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Comment by orf | Hacker News Reader

The core of the issue:

> The House Republican minority has said it will not vote for the reverse sweep (and other spending from the Constitutional Budget Reserve) unless the rest of the Legislature approves a traditional Permanent Fund dividend, which this year would be worth $3,000.

And:

> The rest of the Legislature is not willing to do that, because that dividend, combined with current levels of government spending, would require overdrawing from the Alaska Permanent Fund, reducing its value in the long term.

I guess party of fiscal conservatism ~has truly died~ never existed at all apparently.

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It was never the party of fiscal conservatism. Notions to the contrary were a neo-conservative retcon. It never stopped being a party of bibles and social-conservatism.

The low taxes/low spending rhetoric started about the same time as the party embraced the religious right.

That really isn’t true, the republicans of Lincoln and even TDR’s time were fairly progressive socially (though they have always been pro big business). They didn’t become social conservatives until the mid 20th century. Claims like “they were never the party of” or “always the party of” need to be heavily qualified given how positions shifted over the last hundred years.

Opposition to slavery happens to be a case in which imposing morality on others is justified. But my point here is whether they're on the right side or the wrong side of an issue, one thing has always been true of the Republican party; they seek to regulate morality.

We could have a conversation about "parties switching", the southern policy, etc. But I don't think that's needed because no matter which way you slice it, the Republican party was never hands off on matters of society and morality. Some people like to pretend it was once some sort of live-and-let-live libertarian party, but that was never the reality of the party.

That is nowhere near accurate, nor very useful. Slavery was an institution that the Lincoln era republicans felt very strongly about eradicating, and they were otherwise fairly hands off. The progressive movement of the early 20th century (mostly TDR-style Republicans)was even more socially liberal.

And really it’s all irrelevant to who the republicans are today, no longer the party of Lincoln or TDR or even Ike.

> Slavery was an institution that the Lincoln era republicans felt very strongly about eradicating, and they were otherwise fairly hands off

The same people fighting to free the slaves also typically thought it would be ridiculous to let women vote. They simply were not the libertarians you imagine them to be. Social deregulation was not on the agenda.

> The same people fighting to free the slaves also typically thought it would be ridiculous to let women vote.

Not unusual sentiment for their time. Progress is relative to a current state in time, obviously.

> They simply were not the libertarians you imagine them to be. Social deregulation was not on the agenda.

They wouldn’t have to be social progressives (until TDR of course), just not regressive. However the republicans were back then, the democrats were worse.

A bunch of intellectuals can talk about fiscal conservatism, but a major political party is a party of vast swathes of the population. Even the term sounds like political science jargon for passionate young students. Voting energy is not sufficiently galvanized by something as icy as fiscal policy.

It's a good line for a large chunk of megadonors though.

I suspect that much of the debate about "fiscal responsibility" is a political move to cut social services that the Republican party deems antithetical to their political views.

Of course when the defense budget comes up it's always not enough that we spend 700+B on our armed forces. If you look at the voting records of many Republican candidates, at least at the state and national level, it's hard to believe any of that rhetoric. The tax bill is just the most egregious example of such policies.

This is exactly it.

"Fiscal responsibility" basically means "we shouldn't spend money on things I personally don't agree with or find important."

It is a supremely selfish view that unfortunately makes for a compelling political talking point.

How much are we wasting preparing for a war that would be so devastating it may end all life on earth for at least the next 300 million years. It's like being strapped to the front of an out of control freight train.

It never existed.

It’s hard to argue that it never existed at all, because it definitely did at one point. But they have morphed into something else entirely whilst managing to keep the fiscal responsibility moniker in the minds of a lot of voters.

It never existed. “Conservatism”, as it as it is used in the US, has never referred to fiscal conservatism except whenever it’s convenient to an argument. Conservatism is and always has been about preserving the status quo.

I am genuinely interested to know more about this time when it did exist. Do you have some reading you could recommend?

Maybe pre-WW2.

Once in power, the most “principled” modern penny pinchers never seem to have a problem spending money. Nobody voluntarily gives up power, and power equals money.

Isn't this fiscal conservatism? Spending <= Income?

The point of the original comment is that it's the Republican party (which has tried to paint itself as the party of "fiscal conservatism") that wants to spend more money than is available from the Permanent Fund, and is holding other programs hostage to achieve this goal.

Not really; in the midwest, we'd call this eating your seed corn.

Only in the sense that you aren’t borrowing. It’s the equivalent of being in a cash crunch, and feeding your kids McDonald’s while cashing out your 401k to go on a cruise.

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