The Debate - The FiscCon Side

I have expended a large number of bytes defending social conservatives here, at the Badger Blog Alliance, and various other forums. I am going to jump the divide tonight and talk about the group we normally call fiscal conservatives.

Fiscal conservatives are typically those whose main concern is that government at all levels manage its money wisely and strive to limit expenditures, regulation, promote economic opportunity, and government activity. Do all fiscally conservative voters shy away from socially conservative causes? No they do not. However, the group that claim to have libertarian leanings are often gung-ho for fiscal conservatism and opposed to social conservatism.

Ramesh Ponnuru and Andrew Stuttaford are kicking this about at the Corner and point out this post:

Oh, and it happens that Huckabee does, in fact, take issue with what we believe. In May of 2008, Huckabee called blamed election losses on Republicans being too "libertarian" (this is obviously some strange usage of the word "libertarian" that I was previously unaware of), accused us of being un-American (my response to that is unprintable, but I would be glad to say it to his face if he wanted to repeat his comment to my face) and then proceeded to make the standard, cartoonish Democratic argument against libertarianism.

Source: Mike Huckabee and libertarians — The Next Right (Jon Henke) So no doubt, the debate is going both ways here.

The conservative movement also needs the fiscally conservative voter. In this debate though, I would say the fiscal conservatives are a lot more anxious to rid themselves of their critical partners — the social conservative movement.