When "conservatives" were actually...uh...conservative

In the wake of the near-insane radicalism of contemporary "conservatism" it's useful to look back at the governing policies of Margaret Thatcher,  an authentic conservative.

She's no hero of mine, but neither was Margaret Thatcher a far-right radical along the lines of so many who invoke as icons the lady and her good buddy Ronald Reagan (who, himself, despite starting out with large tax cuts that began the trend toward large deficits, rolled back about half of his initial tax reductions, with as many as 11 tax increases over the course of his Presidency, when reality started to collide with rhetoric.)

Bruce Bartlett - our favorite conservative commentator based on his connection to reality over ideology and wishful thinking - offers this view:  

While Mrs. Thatcher is a towering figure in British political history, well deserving of admiration, the conservative legend about her time in power is at odds with the facts. In this legend, she was even more aggressive than Reagan in cutting taxes and the welfare state. But that is not true...

(T)axes as a share of the gross domestic product in Britain actually increased sharply during Mrs. Thatcher’s first seven years in office before falling in the later years. Even at the end, they were significantly higher than they were when she took office. Spending also rose during her first seven years before falling in Mrs. Thatcher’s later years.

Although Mrs. Thatcher privatized many British industries and businesses that had been nationalized after World War II and sold off much of Britain’s public housing, in which the bulk of the working class lived, she did little to reduce the size of the nation’s welfare state.

In particular, Mrs. Thatcher, like all the members of her party, strongly supported the National Health Service, which provides national health insurance for every Briton.

Read the entire piece by Bartlett, "The Legend of Margaret Thatcher,"  HERE.

And note, perhaps one reason that a fiscal conservative like Thatcher "strongly supported" the British National Health Service - which unlike the health care systems in France or Canada actually IS socialized medicine - is because the cost per capita is well under half of what we spend in the United States, with outcomes that are rated about the same by the WHO (Britain has a longer life expectancy.)

The difference between Thatcher and our current crop of Republicans is the difference between a determined pragmatist with a decidedly conservative perspective and unhinged ideologues who will set fire to the house rather than negotiate a compromise that allows the government to continue to govern.