All Spending Is Not Created Equal

Will Wilkinson's post on the dysfunctional spending debate is worth reading in full. Money quote:

Some government spending gives folks stuff they want. Some government spending is worse than stealing money, throwing it in a hole and burning it. This is obvious when you think about it for a second, but it sometimes seems that partisan political discourse is based on the refusal to think about it at all.

Conservatives with a libertarian edge often proceed as if government spending as such is an evil to resist, except when they're defending a free-lunch tax cut (we'll have more money to wrongly spend!) or the ongoing development of experimental underwater battle helicopters. And liberals with a social-democratic streak often operate within a framework of crypto-Keynesian mysticism according to which handing a dollar to government is like handing a fish to Jesus Christ, the ultimate multiplier of free lunches.