Is fighting for fiscal conservatism even worth it these days?
In an interview with Florida Senator Rick Scott on August 8, Fox News host Bret Baier pressed Scott on the Republican Party’s support for massive spending during the presidency of Donald Trump. Baier did so after Scott spent a good portion of the interview criticizing the profligate spending of the Biden administration’s infrastructure bill.
During his appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Scott criticized the infrastructure bill, which according to Congressional Budget Office projections, would add $256 billion to the deficit over the course of the next decade.
Scott wanted the Senate to go about passing the bill “responsibly.” In addition, he believed that the bill increased the national debt in an irresponsible manner. Baier countered by noting that the Trump administration grew the national debt by $6.7 trillion and Republicans generally went along with it.
Vox journalist Aaron Rupar posted a tweet featuring a clip of the Fox News interview.
“Senator, you’re talking a lot about the deficit and debt … but it wasn’t that way during the Trump administration. In fact, if you look at the numbers, the debt went up … the Trump administration Republicans added $6.7 to the debt.”
Scott tried to evade Baier’s questioning by alluding to his time as the governor of Florida (2010 to 2018) when he largely got the state’s finances in order. Baier continued pressing him on the rising deficits under Trump, Scott said, “I’ve been up here two years, Bret. I am working my tail off. I’m fed up with a government that can’t live within their means. Every family in this country has got to figure out how to live within their means.”
It’s time to come to grips with the reality of politics these days. Fiscal prudence has completely gone out of the window. Baier’s pressing inquiries should not be viewed as a weak-kneed dunk on Scott but rather a sign of how no one in DC cares about fiscal restraint anymore. Even Republicans, who claim to be about fiscal responsibility and small government, don’t really care.
While it’s good to elect liberty conservatives who vow to promote prudent fiscal policies (we’ll gladly take them), most people would be better off focusing on cryptocurrency adoption and other ways that will force the state to get more fiscally responsible through competing currencies. Getting America’s fiscal house in order will likely require a solid inside-outside game of using both political and entrepreneurial means to solve this problem.
