The GOP did a very good job in this election cycle painting all their opponents as radical socialists. They decried their proposals tagged as socialist like medicare for all and student debt forgiveness. They won that argument decidedly.
But has anyone seen the GOP budgets for the last 2 years, a period of time when they held all the cards? Did anyone see the ag bailout? Has anyone noticed the socialist-style programs they've enacted to scaffold the floundering fossil fuel sector? While not a single coal fired power plant has been scheduled to be built since 2017, they burned over $1 billion trying to figure out how to capture carbon from coal. This is not a Democrat spending proposal. It's all Republican.
The essence of their strategy is to provide socialism to the energy, agriculture and chemical companies that donate to their campaigns, and push hard to deregulate their industries so they'll be able to pollute more. It doesn't make capitalistic sense. While there's nothing wrong with energy, ag and chemicals, their appeasement of these companies who can't produce competitive products without assistance is akin to socialism.
Pre-pandemic, the party of limited government were spending like drunken sailors. Where are all the fiscal conservatives? I'm sure they'll be back to complaining about spending again after the GOP loses the power to fix it.
