How about $700B to promote construction of nuclear power plants and to purchase land for and laying double-lines for freight trains. That is needed infrastructure with actual long term value to US citizens via enhancing our competitive position in the world. The market may actually like it, too.

tomg51 on November 24, 2008 at 10:34 AM

Just like a conservative to try to extract value from a government program! We’re not supposed to gain anything from it! It’s just supposed to give the government an excuse for claiming that they’ve created jobs. Highly skilled jobs don’t count. I can hear it now, “We can’t afford to lavish a jobs program on the most highly skilled.”

Don’t feel too bad. A few months in the new re-education camps should help you get it straight.

Let’s not forget the Irish model. When they cut government spending and lowered income, cap gains, and especially corporate taxes (12%), they became the Celtic Tiger and went from deep recession to several years of near double-digit growth.

TedInATL on November 24, 2008 at 11:43 AM

They also received massive subsidies from the rest of the EU.

lexhamfox on November 24, 2008 at 12:11 PM

So are you saying that invalidates the entire model? Ridiculous. To this day Ireland is one of the stronger economies in the EU, and not because of any EU subsidies.

TedInATL on November 24, 2008 at 2:15 PM

No. I think it is a solid model. But the subsidies were a vital component to it. You made it sound like tax cuts alone led to its success and they were important but over the years many billions of Euros and Pounds were pumped into Ireland’s economy by the EU. Ireland’s government put together excellent long term plans and invested in critical areas of the economy to lay the framework which led to the growth in later decades. Institutions such as the IDA and NESC were set up in the ’70s and those long term plans targeted outside investment. They used the grants and subsidies very efficiently.

Look around Ireland now. All the new infrastructure has a big blue sign on it. Subsidies allowed the government to invest in infrastructure without raising taxes. Most Irish people know this.

Your faith in trickle down economics is rather quaint.

Grow Fins on November 24, 2008 at 9:38 AM

Trickle up is a phyiscal impossibility. It is a contradiction in terms.

Infusion of cash to the poor or working poor will not create jobs or opportunities for others. These groups, as a general category, spend unwisely, go into credit-card debt by living beyond their means, or live on the public dole. They do not save or invest.

onlineanalyst on November 24, 2008 at 11:20 AM

I’ve been waiting for people to start calling “trickle-down economics” “quaint”, “obsolete”, or “old-fashioned.” That lets them mock the idea without being able to answer what’s wrong with it.

I remember Obama saying we needed to grow the economy “from the bottom up.” The first thing I said — though only my family was there to hear me — was, “How exactly do you grow a capitalist economy from the ground up?”

Capitalism is called that because businesses need capital. That is top-down, by definition.

Apparently, Obama’s promised changes include changes to the laws of physics…

Your faith in trickle down economics is rather quaint.

Grow Fins on November 24, 2008 at 9:38 AM

I guess we’re in good company since Obama’s postponing the tax hikes on the rich.

Chuck Schick on November 24, 2008 at 4:25 PM

Yeah, how curious. Aren’t these the “failed Bush policies”? If they’ve failed so badly, why’s OBoingo going to continue with them?

Not only that, but he’s not going to get rid of the option to use “torture”. Now is he going to get rid of warrantless wiretapping. Oh, those failed Bush policies.

I guess the leftards are only now just beginning to see how badly they’re going to end up being sold-out. Schadenfreude galore!

Your faith in trickle down economics is rather quaint.

Grow Fins on November 24, 2008 at 9:38 AM

I guess we’re in good company since Obama’s postponing the tax hikes on the rich.

Government jobs destroy wealth, because they either produce no outcome or are grossly inefficient. I have had the misfortune to work as a vendor to many (mostly State-) Government departments, and they are so absurdly dysfunctional that no business could survive being run that way — not even the automakers.

This is going to be a fuster cluck of monumental proportions, and it’s going to set our standard of living back a generation or more. Just thinking about it makes me feel ill and sad for all the folks who are going to be hosed out of jobs that they could have had were the government to just get off the backs of the employers, and stop discouraging capital formation and employment.

Yeah, and I keep thinking it took a world war to get us out of the mess that FDR created. Wonder what’s it going to take this time.

Oldnuke on November 24, 2008 at 9:36 AM

Not only did we get a World War, most people are ignorant of what history called FDR’s “little depression” in the late 1930’s. It was aided by all of the welfare programs so beloved by the Left.

Because hiring people to supervise them and to actually get something out of them, will cost three times as much as what they actually produce?

We have to machines that can sweep streets and sleeping, drinking, doing drugs, fornicating and buying lottery tickets will not take us down the road to prosperity.

So since the “skills” of Obama supporters have been exhausted by the forementioned, someone will have to think of something else.

Has it occurred to anyone that the only people who will get these jobs will be illegal aliens? Very few American citizens know how to do this type of work anymore.

fleiter on November 24, 2008 at 2:41 PM

Racist! Ok, you’re right…but think of it as an intra-border stimulation package instead. I do like the thought of a bunch of prissy liberals holding up cardboard “Will work for Arugula” signs at a busy intersection…

Let’s not forget the Irish model. When they cut government spending and lowered income, cap gains, and especially corporate taxes (12%), they became the Celtic Tiger and went from deep recession to several years of near double-digit growth.

TedInATL on November 24, 2008 at 11:43 AM

They also received massive subsidies from the rest of the EU.

lexhamfox on November 24, 2008 at 12:11 PM

So are you saying that invalidates the entire model? Ridiculous. To this day Ireland is one of the stronger economies in the EU, and not because of any EU subsidies.

Here comes the WPA
Yesterday, Barack Obama’s surrogates fanned out across the talking-head
shows to promote Barack Obama’s new jobs program. Obama promises to
create 2.5 million jobs in the next two years through government
stimulus……

Barack Obama’s surrogates fanned out across the talking-head shows

You do know how to create an amusing image, Ed. Great wordsmithing!

Instead of introducing new spending plans, what if he just required people to work for their unemployment and welfare checks? After all, the government is already paying them money, why not get something out of it?

Get a headstart on your competition in the workplace!
Limerick on November 24, 2008 at 11:16 AM

Hee hee! Thanks for the link. I’m going to need to know how to operate one of those when the $hit OBama is spewing gets too deep.

On the plus side, FDR-inspired spending and taxing will likely create jobs – in other countries. The world of the 1930s wasn’t economically knit as closely as ours.

hawksruleva on November 24, 2008 at 1:28 PM

Yuppers. That’s how our next coming depression is going to play itself out.
Everybody move to China!

Barry is going to take YOUR money and YOUR labor to build GOVERNMENT TOLL ROADS!

We deserve this guy.

What is this? The eighth stimulus package this year?

But this one’s actually going to work, right?

Chuck Schick on November 24, 2008 at 12:54 PM

It’s the twentieth I believe. If the gov’t must do a stimulus package, I’d really prefer the tax rebate checks. I personally assure the Messiah that I’ll spend all that money on clothes, shoes, X-mas presents, and other fun expenditures in order to stimulate the economy.

Nothing in your post shows that Obama said “send your kids to public schools.”

mycowardice on November 24, 2008 at 12:13 PM

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner.. Of course, this is a union payoff package. Massive, unnecessary building projects don’t benefit the general populace and surely won’t put the white collar professionals who have lost their jobs back to work.

But this one’s actually going to work, right?