"I'm socially liberal but fiscally conservative" - What do you think when you hear that?

"I'm an uninformed idiot."

Conservatives are fiscally reckless. Look at every conservative president's deficit spending, and economic crashes. Look at the states most dependent on federal funds.

Even if you had zero morals and voted 100% on fiscal policies, the best choice is very clearly not conservative.

"I don't hate you because you're a POC, a woman, or queer. I hate you because you're poor."

Either "I hate poor people but I love weed" or "I'm lying because my actual views would scare people off".

Conservativism, in all forms, is not a real ideology. It's narcissism. A conservative will redefine conservative values based on their own identity.

So the "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" idiot is lying to themselves about who they are. They want fiscal policies that benefit themselves, and they don't want to be labelled a bigot, but they are fine with bigots in office as long as they get the fiscal policies that benefit themselves.

Ask them what they mean by "fiscal conservative," and they will probably vaguely gesture and say "lower taxes." What they mean is "lower taxes for me." Fiscal conservatives still want to spend government money on programs they like. They want boondoggles in their backyard, earmarks and pork barrel projects, and social safety nets as long as they are the recipient (Medicare, Social Security, Veteran benefits, etc.)

They want to frame it as responsible restraint. Pull funding from programs they don't understand, like scientific research, or don't like, like foreign aid (except of course if strong ties to their home country).

And when they say lower taxes, when pressed, they will describe how their property tax or income tax or capital gains tax or death tax is really bad "for the economy." They want good schools and roads and infrastructure, but they want someone else to pay for it.

Calling themselves conservative gives them license to be as selfish as they want to be without having to admit that they don't actually have any values.

"I vote Republican, but I'm self-aware enough to know that I should be embarrassed about it." (In the US)

As someone who said this when they were younger

"Uninformed idiot"

now that I'm older I'm fully liberal since i am more informed.

If they're American I would point out that they have no representation for their conservative views because there is no fiscally conservative party in the United States.

Euro perspective - When I hear fiscally conservative, that means supporting a governmental policy that is frugal with spending and responsible with public assets and finances.

This has several parts, here are some of the most important:

a) Keeping a balanced budget - the government should not be spending more than it is collecting from taxes and income. (A little debt in dire times is fine, but that should be payed off when possible)

b) Responsible management and long term planning - the planning horizon should be counted in decades

c) Focusing on core tasks: national security, infrastructure, healthcare, education etc.

d) Not raising taxes unless strictly necessary, lowering them if it is permissible according to the above.

Socially liberal => supports personal liberties

Now why does government debt even matter? Well, because debt is owed somewhere, and if it becomes large may mean that the government is beholden to other parties for the debt.

So many people with such brutal takes on it -- helps to quantify who the audience is on lemmy I guess.

Socially liberal fiscally conservative, to me at least, means that the person is in favour of equality in the sense of equality of treatment from the government, but is not in favour of additional big spending projects to try and have equality of opportunity. They're pro-choice, but likely against the government funnelling money into providing abortions for women (so abortions available, but not gov subsidized). They're pro-trans rights in terms of being fine with whoever doing whatever they want with their body/partners of choice, but against government paying for trans-specific gender affirming procedures and parades to highlight those groups. They're in favour of things like universal medicare/dental care, because those programs are shown to be a net benefit fiscally and socially.

In general, they support socially progressive ideas, so long as they're fiscally costed out and beneficial to the public purse. They're against increased government spending / reach, preferring 'small government', with the social components placed more on individuals to fund directly.

As someone who has used the term before.

Social liberal: I think you should be able to do whatever you want in your personal life, even if it harms yourself. I'm willing to negotiate with harming consenting adults while recognizing the possibility, even likelihood, of an imbalance of power making it difficult to properly give consent, or for it to be recognized by the public at large, e.g., maybe Amazon workers aren't really okay with peeing in bottles because they don't have enough time or facilities for bathroom breaks, just because they accepted the job. Doing things that harm those you have guardianship over is not acceptable because they are not in a position to give consent.

Fiscal conservative: I want money in the public trust to be spent effectively. This doesn't mean I want less taxes, I'm in fact okay with more. A city near me has 30% of its budget dedicated to police services, yet we have some of the highest violent crime in Canada. The simple fact is, a lot of crime is driven by poverty and lack of opportunity. So why are we paying to catch and jail poor people with no skills who are trying to survive and not paying for skills training, robust childhood education, and at least minimal supports so people don't have to be desperate enough to risk their lives and mine so they can survive? It doesn't make sense and there's no indication it's working. FYI, school meal programs tend to help the local economy to the tune of about $7 for every $1 you spend on them. That sounds terribly fiscally responsible to me...

"I'm a dumbass who's too embarrassed to say I vote Republican."

“I’m a republican, and I will consistently, and wrongly, vote in what I think are the best interests of my wallet while paying lip service to liberal social ideals. “

I don't like paying taxes to fund public services, but I don't care what consenting adults do in their own bedrooms

I prefer to use the term fiscally responsible.

It's fiscally irresponsible to cut taxes for the billionaires and corporations when we have record deficits.

It's fiscally irresponsible to cut the IRS budget when that results in less revenue.

Republican voters have been brainwashed into thinking that Republicans are somehow more responsible with the economy and budget, when history shows that Republicans drive up the deficit with irresponsible tax cuts.

I'm someone who actually calls myself socially liberal but fiscally conservative, and that's because my primary concern (in the terms of moral foundations theory) is the liberty/oppression axis. In other words, I think leaving people alone is a good thing, and while it's not the only good thing and it needs to be balanced against other concerns, we should still be doing it more than we are now.

Two caveats:

1. I'm socially liberal because a free society requires tolerating even the people you hate. This is hard, and even many people who consider themselves tolerant because they simply don't hate a particular group aren't (and often don't want to be) tolerant in this sense.
2. I'm economically conservative because the freedom to act without government interference even in an economic context has great inherent worth (but I'll repeat here that I don't value it to the exclusion of all else) but also because the free market usually does a better job than central planning at making everyone prosperous. I don't care much about wealth inequality - a world in which I have two dollars and you have two million dollars is a better place than a world in which we both have just one dollar.

Edit: in practice I always end up voting for moderate Democrats at the national level, both because I think social issues are generally more important than economic issues and because neither party usually does what I would want regarding economic issues. However, I have more options at the state and local level.

"I pick the parties on their rhetoric, not their record."

Someone who is a conservative who has a gay friend or a gay kid that they love and accept.

"I'm discriminating towards poor people".

Well this is what I think since I often fall into that kind of thinking and kind of reflected on how I recently voted on a proposition.

It was increase to the sales tax to make the area "safer and vibrant" and touted as a major way in this prop was providing help for affordable housing. My brain went immediately jumped to the more progressive leaning side and went, I'd love to help those who can't afford housing and yeah, I don't mind paying a bit more tax even though I don't particularly like the whole more regressive taxation kind of thing but overall it would be a great thing. Then I looked at the break down and saw that only 17 percent of the funding would actually go toward affordable housing.

That's where the more fiscally conservative part went, huh, well that doesn't pass the sniff test if you're making this about affordable housing and making things "safer" for them and the community dafuq is it only 17 percent of the budget there? Well digging in, 45 percent of this would have gone to cops and first responders, heavy emphasis on cops with articles going on about how the cops were looking forward to buying a helicopter. That fiscally conservative part of me went, yeah, that's wasting my god damn tax money then.

At that point my NWA part of the brain went, you assholes want to hire more cops with no change in hiring standards where we already have a problem with way too many racists ass police, give them cars, helicopters, more tasers and guns, and body cameras that we don't have access to the footage and no consequences if these assholes turn them off during an their encounters with the public? ACAB you bunch of tone deaf jackasses and Fuck the Police.

Needless to say, I did not vote for that increase in taxes.