Conservatives for a New Deal!

In today's Washington Post, Emil W. Henry Jr. offers a conservative case for Obama's public works spending project. "Infrastructure expenditures are capital investment for future growth," he writes. In 1960, investment in infrastructure was 50 percent of GDP. Today, it is two percent. China spends nine percent of GDP, while Europe spends five. "Unimaginative adherence to a historical orthodoxy that ignores economic realities and global competition," Henry writes, "may simply extend the Republican stroll in the wilderness." Meanwhile, in The New York Times, Bill Kristol is arguing—no surprise here—that Obama's stimulus money should be spent on the military instead of public works. "If you think some government action is inevitable, you might instead point out that the most unambiguous public good is national defense." The recommendation is couched in a larger argument about the necessity of "big government conservatism." "What's politically vulnerable about big-government liberalism," he writes, "is more the liberalism than the big government."