Defense spending as a job creator: The last refuge of today’s defense lobbyists

The last refuge of defense lobbyists isn’t patriotism, it is arguing that defense spending means jobs. Here’s a quote from yesterday’s Boston Globe:

‘When people are polled right now, what’s their number one issue? Jobs and the economy. Defense and homeland security and terrorism are polling very, very low,’ said Michael H. Herson, a lobbyist whose firm’s clients include Raytheon Co., the defense titan based in Waltham. ‘So how do you make this issue resonate? You talk about jobs.’

The problem with that approach is that defense spending resembles consumption more than investment — once the money is spent, it is gone. Probably half the bridges we drive over were built during the Depression, but no one, except maybe some rear echelon Taliban, is using weapons bought then. So if the worry is how to use federal spending to create or preserve jobs, the best way to do that is to spend on infrastructure building — roads, bridges, schools, hospitals. These all pay additional benefits. And as Joe Nocera pointed out in yesterday’s New York Times, the ingredients (labor, capital and equipment) are all readily available at historically low prices.