What Conservatism Should Look Like - The Plank

When it comes to economics, faux conservatives--Ronald Reagan in the vanguard--collaborated with liberals in abandoning even the pretense of prudent fiscal management. The blindingly obvious result: debt and dependency. "Today," writes Niall Ferguson in a recent Los Angeles Times op-ed, "America is Argentina." Just so. We can't pay our bills so we pretend we'll never have to. Those in power pay lip service to our collective obligation to future generations and then cynically ignore that obligation, appropriating trillions in the hope that somehow or other we can spend our way out of the hole that we've dug for ourselves. The only obligation with which the present generation is likely to keep faith is a self-assigned one: to binge, vainly trying to satisfy its own appetite for consumption. What exactly in this Ponzi scheme should conservatives be exerting themselves to preserve?

What Conservatism Should Look Like - The Plank