Here’s How to Make a Real Stimulus Take Flight
By Tom Donnelly and Gary SchmittWashington PostIn all the talk of economic stimulus in the White House and on Capitol Hill, one element has been conspicuously absent: defense programs. Yet including $20 billion to $25 billion per year of increased defense spending in the stimulus – a tiny amount in a total package of hundreds of billions – would be both smart politics and sound policy…
However, the new director of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag, has just told the Defense Department to eliminate that adjustment. Substituting accounting discipline for military judgment is not just questionable strategy but incongruous when the Obama administration is furiously trying to stimulate the economy. Moreover, in ignoring defense needs, the president will be passing on an obvious route to bipartisanship – pressing social-engineering liberals and green-eyeshade conservatives alike to focus on principled stimulus spending.
Making room in the stimulus package for defense spending is not only economically and strategically smart. It can also be part of a political solution that saves the Obama administration’s first – and perhaps most important – initiative.
Tom Donnelly is a resident fellow in foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Gary Schmitt is director of strategic studies there.
Gary J. Schmitt
Resident Scholar and Director of Advanced Strategic Studies
A former staff director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Gary Schmitt was executive director of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) during President Reagan’s second term. As director of AEI’s program on advanced strategic studies, Schmitt’s work will focus on longer-term strategic issues that will affect America’s security at home and its ability to lead abroad. Short Biography
Professional Experience–Executive director, Project for the New American Century (a foreign and defense policy think tank), 1997-2005-Adjunct professor, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), The Johns Hopkins University, 1996-97-Consultant, U.S. Department of Defense, 1992-1993-Fellow, The National Interest; the Brookings Institution; and the National Strategy Information Center, 1988-1996-Executive director, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the White House, 1984-1988-Minority staff director, 1982-1984; professional staff member, 1981-1984, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence-Research faculty, White Burkett Miller Center for Public Policy, University of Virginia, 1977-1979
Thomas Donnelly
Resident Fellow
A defense and security policy analyst, Thomas Donnelly is the coeditor, with Gary Schmitt, of Of Men and Materiel: The Crisis in Military Resources (AEI Press, 2007). Among his recent books are The Military We Need (AEI Press, 2005) and Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Strategic Assessment (AEI Press, 2004). From 1995 to 1999, he was policy group director and a professional staff member for the Committee on Armed Services in the U.S. House of Representatives. Donnelly also served as a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He is a former editor of Armed Forces Journal, Army Times and Defense News.
Professional Experience-Member, U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2005-2006-Editor, Armed Forces Journal, 2005-2006-Director, strategic communications and initiatives, Lockheed Martin Corporation, 2002–Deputy executive director, Project for the New American Century, 1999-2002-Director, Policy Group, House Committee on Armed Services, U.S. House of Representatives, 1996-1999-Professional staff member, House Committee on Armed Services, U.S. House of Representatives, 1995-Executive editor, The National Interest, 1994-1995-Deputy editor, Defense News, 1984-1987
I think green-eyeshade conservatives refers to the green eyeshades [right] that book-keepers and accountants used to wear, and is meant to denote someone with their eyes on the numbers, balancing the books – like a fiscal conservative. Conservative jargon isn’t something I keep up with. social-engineering liberals is easier. It means people like you and me that think that caring about other people is a good thing…
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