Obama Shares More Details About His Infrastructure Plan
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Economy, Jobs, VideoSay hello to the New Deal 2.0.
It’ll be bigger than anything we’ve ever seen and it’ll effect everything, from schools to electric grids to mass transit to public works to hospitals.
Also, government buildings will finally become energy efficient and hopefully serve as a model of how Washington can lead on issues instead of being a symbol of the problem.
I’m betting we’ll see a price tag closer to $1 trillion than the other numbers that were previously thrown around, but whatever it may be, signs point to Americans being in favor of bold action. Because at this point, the job losses are just getting too big and the threat of more price deflation means immediate measures need to be taken in order to make sure our economy doesn’t fall off a cliff.
However, if you’re not in favor of this plan, what do you think we should do? And how would it work to address the economic realities we’re seeing currently?
This entry was posted on Saturday, December 6th, 2008 and is filed under Barack, Economy, Jobs, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 6th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
One thing about it is that not only does it create jobs but it addresses needs that have been being ignored for decades.
December 6th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Now all we need is a massive World War to transfer real wealth to the U.S. from abroad in order to make up for all of the debt created by makework jobs and unaccountable bureaucracies of this new “New Deal,” just like the old one.
December 6th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
It kills me to agree with JTD, but isn’t investing in infrastructure like paying yourself to paint your own house? I’m more comfortable with investments that lead us to 21st century industries, like green tech and others, that can be exported.
December 6th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
I’m certainly not opposed to anything Obama laid out in this presentation, but I wouldn’t exactly call it a “plan” so I’m not yet ready to support it.
What I do support is a really, really big “stimulus” program, but a lot of this stuff cannot be readily called fiscal stimulus except insofar as any and all government spending without offsetting taxation stimulates economic activity.
The key to gaining a stimulus impact out of spending is to move money through the economy rapidly. This has always been the weakness of fiscal policy because by the time Congress acts, the money gets out the door and begins to make itself felt, the crisis is over. Some of the better ways to make this happen are to cut taxes immediately and shovel rebates out to people, enact a slew of tax incentives for businesses to invest, put up money and incentives for such things as college tuitions and home buying, extend and expand unemployment compensation, and ship federal dollars to states and localities to support their current spending levels and preclude widespread, forced state and local tax inxcreases.
On top of that, there is some magnitude of public works sitting out there that could be moved ahead rapidly (but probably not on the scale Obama has in mind, since even projects that already have plans drawn up could take a year or more to get into motion).
Most of the rest of Obama’s priority list, while all eminently good ideas and in many cases overdue, are not going to have any economic impact for a long time. Now I realize that Obama is not obfuscating this; he’s talking about job creation, etc. over the medium term. But if the current downturn is as dangerous as some of us think, spending that makes a big impact right away and at the ourside within 2009 is what’s needed.
December 7th, 2008 at 3:17 am
mike,
Our country’s infrastructure has been underfunded for decades now and there is so much in need of repair it’s terrifying. There is nothing wrong with putting money into our economy by doing something that just needs to be done. What do bad roads cost us in damage to our vehicles? What about sewer and water systems badly in need of repair. If we want to use solar farms and wind farms we need an expansion and upgrade of our power grid. The green tech you speak of is nothing that can be done in the short term and we do need a short term shot in the arm as well as better planning for the long run.