Wait, I thought the GOP was the party of fiscal conservatism and reducing the deficit? Shouldn't they be reducing the debt ceiling rather than raising it?
This has not been true since Reagan. The US political right has been selling economic bullshit since the 1980s:
> Ronald Reagan launched his 1980 campaign for the presidency on a platform advocating for supply-side economics. During the 1980 Republican Party presidential primaries, George H. W. Bush had derided Reagan's economic approach as "voodoo economics".[21][22] Following Reagan's election, the "trickle-down" reached wide circulation with the publication of "The Education of David Stockman" a December 1981 interview of Reagan's incoming Office of Management and Budget director David Stockman, in the magazine Atlantic Monthly. In the interview, Stockman expressed doubts about supply side economics, telling journalist William Greider that the Kemp–Roth Tax Cut was a way to rebrand a tax cut for the top income bracket to make it easier to pass into law.[23] Stockman said that "It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory."[23][24][25]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics#Reagan_...
It's the same snake oil as "shareholder value" being most important thing:
They claim to want to reduce the deficit, but are also committed to pretending that the best and least-painful ways to do that just don’t exist. So. Kinda hard to actually do it.
They only care about deficits when a democrat wants to pay for sick children’s medicine or something.
If that works, the incentive to be a representative is reduced and there won’t be people who make it into a profitable career against the interests of the people.
Public sector liabilities are private sector assets. GOP is the party of billionaires and billionaires want more money, so they demand lower taxes and greater deficits.
Two birds with one stone.
That switch was in the 1960s:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
Pre-1960s the racists were mixed between the two parties to a varying degree. In the 1960s the GOP decide to actually go after / court the racist voter.
Having said that, Americans seem to be extremely pragmatic when it comes to voting, not ruling out someone for being a terrible human being if their policy proposals make sense to the voter. I wish Americans would be more ideological and principled in that situation.
Interesting. Coming from a country where most people vote purely based on their ideologies, I wish they would vote more for policies. Grass, green, etc, I suppose.