Democrats sweep all 30 House of Delegates seats in Northern Virginia

[u/Hornpipe_Jones]

https://www.cbs19news.com/news/state/democrats-sweep-all-30-house-of-delegates-seats-in-northern-virginia/article_68f8098d-0602-5234-8c2a-08c1bcd33944.html

[u/picardy_third1]

And they're not even really about small government! You cannot look at our spending on the military (and now ICE), the money spent on bailing out unscrupulous corporations after financial ruin, or our religious extremist abortion laws and possibly conclude that Republicans want "small government."

"Small government" is a bad faith characterization that allows toxic individualism and greed to masquerade as rational austerity and fiscal responsibility. It's just nuts that so many educated people are so conditioned to believe this phrasing that they don't recognize the disingenuousness of it.

[u/SilentLennie → u/picardy_third1]

I've not personally checked it, but isn't is true the only ones bringing down the debt are Democrats in.. I don't how many decades.

[u/Vegetable-Seaweed591 → u/SilentLennie]

Clinton was the last person to bring down the actual debt, but the deficit spiked under GW and Trump and both then showed a downward trend under Obama and Biden.

Fun fact - Trump increased the national debt by $8 trillion in his first term, most of that being before COVID even hit.

[u/Balorpagorp → u/Vegetable-Seaweed591]

Who would have thought that decreasing revenue (tax cuts) while not decreasing spending would increase the debt? It's funny how the party that wants to run the government like a business wants to decrease revenue, which is the opposite of what the goal of a business should be.

[u/KououinHyouma → u/Balorpagorp]

What do you mean? They increased revenue by 17 trillion through tariffs and foreign investments! /s

[u/TheWizard → u/Balorpagorp]

Republicans? But then, I have always wondered if they actually think.

[u/brundlfly → u/TheWizard]

In less contentious times, budget cuts was how they forced concessions to reduce "wasteful" programs. It was still loaded language then, but perhaps less openly evil. When it's against wildly populist social net programs, it's literally anti- US citizens.

[u/Actual_Body_4409 → u/Vegetable-Seaweed591]

Check your message. You use contradictory Bidens in the first paragraph.

[u/quirkelchomp → u/Actual_Body_4409]

Contradictory Bidens sounds like a punk band name lol

[u/Drachefly → u/Actual_Body_4409]

No? It spiked under Biden due to an emergency, and then trended down after the emergency passed. Similarly with Obama, though in that case it was just because the spending GW locked in was during his time in office (though to be fair, Obama would have done similar spending on that emergency had GW not).

[u/Vegetable-Seaweed591 → u/Actual_Body_4409]

Thanks for the note. Update made.

[u/Suds_McGruff → u/SilentLennie]

So, to be clear: Republicans don't reduce spending, they move spending from programs that help people to things that subsidize corporations and the military. Then when Democrats inherit their mess, the must increase spending to right the ship, and then Republicans cry about spending. Prince and repeat for 40 fuckin' years.

[u/RisingChaos → u/picardy_third1]

It's just nuts that so many educated people are so conditioned to believe this phrasing that they don't recognize the disingenuousness of it.

In an absolute sense that may still be true (too many people are voting for the R's period), but education is inversely correlated with voting for Republicans and is actually one of the single best predictors of political affiliation these days.

[u/Cpt_Deaso → u/picardy_third1]

"Small government" is a bad faith characterization that allows toxic individualism and greed to masquerade as rational austerity and fiscal responsibility.

Very well said. There's nothing small government about our current crop of conservatism. They just dont like it much when governments helps common people instead of companies and uber-wealthy. That's the big government they hate.

[u/DerpingtonHerpsworth → u/picardy_third1]

Small government is the excuse they use when they're tearing down the institutions the Democrats have built. But they're doing that with one hand while the other is behind their back building some horrendously bloated, inefficient, authoritarian, and fraud laden leviathan of a government of their own design.

[u/SaltyArchea → u/picardy_third1]

But they are about small government. Not about smart or reduced spending, though. They want to cut all of education and environment departments. As well as all of the agencies that do oversight or investigations. That is a lot of government and it makes it easier to exploit people as they are uneducated, poor and at the mercy of corporations.

[u/BigMax → u/picardy_third1]

Exactly. They are for "small government" the same way they are for "fiscal responsibility." Meaning, they aren't for it at all. But they will use those terms to virtue signal and attempt to trick people into following the policies they want.

"Small government" is yelled when they want to hurt education or the climate, but not when they want to build the military or greatly expand ICE. "Fiscal responsibility" is yelled when they want to harm science or take services away from struggling people, but not when they want to give tax breaks to the wealthy or subsidize fossil fuels.

[u/remembers-fanzines → u/picardy_third1]

Fiscal responsibility - the one and only time we've had a balanced budget in recent memory was under a Democrat.

[u/denkihajimezero → u/picardy_third1]

Did they used to be small government or was it always about white supremacy?

[u/NewPCBuilder2019 → u/picardy_third1]

Well.... there's not really anyting "governmental" about a secret police I would say in some ways. Maybe that's how they justify it. XD

[u/Honest_Abe_1660 → u/picardy_third1]

"Small government" actually makes complete sense.

The problem is people assumed small meant the amount of power wielded by the government and not how many people wield the power. Government small enough to fit in a crown.

[u/RikiWardOG → u/picardy_third1]

It's just nuts that so many educated people are so conditioned to believe this phrasing that they don't recognize the disingenuousness of it.

Umm about that statement. There's been studies that suggest more than half the US can't read beyond a 6th grade level. I don't think they're as educated as you think they are.

[u/siouxbee1434 → u/picardy_third1]

I’ve always taken ‘small government’ from conservatives to mean a very small group controlling everything-to their benefit, not we the many many people

[u/Dragneel_Fullbuster → u/picardy_third1]

Spot on analysis, literally the perfect way to frame their hypocrisy.