THOUGHTS ON COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM, from the comments to a post yesterday:

Want to be compassionate to people? Get them jobs. That means hard-nosed Washington budget decisions, and tax cuts. Deep tax cuts.

That’s how you care about people. Jobs are 70% of everything. Public health, suicide, crime, the list goes on. Employed people have better outcomes on all of these measures than unemployed people. Want to help someone? Get him a job.

I’ve stopped a couple of social workers dead in their tracks with this reasoning. What’s the number one indicator of health, happiness, etc? It’s a job. Most social workers will (sometimes grudgingly) admit this. OK, next step, what creates jobs? Tax cuts. Talk about the Laffer curve.

Leftie-mind-blowing conclusion? Tax cuts are the best public health measure. I’ve gotten wide-eyed silence from this several times, from dyed-in-the-wool Canadian socialists.

I’d like to see someone make this argument in 2016.