I'm not against the sort of gnawing skepticism David Brooks displays here, but it does seem like an effort to have it both ways. Brooks isn't making the case against massive spending, he's just suggesting that it makes him uncomfortable. And it wasn't that long ago, of course, that Brooks himself was proposing massive new infrastructure investment beneath the rubric of a "national mobility project." But you could read Brooks' column without really understanding that we're on the precipice of an incredible economic calamity -- one that our best efforts may well prove insufficient at averting. Under those circumstances, there should be some recognition that the massive spending plans are an attempt to apply the best remedies we have to an urgent crisis. They're not, as Brooks would have it, some sort of psychological dysfunction, or social mania. For a columnist, the stance of caution might be a good play. But were the government to decide that spending should be pure and the policies implemented slowly, the human cost could be tremendous, and the financial cost could be far greater. Meanwhile, a question for Brooks. He asks, "Why do so many of the plans being offered rely upon a Magic Technocrat — an all-knowing Car Czar who can reorganize Detroit, an all-seeing team of Olympians who decide which medicines doctors will be allowed to prescribe?" Can he -- can anyone? -- name the sponsored piece of legislation, or even proposed piece of legislation, that would appoint "an all-seeing team of Olympians who decide which medicines doctors will be allowed to prescribe?"
