Columnist David Wessel, writing today in the Wall Street Journal, notes that the current debate over the federal budget has uncovered one area of bi-partisan agreement, and a corresponding fissure within the Republican party.  Newt Gingrich calls it “research & development,” while President Obama calls it “investment,” but many policy leaders in both political parties understand that the federal government has a vital role in funding scientific research.  This is one area where dollars spent today will pay huge dividends in the future.  Medical research in general, and stem cell research in particular, are examples of federal spending outlays that lead to increased economic growth and job creation.  However, some Republicans in Congress want to mindlessly shrink the federal budget.  This wing of the Party needs to be reminded that all federal spending is not equal.   

Here is Wessel comparing the views of Gingrich and Obama:

In making the case for more government investment in research, [Gingrich] sounds like Barack Obama.

Here’s Mr. Gingrich at Brookings: The “biggest budget mistake” he made as speaker was “not tripling the National Science Foundation budget (from a much smaller base) while doubling the National Institutes of Health .” When tightening their belts, companies “always distinguish between research and investment, which are essential to their survival, and spending.” Governments should, too. Americans “will support a smart effort to get to a balanced budget, but not a cheap effort [that] will sell out the future in favor of current interest groups.”

Here’s Mr. Obama, in his State of the Union: “This is our generation’s Sputnik moment. Two years ago, I said that we needed to reach a level of research and development we haven’t seen since the height of the Space Race….We’ll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology….”

And in the president’s recent attack on Mr. Ryan’s budget: “We have to live within our means….And we have to do it in a way that…protects the investments we need to grow, creates jobs, and helps us win the future.”

It’s true that one politician’s “investment” is another’s “wasteful spending,” that economists differ on how big a return public investments generate and that Washington could do R&D and infrastructure investing more efficiently.

But ponder these facts: Federal spending on payments for individuals (everything from housing subsidies to health care) has doubled over the past 30 years, as a share of the economy. Defense spending fell when the Cold War ended, but has been climbing for a decade.

Yet everything else—including all spending intended to pay off in the future—has been flat, setting aside the temporary Obama fiscal stimulus. Of the $3.5 trillion the federal government spent in 2010, only 1.6% went to non-defense physical capital, R&D, education and training, the White House budget office says. That’s half the size of the share for this spending in the early 1970s.

There is, and should be, debate over how much taxpayer money should go for benefit programs, how much defense spending is enough, how vigorously government should resist market forces widening the gap between economic winners and losers, and about how big government should be.

Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Obama come down on different sides of those issues (although Mr. Gingrich calls himself “a hawk, but a cheap hawk.”) But on the question of whether government should spend more on things that could raise living standards, Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Obama agree.

It’s a reminder that in the debate over government-spending priorities, the differences aren’t exclusively between the two parties, but sometimes within them.

Many corporate executives side with Messrs. Gingrich and Obama. Along with calling for lower taxes and less regulation, they’ve been arguing—to quote a recent statement signed by the Business Roundtable, a group of CEOs—for “federal investment to prepare our children with world-class educations and to support the scientific and technology research and innovation infrastructure that enable the private sector to create jobs.”

The debate over the balance between tax increases and spending cuts to reduce the deficit is loud. And it should be. But it threatens to distract us from something also important. What will matter to our children and grandchildren isn’t only how much of our money the government spends, but on what it spends that money.

The entire article can be found here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703367004576288641058989166.html?mod=WSJ_Election_RightTopCarousel_1