Friday, June 23, 2017

I'm both socially and fiscally liberal, but also believe in some personal responsibility

Some people say they are socially liberal while being fiscally conservative. I'm both socially and fiscally pretty liberal. Basically I tend to support higher taxes and I recognize a good role that government spending can play. Where I may sound "conservative" is in the role of personal responsibility. Rather than just blaming everything on corporations and the rich, I try and see what we can do, ourselves, to improve society. How can we live for a better environment, better health and so forth. Things like bicycle culture. I think about how can we be responsible consumers. If we want better conditions for workers, I ask how do we treat the workers in the businesses that we are consumers at? Are we impatient, or do we give them a break? As workers and professionals, do we gouge consumers and institutions with our high prices and salaries? If we want to tax the rich, do we, at least, put out enough effort to cast a vote come election time?

1 comment:

Theslowlane Robert Ashworth said...

A very good comment when I posted this on Facebook.

I consider myself a fiscal conservative. Personally, I support government spending with a couple of caveats. First, we should pay for that spending through taxes rather than accounting tricks and deficit spending. Second, we should be careful with how the money is spent - for example, health care, not building sports stadiums.
Richard.