Myths/liberal policies put us more in debt

Claim: Liberal policies cause more debt, while "conservative" policies reduce it.

This is the opposite of the truth. From a fiscal viewpoint, liberal policies tend to do two things:

• Engage in common-good investment that:
  • improves the economy over the long term (and often in the short term as well, e.g. stimulus spending)
  • disproportionately benefits those with the most need
• Increase taxes -- especially on those with the most surplus, i.e. the rich -- to pay for these investments.

The anti-liberal mainstream media tends to dishonestly frame such responsible, forward-looking policies as "tax-and-spend" -- leaving many people with the image of personally being drained by taxation in order to pay for heedless liberal indulgence; an equally honest phrase for "conservative" policies would be "borrow-and-spend", since that has been the historical pattern for Republican/"conservative" administrations since the Reagan era.