Star
Gold Member
- Apr 5, 2009
- 2,532
- 614
- 190
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...low interest rates offer the US a remarkable opportunity to rebuild the country. There will never be a better time to do the internal improvements that we need to make rebuilding roads, bridges, mass transit, sewers, fast trains, airports, and retrofitting public buildings, building up renewable energy and more.
This is work that must be done. But now we can borrow the money at virtually no cost to finance it, and put to work a construction industry that is now idled, and help get the economy going. As the editors of the Financial Times conclude, whatever is invested at these rates is likely to pay for itself in higher growth and revenues. This is what most would call a no brainer.
This isnt all that should be done. Reviving Richard Nixons revenue sharing a tip of the hat to E.J. Dionne would send money to states and localities to rehire teachers and cops. The President has suggested a jobs corps for veterans, so no one who risks their life in battlefields abroad will be cut down in economic crossfire at home. That could sensibly be expanded with urban and green corps, targeted to areas of obscene levels of youth unemployment, to insure that young people under 25 dont start their lives in idleness, depression, drugs and despair. And we should start making the long term investments in world class education from pre-K to college, in research and development, in new energy vital to our economic future.
These can be paid for by ending the subsidies Republicans protect, shutting down corporate tax havens, and fair taxes on Wall Street speculation and the rich.
Most sensibly, this program for revival and renewal would be accompanied by a hard knuckled, no holds barred, everything on the table drive to get our books in order once the economy recovers. That requires unrelenting focus on the three things that drive our budget out of whack. Not Social Security and Medicare, but the real deal: shackling Wall Street which just blew up the economy and effectively doubled our debt to GDP; ending our commitment to endless wars and policing the world which we cannot afford; and fixing our broken health care system, the most corrupted of our crony capitalism, now squandering about twice what other advanced countries spend per capita on health care with worse results. Everything else the so called grand bargain that would trade cuts in Medicare and Social Security for tax reforms is simply using the crisis to take another hit out of working families. When the rewards arent shared, shared sacrifice is for suckers. When you werent invited to the party, you shouldnt be stuck with the bill.
...low interest rates offer the US a remarkable opportunity to rebuild the country. There will never be a better time to do the internal improvements that we need to make rebuilding roads, bridges, mass transit, sewers, fast trains, airports, and retrofitting public buildings, building up renewable energy and more.
This is work that must be done. But now we can borrow the money at virtually no cost to finance it, and put to work a construction industry that is now idled, and help get the economy going. As the editors of the Financial Times conclude, whatever is invested at these rates is likely to pay for itself in higher growth and revenues. This is what most would call a no brainer.
This isnt all that should be done. Reviving Richard Nixons revenue sharing a tip of the hat to E.J. Dionne would send money to states and localities to rehire teachers and cops. The President has suggested a jobs corps for veterans, so no one who risks their life in battlefields abroad will be cut down in economic crossfire at home. That could sensibly be expanded with urban and green corps, targeted to areas of obscene levels of youth unemployment, to insure that young people under 25 dont start their lives in idleness, depression, drugs and despair. And we should start making the long term investments in world class education from pre-K to college, in research and development, in new energy vital to our economic future.
These can be paid for by ending the subsidies Republicans protect, shutting down corporate tax havens, and fair taxes on Wall Street speculation and the rich.
Most sensibly, this program for revival and renewal would be accompanied by a hard knuckled, no holds barred, everything on the table drive to get our books in order once the economy recovers. That requires unrelenting focus on the three things that drive our budget out of whack. Not Social Security and Medicare, but the real deal: shackling Wall Street which just blew up the economy and effectively doubled our debt to GDP; ending our commitment to endless wars and policing the world which we cannot afford; and fixing our broken health care system, the most corrupted of our crony capitalism, now squandering about twice what other advanced countries spend per capita on health care with worse results. Everything else the so called grand bargain that would trade cuts in Medicare and Social Security for tax reforms is simply using the crisis to take another hit out of working families. When the rewards arent shared, shared sacrifice is for suckers. When you werent invited to the party, you shouldnt be stuck with the bill.
