B. New infrastructure spending kills fiscal discipline – it undercuts the spirit of “shared sacrifice”

Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, 12/22/10, “THE DEFENSE BUDGET AND AMERICAN POWER,” http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/events/2010/1222_defense_budget/20101222_defense_budget.pdf

So the minute that someone says, well, defense is the top constitutional obligation of the federal government and therefore it should be protected regardless, and we should make our deficit reduction out of other accounts. If we start a conversation in those terms, then a big constituency is going to come up and say let's protect Social Security, or let's protect college loans for students because that's our future after all. Or let's protect science research or infrastructural development, and you get the idea pretty soon you've lost the spirit of shared sacrifice that I think is essential if we're going to have any hope of reducing the deficit in the coming years. So that's the basic motivation. We're not probably going to reduce the deficit effectively, and therefore strengthen our long-term economy and the foundation for our long-term military power, if we don't establish a spirit of shared sacrifice.