Why are conservatives so bad at economic management? (And why do so many people think they're actually the ones who are good at it?)

It's the most undeserved of reputations. Consistently in both the USA and Canada huge margins of the public erroneously believe that liberals and leftists are the profligate, deficit creating, big government fiscal maniacs and Conservatives (both small 'c' and big 'C') are the deficit fighting, big government fighting, fiscal realists - when the unambiguous, easily verifiable fact of the matter is the exact opposite.

Right wingers are very, very bad at running economies.

Oh and the whole 'Bush is an aberration who doesn't represent true conservatism' thing? Fuck off. He's the logical extension of every strain of fiscal conservatism: loot the surpluses left by progressive governments, paper over massive wealth redistribution upwards with unsustainable deficit spending, slash taxes for the top 5% of the income bracket while slashing support for the bottom 5% and chortle about drowning government in a bathtub as they vandalize it.

Bush is the Platonic Ideal of conservative governance.

Oh and look, up here in Canada we have a Conservative government calling an election not least because they're about to post the first deficit in Canada since the huge mess Brian Mulroney's last Conservative government left us in.

Oh and John McCain is a reformer? The outsider riding into town to clean house? Fuck off. McCain's party controlled every branch of government for all but two of the last eight years and his entire campaign staff are high powered lobbyists and Bush administration stalwarts.

As for the great conservative hope Sarah Palin...

As Mayor, ‘Hard-Core Fiscal Conservative’ Sarah Palin Left Wasilla $20 Million In Debt

The campaign of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is presenting his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK), as a reformer, fiscal conservative, and “tough minded budget cutter.” Other conservatives have latched onto this image - Phyllis Schlafly calls Palin “the total package” with “fiscal conservative credentials.”

Palin embraces the title, labeling herself a “hard-core fiscal conservative,” whose “agenda was to stop wasteful spending.

However, as mayor of Wasilla, AK, Palin “was not always the fiscal watchdog she has since boasted of being...”