This is indeed a real need, but it’s not just a problem in the US, and it wasn’t just caused by Bush, although he didn’t do much to address it. It’s been building up for at least a couple of decades, and it’s a problem throughout Canada and probably Europe as well. In the couple of decades after WWII there was a huge amount of infrastructure work done in these places. Very little was done during the war, and in Europe a lot was destroyed. There was also an economic boom after the war, and a baby boom, fuelling the development. In the last couple of decades, however, a lot of this work has come to the end of its design life, and it now needs to be replaced. The cost to do all of this, however, was huge, so governments dragged their heels, which has lead to the flooding of New Orleans, and various bridge collapses and other failures. For more examples search “infrastructure crisis”. Now, however, is a very good time to start getting a good chunk of this work done.
Stop giving our money to Israel and use that money for this and you'll have what you need in 4 years. Plus, Israel doesn't need "aid."
I actually agree with a lot of your points and as I said have reservations about more government spending. Being realistic though I've come to accept that we aren't going to see a small government response to the current situation and like it or not the government is run by Keynesians and has been for a long time.
How much of the stimulus does the roads? And what can we say Bama was focused on when we still need 2 trillion done in 4 years?
Thank you for making my ultimate point. The majority of America doesn't even know what Keynesian economics is, and the Americans that do know but don't like it, throw there hands up in the air and say "oh well what can I do it's been that way for a long time." an elected officals proposal - we all want small goverment, balanced budget, no deficits, etc.. but in order to get there we need bigger goverment, unbalanced budgets, and huge record level deficits. the people - okay! or oh well can't do anything about it... WHAT!!! or scenario most are familiar with, the patriot act. elected officials to the people - in order to protect you we must take away some of your rights. the people - well protection is good and i'm a good american so okay take away my rights. and the people who are against it are bad americans. the federal goverment, wholly-elected by the people for the people, utilizing various methods has effectively made the people irrelevant.
I've resigned myself to that fact, too. I just haven't resigned myself to be happy about it. "Those who study history are doomed to watch others repeat it."
Never mind the Keynesian economics, spending on needed projects now is just good management, apart from being a stimulus for the economy. Money is cheap, and resources are cheap and available. The point of lowering interest rates is to make it cheaper for organizations to take on projects they need done. The government would be acting contrary to this basic rule of capitalism if it didn’t also take advantage of these conditions to get needed work done, would it not? It just so happens that government spending of this sort, just like private sector spending, will stimulate the economy. I don’t really see a rationale for anyone to be against government spending now as long as it’s on needed projects that would fall within its scope of responsibility anyway. I think this talk of Keynesian economics is to a significant extent a sign that some are having trouble breaking away from an ideological perspective on this, and I think an incorrect ideological perspective at that. I think even Adam Smith would want the government to be spending on such projects now.
