President-elect Obama seems eager to forge bipartisan alliances and pass a stimulus plan with more than Democratic votes. Democrats in the Senate and House, egged on by the netroots and liberal columnists, are doing their best, however, to make that extremely difficult. Their knee jerk opposition to tax cuts suggests the Republicans will find little to like in the final package.
But Tom Donnelly offers a compelling spending-side idea that Republicans might just like. He writes:
By any measure, defense should comprise a vital component of any stimulus package. This is a matter of economic good sense and, frankly, fairness to the men and women serving our country in a time of war. The Pentagon can intelligently and easily support $20 billion in additional spending per year; critically, this would continue the program to expand the Army, which will remain stretched by deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, by 30,000 soldiers per year. Such investments would not only create thousands of jobs across the country — and preserve jobs at risk from premature program terminations — but promote American exports and create a secure environment for global economic recovery.
Donnelly argues that unlike some of the run-of-the-mill “shovel ready” projects which aren’t all that ready, defense spending does indeed send money out into the economy within the first year of authorization. Moreover, we get more than dog parks, swimming pools and tennis courts (the sort of chazerei that the mayors have thrown into the stimulus plan). We wind up with things we need:
Economist Martin Feldstein has argued that the stimulus spending needs to be directed toward projects “that should be done anyway.” The gap in military spending of the past 15 years — more than $150 billion in deferred projects in the 1990s alone — has created a “defense deficit” that has resulted in a wholesale obsolescence in front-line systems: U.S. troops are still fighting with planes, ships and land combat vehicles designed in the late 1970s and purchased during the Reagan buildup.
On the merits, Donnelly’s argument is compelling. But the politics are nearly irresistible. How else to get Republicans to willingly spend money? And of course there are dozens if not hundreds of Congressional districts which benefit from defense spending.
The President-elect is making the argument that short-term stimulus spending must not distract from long-term needs. Defense spending fits that description and, if it can draw Republican votes, might be the last chance — short of some significant tax cuts — to draw Republicans into a bipartisan deal. We’ll see just how savvy a deal maker the President-elect can be, in part by whether he seizes on suggestions like Donnelly’s to craft his agenda.
