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Sure, plenty of people focus on the individual sense but that doesn't change the policy issues. Someone can want to keep more of their earnings but recognize the need to balance the budget (conservative) or support specific social welfare programs (liberal) and understand that their personal desire must wait.
My fiscal policy is mostly about the societal level stuff, which is why I'm less supportive of the tax cuts than I would have been 10 years ago. When I support the things that benefit me and mine, I'm aligning with the GOP but I'm not confusing my position with conservative principles - I am being selfish, not conservative.
The estate tax is the best example. On a policy level, eliminating the estate tax is bad policy when it doesn't come with spending cuts. Conservative principles recognize that working towards greater financial stability means bringing spending more in line with revenue - so cutting revenue is fine when it's proportionate with spending cuts. Cutting revenue while increase spending is not fine.
So, from a conservative position, my support for cutting the estate tax is built on the entirety of the financial direction for the nation, not just myself. So I might support it for society today and not support it for society tomorrow. However, I'll always support it for personal gain and when I do that, I'm very aware that sometimes I'm violating good conservative principles to do so.
People who blindly support "increasing personal wealth" as conservative don't really understand the difference between conservative principles and policies for society vs. their egocentrism. For those who do understand the difference, it's easy enough to convince the others that they should increase my personal wealth by pretending that a specific fiscal policy always aligns with the larger conservative ideology. In truth conservative support for specific fiscal policies (like tax cuts) should always be contextual.
Sure, ok.
But im not seeing what that has to do with the point that a massive base for the conservatives in the US is the wealth class who support increasing their net worth via tax cuts, regardless of the perceived detriment to the rest of society.
Are you saying they are a minor element?
My point is there are plenty of intelligent and educated conservatives who vote beyond the fear variable argued in the study. Personal gain being one of the biggest factors as no conservative president has put forth any policy to reduce the debt since the early 80s