Why are most fiscal conservatives also socially conservates?

[Howard_Roark]

I've been wondering why there is such a strong link between social and fiscal conservatism and why more people aren't fiscally conservative but socially liberal.

According to the Wikipedia article on Social Conservatism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_conservatives'): "Using the National Journals ratings of Senators in 2007, the correlation coefficient between "economic" scores and "social" scores is 90%. That means they almost always go together; financial conservatives are social conservatives and vice versa".[5]

[forsmant]

THat is a bunch of hogwash. Likely social conservatives are less likely to spend money on welfare but sure as shit will spend it on any "moral" war there is. War on drugs, war on terror, war on muslims, war on poverty, war on you. You cannot be a fiscal conservative and support any kind of offensive war. This is a label that needs to be taken down.

[wormyguy]

I'm not so sure - see chart on pg. 6 (http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa658.pdf). The word "libertarian" is misleading here - it's people who self-identify as fiscal conservatives and also support gay civil unions. That group outnumbers self-identified fiscal conservatives who oppose gay civil unions.

[Zippyjuan]

Social conservatives are not necessarily fiscal conservatives. Both liberals and conservatives in Congress don't mind spending money they don't have. They just spend on different things. Conservatives generally like the military or aid to corporations and liberals tend to go for social programs.

What is "fiscally conservative"? Is it the desire to only put forth programs you can afford to pay for? Is it not wanting to spend any money? If it is the former, then liberals have a better record since they are more likely to want to increase taxes to pay for programs. "Tax and spend" would be a fiscally conservative action under that definition- if you have a program you want, you need to pay for it. Is it the latter? Budgets have grown under both liberals and conservatives. As have deficits.