Weaponized Keynesianism

Rep. Barney Frank, ever the streetfighter, came up with a classic name for the bizarre cognitive dissonance exhibited by Republicans when it comes to the jobs created by government spending:

These arguments will come from the very people who denied that the economic recovery plan created any jobs. We have a very odd economic philosophy in Washington: It’s called weaponized Keynesianism. It is the view that the government does not create jobs when it funds the building of bridges or important research or retrains workers, but when it builds airplanes that are never going to be used in combat, that is of course economic salvation.

This strikes at the heart of the flawed logic that many have in opposition to the stimulus package.  We know for a fact that government spending can have a stimulative effect in a recession.  One need only look to the last depression.

When FDR's New Deal spending began, the GDP grew and unemployment shrank.  When Republicans forced him to balance the budget too quickly, the economy dipped back into recession.  Then we finally climbed out of our economic funk when the US entered WWII and kickstarted the manufacturing sector in building our war machine.

The notion that we should balance budgets in recession and rack up deficits during the good times is totally foolish.