While I don’t agree with everything he has to say in the column he wrote today for the Washington Post, I can’t help but admire his obvious literacy. It’s funny how one falls into habits of thought without realizing it–I’d really come to view the President of the United States as merely a symbol for a specific ideology, not as an individual who acted upon national matters after giving them in-depth and intelligent thought specific to their particular circumstances and concerns.
I’ve had the same mental whiplash lately with feminist issues–I had subconsciously come to accept that women were going to be irrevocably second-class citizens where the national government (and most state governments) were concerned; the fight was to move the populace as much as possible to limit the powers of governance that naturally adhered to this ideal. The notion of “top-down” changes in women’s status had completely left me as something that actually came to mind as a possible solution. All directives coming from the “top” were going to be anti-woman; the only workable strategies were going to have to come from we-the-masses.
But, back to the economic stimulus package–I’ve been really hesitant to weigh in because economics is not my area of expertise, especially on the macroscopic scale. I never feel qualified to make pronouncements about what will and will not work to help repair our national economy; however, I will go ahead and venture my tentative opinions here; I’d love to hear from others with better knowledge than me of how macroeconomics work (and who are not simply quoting a party line, from either side of the aisle).
The Prez writes, in his WaPo article:
Now is the time to protect health insurance for the more than 8 million Americans at risk of losing their coverage and to computerize the health-care records of every American within five years, saving billions of dollars and countless lives in the process.
Now is the time to save billions by making 2 million homes and 75 percent of federal buildings more energy-efficient, and to double our capacity to generate alternative sources of energy within three years.
Now is the time to give our children every advantage they need to compete by upgrading 10,000 schools with state-of-the-art classrooms, libraries and labs; by training our teachers in math and science; and by bringing the dream of a college education within reach for millions of Americans.
And now is the time to create the jobs that remake America for the 21st century by rebuilding aging roads, bridges and levees; designing a smart electrical grid; and connecting every corner of the country to the information superhighway.
From which I distill the following*:
(*If I’m partially or completely off-base with any of these, definitely let me know! Like I said, this whole area of understanding is not really my forte.)
Obama’s main goals for the economic stimulus package are that it
(1) implement some form of government-covered universal health care; A
(2) build some sort of national database of medical records for the citizenry; C
(3) offer financial incentives of some description to both private homeowners and government contractors to make more energy-efficient homes and buildings; B
(4) use government money to retroactively refit homes and government buildings for energy efficiency; C
(5) use government money to fund alternative-energy research; B
(6) give money to schools to build or retrofit for more learning technology; A
(7) offer financial incentives for teachers to train in math and science and/or encourage math and science majors to teach upon graduation; B
(8) increase government funding of colleges and/or provide more government grants and loans to students; A
(9) put people directly to work for the government rebuilding aging infrastructure a la 1930′s Roosevelt initiatives; A
(10) increase funding of the DoE’s “Smart Grid” project; B
(11) I have no idea what “connecting every corner of the country to the information superhighway” means, exactly; it’s too vague. A computer with an internet connection in every cornfield..? ?
What are the bolded letters beside each one for..? Well, all of the above (except 11, which I can’t decipher with any specificity) fall into one of three categories for me:
(A) Ideas I think are great and whose time has come that I also think will be a significant at least reasonably short-term stimulus to the economy
(B) Ideas I think are great and whose time has come but aren’t really going to do much for the economy in the reasonably short-term and the long term may be a very long term
(C) Ideas I think aren’t that great regardless of the state of our economy
So, given that coding system, I tagged each concept with my opinion. In short–I think that all items marked “A” can reasonably be included in an “economic stimulus package” and all items marked “B” should definitely be a goal of the administration but really do not belong in something labeled an “economic stimulus package.” And all items marked “C” can be safely flushed down the nearest toilet.
Opinions?
I’d like to know why you tagged energy efficiency as a C; it’d be an A on my list. It’s something the USA sucks at compared to other developed nations, and an area in which great gains can be made for relatively little cost due to having a horribly low baseline. The penalty for not doing it is also fairly steep; fixing energy inefficiencies is far cheaper and easier than building new power stations. So why’s it on your C list?
I think that most people don’t have a clear grasp on the economics of either recycling as an energy and resource conservation scheme or retrofitting existing structures as such. As you see, I was in favor of designing and constructing new structures that are energy-efficient. But I would need to see a detailed economic breakdown of any retrofitting proposal before I would be able to give it a thumbs-up as an economically sound idea–I’m too familiar with such projects’ frequent function as an economic drain on whatever budget they’re a part of. Frequently the cost of retrofit is so great that by the time the structure’s new energy efficiency would have repaid the cost of retrofit and started generating cost savings instead, it’s past its useful lifespan.
I’m told that a national medical database is one of the big wishlist items doctors have. Apparantly it’s a huge hassle for them?
That said, the words “national database” always raises a lot of red flags.