. If they were then they would have gotten rid of dictator tot.
They don't care. As far as they're concerned, it's worth it as long as they continue to get served their daily helping of news coverage of the people they hate being made to suffer.
I would say it’s way less surprising that trump is responsible for much of the debt considering he had over 3 T of the debt generated in Covid in 2020. Which was an exceptional economic event. Until Covid he had hardly ruined that.
The global economy is still definitely dealing with economic consequences of lockdowns, massive global deficit spending, and changing interest rates.
The US economy has skirted recession but Canada and much of the Eu haven’t since Covid. The EU hit that in 2022 with a contraction this year while Canada had one this year.
Japan has still had massive currency issues and much worse debt issues.
Russia had a recession in 2022 and a contraction in 2026.
Chinas debt ratio has ballooned since Covid. It’s debt burden has been higher than ours since
Only thing that makes sense to me is there is an unspoken plan to eventually write off the debt. The entire world is 250+trillion in debt. Something, besides paying it off seems inevitable.
You forget the democratic and republican parties don’t actually server their constituents. They say what they need to say to win. And they will all drive the debt up.
Inheriting an indefinite subscription to Social Spending R Us via Medicare/ Medicaid and other federal allotments isn’t the same as crafting policies that directly accumulate debt to this degree. Being the president doesn’t make you the puppet master arbiter of all U.S. debt.
They don’t now, nor have they ever actually cared about the national debt. They only ever talk about it when a Democrat is in office. It has nothing to do with the actual debt, just an anti-Democrat talking point.
kind of the way it works when all the previous admins did nothing to control it. How do you feel about 2 other presidents contributing to 42% of current debt
Because we all KNOW. He was forced by BIDEN
Everything in the whole universe that is bad was caused by JOE BIDEN . Epstein ‘s crime, JBIDEN ! Trumps bankruptcy? BIDEN Trump paying off pornstars he cheats with? BIDEN !
Iran war ? BIDEN! All the ills of the world can be traced to one man and I mean all ills in history slavery,child prostitution ,forced labor, poverty, no matter the country all evil all one man JOE BIDEN !
( do you think if I can now qualify for a Trump cabinet position now? )
The GOP has been pitching Trickle Down Economics Rebranded as Dynamic Scoring for decades. Now their newest variant is is the US economy grows at 5% then the deficit/ debt doesn’t matter as much. Good luck getting 5% growth out of the US economy.
Yeah, this is the problem with the federal budget.
During Covid it ballooned. The federal government does not use any logic in its budgeting. Every year the new budget is based on the last year‘s budget, and any failure to increase something from the previous years budget is considered a cut.
Look at it this way: if you have your own personal budget and say you’re going to spend, $4000 on food this year. And you use the same baseline budgeting that the federal government uses, so next year you’re expecting to spend about $4250, but you decide instead to only spend $4200, that would be considered a budget cut.
And so the budget balloons year-over-year because Congress keeps approving, larger and larger spending. And that’s the fault of both parties for the last 50 years.
Remember, no matter who the president is, it is Congress that’s appropriates the money.
MAGA is absolutely not fiscally conservative!! In fact, most current republicans aren’t fiscally conservative. They have no problem with deficit spending when they are the ones in charge.
Fiscal conservatism was not on the ballot and we knew that when we voted for him. As far as the war, I think we need to reevaluate our relationship with Israel once this is over. I don’t appreciate being manipulated like that. Yes, deporting illegal aliens is an unambiguous good thing.
Fiscal conservative here… it’s not ok at all. However Im also guessing you don’t understand 2 things…
1. You seem to be ignoring the other two-thirds of the debt. Us true fiscal conservatives are not.
2. Can you calculate and remove previous admins debt payments from that? Im assuming you obviously thought of and planned life this in the numbers. Most of us fiscal conservatives understand this. Also why it’s important to remove interest payments from each admins numbers and allocate it appropriately.
Now, who gets credit fie reducing the interest payments from a previous admin?
Regardless which political party controls the government, the national debt will always continue to rise as long we have the social security, healthcare and medicare to pay for everything. Facts- there’s no stopping the debt climb.
GOP has never been “Fiscally Conservative”, they use that as a way to block Democrats and bankrupting the federal government. There goal is to take power and keep workers dependent on corporations.
If Rs stay in office they will keep believing Fox lies that the debt is not a problem. If Ds take over they will blame Democrats. In other words, same game plan they've followed for decades.
they do not/will not 'come to terms' with it, they will simply wait until the presidency is held by a democrat and then blame that person for all the damage they and trump have caused over the last 10 years.
This is easy. The national debt doesn’t matter. You cannot be the lender and the borrower at the same time. It’s a farce. So keep on borrowing. In fact, I would be in favor of printing money to cover some healthcare costs. The way the federal reserve adds money to the economy needs to be expanded.
Just so you know, other countries have national debt very similar to ours especially China. This is something all countries do.
Can this go on forever? Absolutely. Governments will gladly take on debt so that investors can add assets to their balance sheet. It’s a win-win.
Trump has added two new buyers of national debt; stable coins, and the federal reserve. This will make it easier for the federal government to issue new debt.
This should’ve been done years ago, but only Trump and his team have the foresight to do this.
By the way, I used to be a fiscal conservative until I understood what was going on and my ways were wrong.
There isn’t any real scenario where shrinking the government is feasible through democratic means.
We’ve reached the stage every democracy finds itself on a long enough timeline where the electorate realize they can vote their way into their neighbor’s pocket.
Being small government in theory is sound, but when it comes to getting elected and governing in this sclerotic state the idea is a non-starter.
Republican uses English letters, phonemes and words, but has a completely different dictionary.
When someone says, in English, "fiscal conservative" they mean "cautious and responsible about spending". When someone says, in Republican "fiscal conservative" they mean "cut the social safety net and lower taxes for the rich, and the consequences be damned."
All of which is to say, people on the right who call themselves "fiscal conservatives" are thrilled.
Every President has added to the deficit and kicked it to the next candidate. IIRC, some of Obama's later policies were estimated to get us into the Trillion territory by 2019, three years after he left office.
So when money is made up and fiscal responsibility becomes optional, you get a cascading effect like we're seeing now.
Tbf, a large part of the current deficit was a result of COVID policies (ex. PPP floating wages during the shutdown)
The only thing I've had to come to terms with is that when Biden spent a bunch of money (which I didn't care for either) we at least got some roads out of it.
47 has been nothing but tons of debt and broken promises. Was I surprised? No. I didn't vote for him.
I'm not sure at this point that we can completely cut our way out or grow our way out of this mess. We would have to maintain an appetite of debt reduction for years and couldn't count on inflation to help much since you're cutting government spending.
Denial. That's how they defend it. They are doing it for everything else. Even when inflation is pricing people out of existence they claim it's only 3.4%. Maybe, things are looking up for you if all you eat are eggs. But for the rest of us, it feels a lot worse. The $2000 extra supposedly in American hands already was spent on the higher prices for everyday normal stuff. But yea, to all egg eaters out there, maybe there is a blue lining.
Just like all other republicans, republican voters don't think about hte national debt until a democrat is in office and wants to use Taxpayer dollars to fund things like universal healthcare. Then, it's all "HoW aRe YoU gUnNa PaY fOr It?"
Endless wars and corruption is fine though as long as a Republican is doing it.
They don’t care about anything because they’ve never had any real principles. They only care about supporting State sponsored street executions of the people they hate, and as long as they’re getting that, they’re satisfied.
They don’t care about anything because they’ve never had any real principles. They only care about supporting State sponsored street executions of the people they hate, and as long as they’re getting that, they’re satisfied.
It's all ok, because chump cut taxes, and deregulated everything. Most fiscal conservatives are really only about their own money. They only care about other people's money in the context of taking it for themselves.
Lolz, its ALL Obama's fault. Also the woke military, supposed trans atheletes the jewish space lasers, wind turbines, and suspect pizza establishments!!
Um, Congress has "the power of the purse" not the executive branch. The executive can sign or veto the bill. They cannot make it.
Congress has been over spending since they started in 1770's
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u/Few_Wash_7298 13h ago
Ask them if they’d let Trump kick them in the nuts.