Goldwater's Ghost points us in the direction of an excellent exchange on National Review's The Corner--in the Friday Free For All:
Yesterday, there was a great exchange between Jonah Goldberg and others on NRO's blog The Corner (I have to go somewhere in between your postings). The back and forth had to do with whether or not conversatism accepts the role of a welfare state.
Goldberg, I think rightly, feels that there is indeed room for a limited and means-tested welfare state, and the existence of one isn't necessarily a contradiction of conservatism's principles.
Your thoughts??
This discussion on National Review is why that magazine is such an institution. I think my view is a lot like GG's and Jonah Goldberg's. Yes, you can still be Conservative and support a limited welfare state. I don't think being a Conservative means that you have to abandon the poor and handicapped to death on a flat rock---being a Conservative does however require one to think about just who is benefiting from the program and why. Should people whose homes are flattened by a devastating hurricane be eligible for low interest rebuilding loans? Yes. Should the federal government buy mortgages of people who can't meet the payments due under an agreement into which they freely entered? Nope.
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