This piece was originally written and published in 2016. I referenced it in a previous post so, here it is in total.
Any number of my friends have described themselves as “Fiscal Conservatives”. One did so a while back in a Facebook comment. I answered with the following response.
“I am going to have to take exception to your description of yourself as fiscally conservative. The problem is that some people are not as smart or given to indepth thinking as are you. As such, they will jump to the conclusion that if someone does not describe themselves as a fiscal conservative, they must be a fiscal liberal. Of course, there is no such thing. Oh sure, there are plenty of folk who indulge in profligate fiscal policies for their personal or business finances but there is no significant group with any power base that could be described as fiscal liberals. That makes the term "fiscal conservative" a variation on Robert Heinlein's best way to lie. He said the best way to lie was to tell the truth so unconvincingly that no one believes you. While you really are fiscally conservative, saying so implies an opposite that simply does not exist.
Now there are plenty of folks who prioritize things over fiscal policy. The Greens prioritize environmental policy and it does make sense that if you can't breathe or if you have no clean water, saving money will not be anywhere near as impressive. Other groups prioritize other things but none of them are proponents of profligate spending for frivolous reasons. The icon of the majority religion of this nation, as told in the sacred book the alleged adherents allegedly revere(the bible), prioritized caring for the poor, sick, children, and helpless over saving or making money. According to said allegedly revered book, the icon went so far as to violently remove those engaged in fiscal operations from the temple. But as I said, an awful lot of people lack the depth of thought necessary to extrapolate and adjust their actions accordingly.”
Of course, the idea continued to percolate in the back of my mind. It occurs to me that there is always a cost associated with regulations. Typically for a code or regulation to mean anything at all there has to be some level of inspection and/or enforcement. In theory, the goal of the codes or regulations should be to ensure that the cost of an action, product, or process is borne by those who profit from it. So we have a situation wherein the public, in the form of the government, pays to enforce regulations that prevent the public from being unfairly burdened with the detritus left over from the action, product, or process that profits or benefits an individual or small group. Now, I am happy to go on at length about risk socialization and profits privatization but that is for a different essay. For this one, the takeaway is that codes and regulations have a fiscal impact.
Generally the fiscal impact is negative - it costs money. I acknowledge there could be situations where that cost is offset but generally, enforcement of regulations involves paying someone to do inspections and making provisions for accurate records keeping or, to put it another way, establishing a bureaucracy.
The leap that realization sponsored is probably not an obvious one for most folks. It occurred to me that in the political realm, one could not honestly be both fiscally and socially conservative. The terms are of necessity mutually exclusive, considered from the aspect of codifying behavior into law. There is no way to ban abortion or control the sexual activities of consenting adults or even to regulate the use of organic recreational substances(psilocybin mushrooms or cannabis etc) without funding those who would enforce the rules made about those behaviors. In other words, to be willing to regulate social behavior is to be willing to spend common funds in that effort. (Yes, you could push for turning enforcement over to private entities and allowing them to collect fines or confiscate assets but surely that can’t sound like a good idea to anyone. If it does, please go elsewhere to discuss it.)
The only way to force compliance or verify compliance is to allocate tax dollars.
Even the tax dollars from those who vehemently disagree with the necessity of those rules, even the tax dollars from those engaged in the very behaviors being regulated, even the tax dollars from those who refuse to follow the teachings of the Christ because it would cost too much in their opinion, those tax dollars will have to be spent on enforcement or, the regulations mean nothing at all.
I do not doubt or argue the existence of people who find both the wasteful expenditure of public funds and certain individual behaviors distasteful. Politics however, is about setting priorities, about choosing what gets attention first. That doesn’t mean you don’t think other things are deserving of attention, just that you believe that YOUR THING has to be considered first. If a person prioritizes restraint in public spending, they could make the claim of being fiscally conservative. Something HAS to be the primary concern. However, simply saying it is the primary concern doesn’t make it so. Actions have to support the words.
Now, the individual “you” can believe anything you like. You can tell yourself and others that you want to minimize tax dollar spending and that you want to ban abortions and you want to ban Gay sex and you want to ban minorities walking around in public as though they had rights. It cannot however, be a movement or political organization. At the governmental or societal level, you cannot want to create new regulations and oppose spending. You can twist your words and torture your justifications all you like but the basic truth of it will not change. If you want to regulate what I can smoke or who I can screw, you are simply not even a little bit fiscally conservative.
If you want the government to spend wantonly on the things you deem deserving of wanton spending, the takeaway is that you want the government to spend wantonly. A social conservative cannot be a fiscal conservative. Lying to me, lying to yourself will not make it so. If you want the government to spend wantonly to save fetuses or to prevent adult citizens from addressing their mental, physical or social issues with a plant that grows wild or to continue the effective subjugation of humans you feel are inferior, the takeaway is that you want the government to spend wantonly. Regardless of what you call yourself, you are no fiscal conservative.
Your actions and the results of your actions will determine how you are known. The aforementioned allegedly revered book quotes the allegedly revered religious icon as saying that you will know a tree by the fruit it bears. It isn’t what you say, it is what you produce or cause to be produced that will identify you.
So, what is it going to be?
