That's David Leonhardt's description of America's economic troubles: "[T]hink of the debt-fueled consumer-spending spree of the past 20 years as a symbol of an even larger problem. As a country we have been spending too much on the present and not enough on the future. We have been consuming rather than investing. We're suffering from investment-deficit disorder." If you look at the Democrats' spending plan through this prism, you begin to see what they are up to. They want to increase government "investment" in energy, healthcare, and education to cure economic inefficiencies and produce long-term returns. One problem with this is that their investments will probably create a whole new set of inefficiencies. Look at what subsidies for corn ethanol got us. More spending on education? Unlikely to produce better-educated students unless the money is coupled with accountability, testing, and curricular reform. Shoveling money into Medicare? It could help states through these rocky budgetary times. But, absent reform, the program is still an entitlement disaster in the making. "Investments" in updating and expanding the nation's electric grid and increasing broadband access make sense. Says Leonhardt: "[A] smaller share of households in the United States has broadband Internet service than in Canada, Japan, Britain, South Korea, and about a dozen other countries." That shouldn't be the case. But otherwise the Democrats' plan is weak brew. Why not invest in defense stimulus instead?