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.

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.