The latest installment in the Bush Legacy Project was a chat at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), at the end of which he was praised for his "serenity of mind". Anyway, one other lowlight --
MR. DeMUTH [AEI president]: You mentioned the word stimulus. And as you know, your successor is thinking about a big new stimulus program emphasizing public works, I believe. An issue that has interested a lot of people at AEI recently is this: While we're looking for public expenditures to help stimulate the economy, we're also at a point where defense expenditures are I think something like 3.4 or 3.5 percent of GDP -- very, very constrained. A lot of weapons systems that a lot of people like to buy from us are being closed down, even after we've only produced fewer of the weapons than had been anticipated.
One of the things we're pursuing is that a very effective stimulus program would be a significant increase in defense expenditures. Have these ideas been kicking around the White House, the Pentagon? This is just think-tankery so far. I wonder if --
Is there anyone outside of AEI and perhaps the Pentagon who thinks America has a big problem now through not spending enough on weapons? DeMuth did resist the temptation to use the "4 percent for Freedom" slogan of their fellow neocon Heritage Foundation. But it's as if there is a "military-industrial complex" or something.
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