The Myth Of The Fiscal Conservative/Social Liberal

     As I grow older, so the list of things that annoys me grows ever longer. One item that has maintained its inclusion on that list for many years is when anyone says they are a fiscal Conservative but a social Liberal. It is somewhat analogous to saying you are pro-gun but anti-bullets. And while not every issue that separates Conservatives from Leftists can be said to have an effect on the fiscal health of the country, most do. Therefore, it has always been my contention that it is impossible to be a social Liberal and fiscal Conservative, since the leftist social policies implemented by Liberals result in a fiscally unhealthy federal government and nation.
     The first illustration that I will proffer to support my position that it is near impossible to advance Leftist social policies and still maintain one's fiscal conservatism, is single-motherhood. Not only do Leftists tolerate single-motherhood, but they encourage it as a method to create more government dependence, thereby securing more votes for the politicians who support it. Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are spent every year, not only to financially support single-parent homes, but in additional drug treatment programs needed for, what studies have clearly shown, is a link between increased drug use and being raised in one of these homes. The other hidden cost to single-parenting is an increase in prison populations. Eighty percent of those incarcerated are from single-parent homes and they cost taxpayers billions of dollars every year to feed, house and guard.
     Another example that illustrates that Liberal social policy and fiscal conservatism are mutually exclusive is gay marriage. Once we redefine marriage away from its deeply rooted foundations that stretch back almost as long as man has existed on this earth, and transform it into simply a union between any two people that love each other, we have diminished the holy institution created for raising children and made it something much more profane. When traditional marriage is diminished in this way it causes its focus to be only on the two joining together and not on the benefit that that marriage and every other traditional marriage brings to a society. For all the reasons listed above, traditional marriage, and the children that are the offspring of such a union, is invaluable for creating independent citizens who add to society, not subtract.
     On issue after issue there is a direct correlation between socially liberal policy and increased financial burden to the federal budget and the economy. I think the tendency, especially the last five years, is for some people to want to claim the high moral ground financially and socially, not realizing that government incursion into the latter creates difficulty for achieving balance in the former. The people who say they are fiscal Conservatives and social Liberals have disassociated the cost of social policy from the equation. This allows them to think of themselves as fiscally responsible while at the same time supporting what they think of as compassionate programs. This kind of thinking is disastrous because the bane of our financial existence is the inability to make more citizens independent and the federal government more limited in its functions.