What are some conservative policies that have clearly been successful in the United States? Feel free to dispute (this is GD after all)
If you let me count Teddy Roosevelt as a conservative, and conservation as conservative, then the national park system is on the list.
But all those jobs! McDonald’s, Burger King, small businesses, forestry, and mining! Gone!
The 1990 budget deal really did reduce the deficit and led to budget surpluses years later.
Teddy Roosevelt is practically a socialist by today’s definition of conservatism.
I don’t know that it rises to the level of “clearly”, considering the relatively small number of test cases and the need to weigh the effects upon both private and public schools, but school vouchers have been demonstrably successful.
Also, conservative opposition to public housing projects turned out to be well-founded.
Welfare reform, the Cold War.
Regards,
Shodan
Actually, the 1990 budget deal was an act of high Broderism: the centrists got together and cut a deal. It also involved tax increases, which earned the enmity of right wingers.
It was a solid thwap against the deficit run up during the Reagan years. But it wasn’t sufficient: the 2nd big change was the passage of the Clinton tax increases on the wealthy, which modern conservatives like Gingrich said would lead to economic calamity. It didn’t. Instead it lay the groundwork for the Clinton prosperity era.
The negative income tax was pushed forward by arch conservative economist Milton Friedman and worked fairly well. Today it takes the form of the earned income tax credit (EITC). Vice President Quayle successfully argued for its expansion as an alternative to an increase in the minimum wage. Today it’s opposed by modern conservatives.
Cap and trade was advanced by centrists and conservatives during the 1980s. Today it is opposed across the board by modern conservatives.
President Nixon established the EPA. Modern conservatives hate it.
Dwight Eisenhower established the interstate highway system. Though modern conservatives oppose additional infrastructure spending to fix dangerous bridges and the like when borrowing costs are at a 50 year low, they do not advocate dismantling our nation’s highways. So there’s the example the OP was looking for.
Assuming Obamacare is reasonably successful (which I believe will be the case), that will be one considering it was originally a Republican idea
“Broken window” theory and the policing tactics associated with it
The Surge policy in Iraq
NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAs with countries like Chile, South Korea, and Panama
Support for nuclear power plants
Conservatives were pretty pissed about it, to the extent that it’s often blamed with costing Bush the '92 election. So I’m not sure to what extent it was a “conservative policy”.
To the extent that the “Cold War” was a policy, it was one that came out of the Truman Administration policy of containment. So it came out of a relatively liberal Whitehouse, though I don’t think it really has much of an ideological flavour one way or another.
Anyways, I came in to say the EITC, but on preview, Measure for Measure beat me to it.
Welfare to Work in the 1990s. Pal of mine who was in the Clinton White House told me once that, “Well, we were wrong. That was a good idea.”
Another one? Obamacare might qualify in a couple of years, both the mandate and insurance exchanges are originally ideas of The Heritage Foundation. They might not want to admit it, but most of the ACA has DNA from conservative think tanks.
So were Reagan and Bush I. Today’s definition of conservatism is so new and radical that it would be far too soon for it to claim any successes.
Early foreign policy - “Remaining Free from Alliances”
Early fiscal policy - the feds assuming the revolutionary debt, taking foreign loans, and establishing good US credit.
Gun rights.
Welfare reform.
It’s difficult to compare a list of policy successes between liberals and conservatives. I vote for conservative candidates because they have the ideology that I prefer in government, not because I want them to do something specifically for me that week or year.
Keep government small, taxes low, and interference in my life minimal and I will vote for you. This is true even if there is a more liberal candidate with a longer list of good policy ideas.
There are many policies which are a disaster, but would be even worse if not for conservative influence:
Obamacare.
US Tax Policy.
Successful only in the “RWs get what they want” sense, a failure otherwise.
I think we can count it already, because RomneyCare is successful, even if he disowned it.
But we have to define what success means, don’t we?
Congratulations Mr. Conservative! Your ideas on health care have made millions of average people healthier and less nervous.
It did? Crap, I’m against it now!
Now, now, funeral directors are doing quite well, especially since they get to charge extra to fill in the holes.
I support gun rights. Most countries have oppressive restrictions on gun ownership. The US doesn’t. That’s a success. It’s due mainly to conservatives in the sense that just about all of them support gun rights while only about half of liberals do.
I know you don’t like guns because you think they are scary, but the fact that we have gun rights as most Americans desire is a policy success and it’s silly to argue otherwise.
You might as well say D-Day was a liberal policy.
Who was president during NAFTA?
Nuclear power plants really boomed during the Truman and the relatively liberal Eisenhower administrations.