The Myth of the Economic Liberal/Cultural Conservative

Imagine paying into a government program such as Social Security or Medicare for 40-50 years and then expecting to receive a return upon hitting the age requirement for collecting benefits from said programs. You must be “left of center” on economics, some assessors of ideology believe. Imagine indicating support for increased infrastructure spending without any context as to whether you support it being debt-financed or paid for by a redirection of other government funds. Again, you are certain to be an economic leftist.

The above conclusions are being made by a growing cacophony of voices from both the right and the left who argue that many Republicans, while socially or culturally conservative, are economically to the left.

This claim is, flatly, a canard. It is simply not fiscally left to support defined benefits programs such as Social Security or Medicare when working Americans have paid into those programs for decades before receiving their bounties. It is not economically left to prioritize government spending on infrastructure as more beneficial or valuable than government spending on, say, need-based social welfare programs.  (There is, in fact, ample statistical evidence that investing in infrastructure begets far greater economic returns than investing in social welfare.)  Surveys qualifying right-of-center voters as fiscally to the left for supporting defined benefits programs and/or government involvement in infrastructure development are little more than agenda-based trash.

In fact, a recently-released Brookings Institute survey does an excellent job of shattering the myth that Republicans are not, as a general matter, right of center on economic issues.  When confronted with four general categories of economic ideology — (A) capitalism in the US is too heavily regulated; (B) capitalism and free markets are working well in the United States; (C) capitalism in the US is in need of more regulation; and (D) capitalism in the United States is broken, fully 80% of GOP respondents selected Options A or B.

New polling tracks 2020 voters on government and the economy

Moreover, 33% of Republicans picked Option A – the libertarian belief in less government involvement in the free market, a number triple that of GOP adherents who believe that a market-based economy is failing and requires substantial government intervention.  This survey makes things clear – the GOP remains a solidly right-of-center party on fiscal ideology and the role of government in the economy.

While Donald Trump’s “economic populism” has convinced certain opportunists on the right — Tucker Carlson, looking directly at you — that the long-term future of Republicans rests with a far more leftist economic agenda than has been employed since the GOP’s founding in the 1850s, there is scant evidence for this opinion being based in reality.  For one, Trump himself openly detests regulation and breaks from right-of-center GOP economic orthodoxy on literally one issue — tariffs.  For two, while Donald Trump primary voters (who are often cited as constituting the culturally right, economically left types) may have been “poorer” on average than the supporters of, say, John Kasich or Marco Rubio, these Americans were still substantially above average in income when compared to the population writ large.  For three, voters for whom preserving and expanding the free market is paramount have no other major party options — the tax, spend, and regulate reputation of the Democratic Party lingers — and these voters for decades have demonstrated a willingness to accept social and cultural views to their right in order to advance economic freedom (and accordingly are certain to operate as a massive counterweight to the addition of “big government cultural conservatives” into the GOP tent).

When the Trump era concludes and the GOP charts its future economic course, here’s a guess that current proponents of a “lurch to the fiscal left” theory will be profoundly disappointed in the outcome.