Before getting hysterical about this news, remember that the urgency of this bill rests on the notion that we are in the midst of an economic crisis that requires immediate Federal spending.

Sure, 2 billion for broadband would be cool, but it won’t save us from the short term effects of this recession. No urgency there, so vote on it later when we can all keep our heads.

Same goes for blowing a bunch of cash on hybrid vehicles — cool, but not urgent. NASA? Homeland security? Historic preservation?? Come on.

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation published a report that found that a $10 billion investment in broadband would generate about 498,000 jobs, according to the study: 50,000 in the telecommunications industry, 14,000 in direct capital equipment, 166,000 in “indirect and induced jobs,” and 268,000 due to a “network effect.” The other jobs would come from investments in health IT and energy grids. Ubiquitous broadband is one component of our future global competitiveness. More here.

Hybrid transport is more than cool — it’s an important stopgap on the way to US energy independence. If the gov’t uses hybrids, they’ll hopefully recognize their viability and create the necessary incentives to spur the commercial market. They did it for fucking SUVs, for fuck’s sake.

Homeland security is one of the biggest employers in the country, even if most of what they do is bullshit.

Historic preservation = jobs. And historic preservation. Neat, huh?

NASA, we could cut.

Oh, and I’m still amused to think that you believe that the economy shedding another half-million jobs this month is not a crisis. By the way, that whole “you can’t compare this recession to precious recessions by using job losses as a metric, because the economy is bigger” line is BS. Today’s economy might be bigger, but the majority of households now require TWO incomes to survive, which wasn’t the case in previous recessions.

This will be a Depression, mark my words. The question is, will we invest in America to be better positioned when we come out the other side, or will we just hand everything over to China and India?

And don’t give me that deficit malarkey, either. You can blame that on the previous Administration, whose sole plan for the economy was broad tax cuts and two wars. As a certain man once said, “there’s no free lunch.” I’d rather invest in our country than enlarge the wallet of greedy technocrats and private sector pirates like Blackwater and Haliburton.

You can say the sky isn’t falling all you want, but at some point you’ll have to admit the reality of the situation. In the meantime, humor me and “pretend” this is a crisis. I’d love to hear what ideas you might have for getting us out of it.

If I opposed an initiative to create jobs for everyone by paying $25/hr to plant flowers in Obama’s garden, would it mean that I hated flowers?

Using a line like this:
“Homeland security is one of the biggest employers in the country, even if most of what they do is bullshit.”

as justification for spending is totally in line with my garden analogy.

Somewhere between the liberal frothing and conservative posturing is a plan that makes sense. I’m not the innovator of great plans, just a critic.

Let’s expand our view a bit, and look at the root of this recession (I won’t humor you with “crisis” — it is the language of propaganda). Carter administration, redlined housing markets, Fannie and Freddie, Federal incentives to make loans borrowers could not afford… skip forward to the snowballing of toxic assets… the “crisis.”

If I had opposed this reckless lending, would you have accused me of hating poor people or something along those lines (denying opportunity etc)? And now look at us. History repeating itself? We’re doomed!

You guys are missing the point. Without aquaculture and exploration, we’re totally screwed.

Curious as to what Ken’s criteria for “crisis” might be. Frozen consumer spending, failed lending, investment and insurance institutions? An entire country (Iceland) bankrupt, with more to follow (UK)? Massive layoffs? Rapidly contracting GDP?

The most important thing is to get the US Economy moving again by *nearly *any means necessary besides more supply-side tax cuts. Those won’t work, because that money would just be hidden, and would not result in any job creation. Now food stamps, people spend those. Plus they need them, you know, to survive. Hire people at $25 to plant flowers in Obama’s lawn — at least they’ll put some of that money back into the economy.

And these efforts must be hitched to long-term growth. We can’t depend on Wall Street, Silicon Valley and the housing market to drive expansion, so what’s it gonna be?

You can’t blame Carter for a financial industry that allowed assets to be broken apart, bet upon and repackaged into other securities packages ad infinitum. That was the result of a lack of proper oversight and regulation. Carter wanted to incentivize the market to put more people in homes and broaden the middle class, not engender the pyramid-based raping of people’s life savings. Sheesh.

Can’t blame Carter??

Look, if we can hold W. responsible for the mess in Iraq, without justifying it with the notion that he was well-intentioned in his desire to disarm Saddam, then we can certainly hold Liberal Democrats responsible when their well-intentioned idea lacks proper oversight and snowballs into a major recession.

(If banks aren’t willing to make a loan, I’m willing to trust they have a financially sound reason for their decision. Is incentivizing bad decisions often a good thing?)

But yes, I agree with you about tax-cuts not being the answer. As you know, I’m usually in favor of any proposal to put power (money) back in the hands of the people, but now is simply not the right time. We need large-scale investments, not wee little rebate checks.

People do what they need to do to survive, and Americans will have plenty of help from the government to get through this (extended unemployment benefits, healthcare, soup kitchens etc) — maybe not with their dignity intact, but without starvation or extreme malnourishment. The word “crisis” gets thrown around in the Marxist sense, implying the inherent crisis of Capitalism, and used it as justification for rash, unchecked government spending. Thankfully, the debate continues…