Floundering around for some way to keep my spirits up and sanity intact in the weeks after November 2, I tried to come up with some ideas for Democrats to mount a more effective opposition. One of them involved the concept, presented by
colorless green ideas in
this recent (excellent) diary, of turning Democrats' proven record of more effective economic management management into support at the polls.
The essence of fiscal responsibility, IMO, is opposition to deficits and addressing problems today rather than putting them off for later generations. With that in mind, here's what I initially came up with:
"The Generational Compact": One way the ideologues on the right have consolidated their dominance within the Republican Party is to pressure candidates into signing pledges that they will not raise taxes, under any circumstances. I believe we should counter this by urging all candidates to make a similar promise that they will not cast votes or make decisions that will leave future generations with larger public deficits than the candidates themselves find upon taking office. This could be an effective way to concretize an issue that fiscally responsible policy thinkers feel should be a winner for us, but has not yet translated into many votes.
Now, the aforementioned diary about the framing flaw of "fiscal conservatism" has me wondering if we could set up a whole index of fiscal responsibility, offering it as a means to judge officials and candidates alongside the measures set by (among others) NARAL, the American Conservative Union, Americans for Democratic Action, the Sierra Club, and the NRA. Just as those organizations do to provide measures on everything from reproductive rights to Second Amendment issues, our "Fiscal Responsibility Index" (FRI) could help show who's likely to add to your share of the deficit, and who's likely to treat our national finances with the same care and diligence we try to apply toward family finances.
The FRI could include:
--Has this official/candidate supported measures that aren't revenue-positive or revenue-neutral?
--Has this official/candidate supported changes to make the tax code more or less progressive?
--Has this official/candidate supported unfunded mandates from Congress on states and localities?
--Has this official/candidate repeatedly extended her/himself to carve out special-interest subsidies or tax breaks--or fought to eliminate them?
And I'm sure there are a half-dozen other metrics we could apply.
Now, I know that candidates could come up with excuses justifying low-scoring answers to any of these questions (that pork brought jobs to my district, unfunded mandates were designed to make the smaller jurisdictions more efficient, etc). That's fine. But part of the framing exercise is to make the bad guys come up with excuses and explanations and justifications for a change. And most voters won't get beyond the finding that "Candidate X isn't fiscally responsible, according to this nonpartisan group" anyway.