That's because your statement was wrong. You asked: Most of the Dems don't support massive defense spending. They support domestic spending - that's their "desire to help normal citizens". Most of the Dems generally aim to cut defense spending and spend on other stuff instead.
It's as if you can't apply context. Obama also came into office with one of the greatest market crashes and recessions in American history. Economists agree that during giant recessions, austerity measures will only fuel the recession. Obama towards the end of his presidency was shrinking the deficit because we were out of the recession. The general rule of thumb is that if you are presiding over low unemployment and high GDP growth, that is the worst time to increase the deficit which is exactly what is happening. Economic booms are the time and place to start increasing tax revenue and shrink the deficit. The rate at which the deficit is increasing is greater than it ever was under Obama's two terms which is even more pathetic given that Trump inherited an economic boom while Obama inherited an economic recession.
He is first and foremost a libertarian. Libertarian means more inequity in the country that elected a president based on already an overwhelming feeling of inequity gripes in the electorate. Have you seen a libertarian country anywhere in the world? Your vote is a waste and no one will ever pay attention to it because there is a Libertarian label in front of it, so no one will take it seriously. If the label in front of it was a "fiscal hawk" instead of a "small government" then I may have jumped the ship with you. But as it is, it feels like I would simply be wasting my vote, while the country is buried deeper in debt. My 2 cents. ie. you haven't convinced me. EDIT: also, his fiscal policy was a f*cking joke.
Defense spending is currently massive. If you don't openly discuss cutting it. You are supporting massive defense spending. I'd love to hear about the large cuts to defense spending the Democratic candidates are running on. I remember Hillary running in 2016. I don't remember her discussing drastically reducing or even reducing defense spending at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States Defense spending under Obama went down pretty substantially, both in real and % terms.
Yea, I see a pattern of ridiculous deficit spending in every year between 2002 and 2018. The fact that Democrats were only deficit spending to the tune of $600 billion as opposed to Trumps $800 billion doesn't comfort me.
The country is getting buried deeper in debt by both parties. There is no good mainstream fiscal option and Democrats promising unlimited expansion of government and entitlements is not going to be good for the debt or deficit either.
When you phrase it like "unlimited expansion" then ya, of course their ideas sound horrible. But that's what happens when you beat up strawmen. It because really easy to dismiss ideas then.
I just told you that you HAVE to choose between viable parties in order to have a voice. You are disenfranchising yourself otherwise! Do you not care about your vote?
So your lame schtick about "you haven't convinced me" was disingenuous all along? Oh wow, who knew? You don't believe in voting 3rd party. That's fine. I believe in voting for the candidate who best reflects my beliefs and values even if they "don't have a chance." Fiscal responsibility is at the top of my list and neither party is fiscally responsible nor even cares to pretend about being fiscally responsible. I haven't heard one candidate mention tackling the debt or the deficit. We are 22 trillion in debt. All I hear about is massively expensive new entitlement programs that will add 10's of trillions more to the debt. At some point you cannot support that debt. We are currently spending almost $400 billion to service our debt every year.
I don't think it's wrong to categorize the massive expansion of entitlements Democrats are promising as an "unlimited expansion" - it is promising an expansion of entitlement and government like we have never seen. *saw I responded twice ha .. getting quoted so much losing my bearings.
You are repeating yourself. My 'convince me' thing was not a shtick. I'm still trying to understanding your logic in voting for a party that never held on to power and never will anywhere in the world (definitely not in US) as far as I can tell from current trends. But based on how you read that deficit chart that @Major presented, I'm not so sure talking of trends here is really to my benefit in trying to convince you of something. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-highest-office-ever-held-by-a-Libertarian-in-the-US
It's not a hard concept. I don't believe in the fiscal policies of either party and I won't go cast my vote to put either in power. It doesn't matter if the Libertarian candidates don't have a chance to win. I believe in their fiscal policy. So I support that by voting for them. I don't know why you keep going on about "they've never won and they have no chance to ever win!" - yea, everyone who votes for them knows they won't win champ. That's not the point.
The open ended "That's not the point" by you was not helpful.. I've stated my goal clearly. And thanks to other posters on here I have achieved a better understanding on the issue. Because of my preference for fiscal responsibility, I will vote for a centrist leaning Democrat. And then if polster is going to ask me "why?", I will tell them of my fiscal concerns. If enough people do something similar, maybe viable politicians will start running on that platform more. This way I will feel that my vote has made a difference.
A center leaning Democrat might not win the Democratic primary. There is a good chance you are stuck with Trump or a super far left candidate. Neither will be fiscally responsible.
