It’s well known by most people now that “Conservative” and “Liberal” are, by their naked selves, mostly useless terms. The politically sophisticated talk about social Liberalism and Conservatism and economic or fiscal Liberalism and Conservatism, dividing the spectrum into two dimensions. The terms “fiscal conservative” and “economic conservative” are thrown about almost interchangeably among politicians and the electorate. But are they really the same?

Being a fiscal conservative is easy. In fact, most people in America are probably fiscal conservatives. All that’s required is an aversion to government spending, debt, and taxes – something that intuitively sounds good to most people. There are varying degrees of aversion to government spending, but even the most ardent fiscal conservative is not necessarily an economic conservative.

What do I mean? I will use myself as an example. For a long time I fit that description: an ardent fiscal conservative, but not an economic conservative (though I made no distinction at the time). I wrote my endorsement of Mitt Romney in such a state of mind. I lauded him for his tenacity in overhauling the Massachusetts healthcare system “from wasteful and incomplete to lean and complete”. This is the fundamental difference between mere fiscal conservatism and true economic conservatism: if the government can nationalize an industry without spending a dime, or even make money from it, the fiscal conservative says, go for it. The economic conservative says no, regardless of the government’s prospects.

A salient example of this is the bailout of Chrysler in the 80s. The government guaranteed billions of dollars of loans to Chrysler. In a few years, they had paid off the loans and the government had even made interest back. In every respect it seemed a success to fiscal conservatives; even the ones who opposed it solely because of default risk. But economic conservatives knew it was a failure from the beginning, a failure by design. Where is Chrysler now? Failing again, being propped up again.

This is why there are so many fiscal conservatives and almost no economic conservatives by comparison. It makes intuitive sense to be a fiscal conservative: It frightens a lot of people to owe so much money, and rightfully so. Their fundamental issue is the government’s balance of payments. It takes a little more economic sophistication to be a true economic conservative, though. People have become accustomed to pervasive government involvement and regulation in their lives, and even been convinced to like it. How many people can effectively argue that the government’s monetary, fiscal, and regulatory meddling was the cause of this financial crisis? Dishearteningly few. They take the platitudes that deregulation caused the crisis at face value, maybe cringing at the trillion dollar sums of stimulus and bailout money, but never batting an eye at perverse incentives, subsidies, and regulations.

Fiscal conservatism already enjoys wide support among the public. What we need now are true economic conservatives.