posted by gut
Definitely neither party cares any more. Though it continues to be true the Repubs spend a little less and tax a little less.
There was some hope to come back from the Obama budget expansion that exploited the Great Recession to do so. Still, Trump's deficits were like double where they were when Bush ended (before the recession).
Then Covid comes and Trump blows Obama stimulus out of the water. Now we get Democrat control, and they just further expand the deficit. We're just going to barrel recklessly forward as if inflation is permanently dead and the US will allows be able to rely on being the world reserve currency.
Trillion dollar deficits was a bad trend. Didn't take long to approach $2T+ deficits, and the wheels are going to come off "quick" at that pace. But if you're in love with European-style governance, THAT is how you get European-style anemic growth and high unemployment.
The big issue is that both sides are more about calling out the other side's spending and paying lip service to the concept that unlimited spending is bad than, you know, actually not pissing away money like it's unlimited. The Rs are great at mocking the Ds budget allotments, but not so good at not spending insanely themselves and the Ds are great at mocking the "they say they're about fiscal responsibility...until their hands are on the checkbook" thing, but it's hard to take that seriously when they don't even pay lip service to that "unlimited spending is bad" concept.
The older I get, the more I'm sure that anyone who legitimately supports either of those parties is definitely a Kool-Aid drinking sheep who cares infinitely more about blasting the other party for what they are or are not doing than they care about keeping an eye on what their party is doing.