https://redstate.com/erick/2012/01/06/what-a-big-government-conservative-looks-like/feed/Conservative News & Politicsen-usFri, 12 Jun 2026 10:39:21 -0400<![CDATA[I&#8217;m rather tired of all the people who don&#8217;t like Romney trying to claim Rick Santorum is not a big government conservative, or not a pro-life statist.  I would support him before I would support Romney too, but I have no intention of giving up ideological and intellectual consistency in the name of beating Mitt Romney.Rick Santorum is a pro-life statist.  He is.  You will have to deal with it.  He is a big government conservative.  Santorum is right on social issues, but has never let his love of social issues stand in the way of the creeping expansion of the welfare state.  In fact, he has been complicit in the expansion of the welfare state.Suddenly we&#8217;re all forgetting what a big government conservatism is. The term was coined by Fred Barnes in defense of George W. Bush&#8217;s &#8220;compassionate conservative&#8221; agenda. Bush intended to use domestic social welfare policy for conservative ends. In the process, he expanded the welfare state to do so through No Child Left Behind, the prescription drug benefit, etc. Rick Santorum was a willing participant in this.Santorum is a conservative. He is. But his conservative is largely defined by his social positions and the ends to which government would be deployed. But he has chosen as the means to those conservative ends bigger government. We see big government conservatives most clearly when they deviate from the tireless efforts of people like Mike Pence and Jim DeMint and the others who were willing to oppose George W. Bush&#8217;s expansion of the welfare state. Rick Santorum was not among them.I and some friends, none of us Romney fans, have set about exploring Santorum&#8217;s record since Wednesday morning.  Here now is a non-exhaustive list of what we have found. It does not even include his support for No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, debt ceiling increases, funding the bridge to nowhere, refusing to redirect earmark allocations to disaster relief along the Gulf Coast post Katrina, etc.This is not the record of a man committed to scaling back the welfare state or the nanny state. Had he been up for re-election in 2010 instead of 2006, this is the record of a man who the tea party movement would have primaried. The only real justification for supporting him now is he is not Mitt Romney, but I still believe we can do better.See for yourself.]]>Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:13:05 -0500<![CDATA[Erick Erickson]]>https://redstate.com/erick/2012/01/06/what-a-big-government-conservative-looks-like-n41754