The Financial Times reports:
The German government is to spend part of its €50bn economic stimulus package on supplies for its armed forces, possibly including submachine guns, military vehicles and underwater mine detectors. The revelation has upset anti-war politicians and raised questions about the effectiveness of measures intended to help Germany overcome a deep recession. The defence ministry said it would receive almost €500m ($633m, £444m) from the stimulus package. Although it will spend about half the windfall on the renovation and construction of buildings and barracks, a further €226.2m has been pencilled in to buy weapons, military vehicles and combat systems.... "The Bundeswehr [Germany's military force] is one of the most important sources of contracts for the German economy so it stands to reason that it will make the most of the possibilities to keep up this support via the economic stimulus package," said Franz Josef Jung, defence minister.
As Obama and the left work to make America more closely resemble Europe -- universal health care, cap and trade, higher taxes, increased regulation, etc. -- it's worth noting that Europe is in even worse shape than the United States economically. We're told that if only we had universal health care, our businesses could be more competitive. How'd that work out for the Europeans? Cap and trade has been a total failure in Europe. Regulation did nothing to prevent European banks from making the same mistakes as their American counterparts. And higher taxes have kept European rates of growth relatively anemic -- it's the appreciation of the Euro that's done so much to raise living standards in Europe relative to the United States, and that appreciation has started to unwind itself in dramatic fashion. So the Germans are trying a defense stimulus -- because, of course, one of the easiest ways to spur jobs and growth is to increase funding for the military, which is already one of the economy's "most important sources of contracts." Perhaps the Obama administration will absorb this European lesson as well -- if we're going to imitate Europe, we shouldn't only imitate its mistakes.