Freedom Line Blog

Sanity in the debate over slashing the federal budget is coming from some odd places lately. Today, it’s courtesy of Politico’s Michael Kinsley, a liberal’s liberal if ever there was one. Writing in a terrific piece in the Los Angeles Times, Kinsley offers up some conservative wisdom in words better than any on the right have come up with:

Comparisons [of domestic spending programs proposed to be cut] with Pentagon spending are especially inappropriate, because defense spending is different. The payoffs from most types of government spending are incremental. You can decide how much you want the government to spend on, say, subsidizing symphony orchestras. There is no exact right answer: The more you spend, the more you get. More symphony orchestras are a good thing, but there are other good things you want the government to do, or of course you might want the government to stay out of it and lower your taxes instead.

But in the case of defense spending, notions like how much we can afford, or what it would be nice to have, are inappropriate. The value is not gradual or incremental. It is absolutely essential to spend whatever is necessary to keep our nation safe, and a total waste to spend a nickel more.

Another worthy use of federal money: having the passage above carved into the walls in the Democratic cloakrooms on Capitol Hill.