McCotter: ‘We understand that we can only have a prosperous economy if we have a virtuous citizenry’

Appearing as part of an Iowa bus tour launched by national religious conservatives, U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter told Iowans Thursday that fiscal and social issues aren’t separable.

“As you know, many people like to pretend there is a divide between economic conservatism and social conservatism,” McCotter said while standing beside the Values Voter Bus in Sioux City.

“We understand that we can only have a prosperous economy if we have a virtuous citizenry.”

McCotter explained, as he has previously in Iowa, that government must be restructured for the 21st century, and, specifically, that entitlement programs must be cut or completely phased out.

The Values Bus Tour is being organized by the National Organization for Marriage, the Susan B. Anthony List and Family Research Council Action’s Faith Family Freedom Fund. The groups are being joined at various stops along the tour by social conservative Iowa groups as well. All the groups, state and national, hope to make their presence known in the state during the lead-up to the Ames Straw Poll on Saturday and, ultimately, into the 2012 Iowa caucuses.

Specifically the groups have rallied against legalized abortion and civil marriage for gays and lesbians, subjects that remained on the fringes of McCotter’s speech.

A video clip, uploaded by the McCotter presidential campaign, is embedded below