Last week, Paul Krugman had a couple of very good posts on his blog about how Republicans are capable of understanding Keynesianism when and only when it is applied to defense spending. As he puts it:
“If only we could convince Republicans that solar power or mass transit were complete wastes, but that they would upset some foreign power — the French, that’s it! — a big stimulus program might sail through.”
It seems to me there is a corollary: if this is what the Republicans support, why not make defense spending the core of a stimulus package? Spend a ton of money–say, a trillion dollars–on building military stuff. It would garner much more Republican support than the real stimulus, I bet.
Of course, this idea is repellent to many Liberals, including myself. I’m one of those radicals who think we should spend more on education and the Arts and less on weapons. But, as President Obama is fond of saying, “we must not make the perfect the enemy of the good.” If that is the only sort of economic stimulus present politics allow, why not go for it?
