Questioning the unquestionable

A scant two steps removed from my blog, I came across an interesting assertion, linking this article to back it up: The notion that only Conservapublican governments are financially responsible is a Big Lie.

(A Big Lie is that sort of fib which (a) sounds plausible--so plausible that few bother to investigate it and hence (b) it is repeated often enough that it becomes true.)

When I first became politically aware, it was as a conservative. Even as I've liberalized my thinking over the past ten or so years, it never occurred to me to question the idea that Conservatives are inherently more fiscally, well, conservative.  I'd look back to Rae's disastrous turn as Premier of Ontario, comparing and constrasting, say, Mike Harris--who inherited a monster of a deficit and slayed it in short order. 

Oh, so simple. Oh, so black and white.

Harris did inherit a huge deficit from Rae...due, yes, in part to poor stewardship but also the result of a global (ahem) recession. (As that linked article asks, how come it was demonstrably bad to engage in recession spending then but is perfectly okay and justified now?)

Harris then presided over the beginnings of the economic boom that just went boom a few months ago. In the process, he turned the fiscal deficit into a surplus...by creating a whole bunch of other deficits, less noticeable to simpleminded conservatives like me. A health-care deficit: he laid off hundreds of nurses, closed hospitals, and cut medical school enrollments. We're still trying to recover from that today. A social deficit: So far as I can tell, Harris pioneered (at least in Canada) the novel idea that anybody you disagree with is EVIL EVIL EVIL. Among his targets: the aforementioned nurses (whom he infamously compared to hula-hoop factory workers after that fad had died); teachers (resulting in the largest teachers' strike in Ontario history) and welfare recipients ("lazy bums"), among others. And most notably, perhaps, an accountancy deficit: much Ontario provincial spending simply got "downloaded" on to municipalities. This, of course, violates a sacrosanct Conservative scripture: "THERE IS ONLY ONE TAXPAYER".

Looking with new eyes upon some other "fiscally responsible" Conservatives and Republicans, we find

--well, George W. Bush bounds to mind. It is erroneously reported and widely believed that Bill Clinton left Bush a nice tidy surplus of around $230 billion. In reality, the U.S. posted a deficit for fiscal year 2000 of $17.9 billion. 

Now, the U.S. measures deficits in the trillions. You can thank that misadventure in Iraq, plus tax cuts, plus a bevy of boneheaded Bush bailouts. Fiscal conservative, my butt.

--Brian Mulroney. His last deficit was $42 billion. That's higher than Flaherty's proposed deficit for this year. And Mulroney almost tripled the debt he inherited from Trudeau--the guy right-wingers love to hate for his "fiscal incompetence". 

--Ronald Reagan, who sure talked a good fiscal game, walked out leaving a rotten stinking then-record $290 billion deficit.

And now, of course, we see Stephen Harper just a whippin' through the money...even pre-"stimulus" budget.

That Chronicle-Herald article mentions a bunch of other Conservative types who blew taxpayer dollars out their asses. The pattern seems pretty clear: Liberals and Democrats are better financial managers.

So why is the opposite view so prevalent? Why is it that I've so long lamented "if only I could find a fiscally responsible, socially liberal party" without bothering to notice that most of them are?

I think it's a matter of where the money goes. Conservatives, for all their talk about letting the market decide, like to give the market a little push in the form of billions of dollars in corporate welfare. That money gets shoved so far under the table most people don't see it or even think to look for it. Then there's the tax cuts. You can't be Conservative without believing in tax cuts; even now, in the midst of economic calamity, Harper couldn't resist throwing them in for everybody making under about $80K a year. Incidentally, you could triple my take-home pay and I still wouldn't be making that much. If you make that much, you're rich, and good luck convincing me otherwise.

Another Conservative trait can be summed up this way: pinch the penny until the Queen screams for mercy. You often see Conservatives rushing into power and inflicting a little cut here and a little slice there, all in the interests of saving valuable taxpayer dollars, you understand. The amount saved is usually trifling, but at least that money's out of the hands of artsy-fartsy revolutionary types and into the hands of industry where it belongs.

I've gotta run, I'm getting a brainache.