A major stimulus packages for the nation’s ailing economy begins to seem like an inevitability and all arguments against it will be quickly brushed aside. That seems about right, as I’ve pointed out in the past, because government spending is the only long-term form of capital that has ever sustained us in our greatest financial crisises in the past. Robert Reich does a great job of explaining the reasons for a sustained stimulus package that includes more than the clumsy rebate checks of the Bush Years.
I don’t know what the Obama team has in mind, but the word on everyone’s lips is “infrastructure.” Since building roads and bridges (or repairing the ones we have) helps make commerce happen more efficiently in addition to creating jobs, this does seem like the best place to start.
But if I may, those of us in New York need to remind ourselves of a big infrastructure initiative in our recent past that deserves a second look: Wire New York. Between our ill-fated Governor Spitzer and the economic troubles we have, this one kind of got brushed under the rug. Obviously, with New York’s huge debt problems, this isn’t an initiative that can be picked up again all by our lonesomes. But it is something that should be taken to the Obama team and presented as a critical part of our nation’s infrastructure – as important as roads and bridges in our modern economy.
It could mean the difference between rural workers without jobs and rural workers answering phones for Gateway. It may not be the best job, but it pays the bills. It paid mine at one time.
