Thanks, Dr. Obama: The Right Prescription for America

Today, the Obama transition team unveiled a massive public works program as a national economic stimulus. For the first time really since the Great Depression, we will invest heavily in rebuilding our infrastructure. This was the base of spending in the 1930s that we relied on for sixty years thereafter. Eisenhower followed with building the interstates in the 1950s. In the 1960s, there was a further explosion of public expenditures on universities, libraries, schools, and parks that built on earlier efforts. Unfortunately, the Republican efforts in the 1980s and 1990s to scale back government meant cannibalizing capital expenditure budgets and allowing infrastructure to crumble. Now our schools are dilapidated, our universities are increasingly inadequate, our roads are crumbling, our bridges are (in Minnesota) literally falling down. Saving a few bucks for rich taxpayers in the 1980s will cost us hundreds of billions now.

This will set our country on the right footing for the 21st century. From beautiful Hoover Dam, to the TVA, to the Golden Gate Bridge, and to sidewalks all around US streets bearing the proud stamp of the WPA, the large infrastructure effort of the 1930s employed millions of people. It provided enough economic support to the working class to begin to re-establish demand.

It also made terrific things. Roosevelt brought electricity to rural areas for the first time, since private power companies would not pay to string wire long distances at great expense for relatively few customers. Dams, roads, bridges, and university buildings were constructed everywhere. And what's more, the construction of that period was done with great civic pride, with a sense of beauty. So many of the trails and roads in national parks were built in this time period.

This national effort during the Great Depression made it possible for democracy and capitalism to weather the political winds of fascism and socialism that took down so much of the rest of the world. I am very excited by this, and I have been talking about this kind of effort for years. This is terrific for the Midwest in particular, where state budgets have been decimated and a large skilled blue-collar workforce needs employment. We really, really need to do this. For the first time in a very long time, we need a government that can Think Big and Act Big. At last we're going to get it.