And schools. Preschools, better elementary and secondary schools, trade schools, universities, universities abroad, and scholarships and grants for all of them.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Public transportation, mag-lev trains throughout the US, road upgrades.
Microgeneration loans at low or no interest for urban and rural areas.
Both things I think would likely pay for themselves over time.
I wouldn't mind spending some of that money to build more national parks, or to further open up existing ones by building more trails and campgrounds/lodging.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Banning all government programs and/or activities that aren't limited to police, army and courts. A one time expenditure of $150 B to never have another insane expenditure? Sounds cheap at the price.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Clean water, now and in the future, accessible everywhere. (Currently I'm most worried about the future supplies in various circumstances.)
Upgraded ( ) national public transportation train system, locally and between distant sites -- no more pullovers every few hours to let freight fly by, no more unpredictable schedules.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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Intensive school programs in the inner city. By intensive, we include food stamp programs, study-for-money programs, family counselling--basically, we try to eliminate almost all the barriers to success inner-city school kids contend with.
Posts: 1735 | Registered: Oct 2004
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At first, I thought about bullet trains, but now I'm thinking of gambling it all on hydrogen fuel-cell technology. I'd like to work out a deal with Detroit's big three and a few Universities and have them race to deliver the car and engine.
kmboots, 150 billion is the magic number because that's approximately the amount that the President's tax cuts are going to diffuse generally back into taxpayer pockets.
I just can't help but think it would be better to invest in one or two large-scale projects, the likes of which Lisa abhors, for the good of the world.
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quote:Intensive school programs in the inner city. By intensive, we include food stamp programs, study-for-money programs, family counseling--basically, we try to eliminate almost all the barriers to success inner-city school kids contend with.
As nice as it would be to get class-sizes down, I think the bigger problem with schools is our national concept of success in education. For example, I find many people considered "successful" by the traditional American definition to be obnoxious. If the goal is to have our kids fit snugly into this class of obnoxious "success," then I'll have to pass. Education, much like criminal justice, suffers primarily from a lack of vision, then from a lack of funds.
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If we used it to hire people to build/repair infrastructure and public transportation, we would be putting money into the economy, too.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: At first, I thought about bullet trains, but now I'm thinking of gambling it all on hydrogen fuel-cell technology. I'd like to work out a deal with Detroit's big three and a few Universities and have them race to deliver the car and engine.
No offense but, kind of a waste of money. A lot of the major autocompanies have already spent billions on hydrogen cars. They don't need any government money spent on the engine and the car. The money needs to be spent figuring out how to actually produce the hydrogen, and then how to get it to delivery stations. The cars are nearly ready, they will be in the next half decade, and if they knew they'd be viable, I suspect the car companies would push them out. But without and fuel or infrastructure for them, there ain't much point in building them.
They should put some more money to beef up the Automotive X Prize. It might be a moot point with PHEVs being released in the next few years, but then I'd consider putting the money into tax credits or rebates for PHEVs to help bring the price down.
Other than that, put a large chunk of the money into renewable energy plants to create the power necessary to run the cars.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Or maybe the reason those stations and that technology don't exist yet is because for most of this decade the companies and individuals that could have done it have, instead of raising the capital themselves, waited for a big fat cheque (or rebates, tax exemptions, etc) from the federal government to pay for it all. No risk that way.
In fact, that's probably true of most industries. If you think of all the time and money spent on lobbying, it must be saving those groups so much more in the long term.
Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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1) Three months of all expense paid extreme-vacation for our armed forces in Iraq.
2) Making "Ender's Game" the movie.
3) Paying off our contractual debt to Haliburton, well a good payment to it anyway.
PS. Why it is not being used for some Senator's pet project is because this is designed as a recession curative. That means the money needs to be spent before the recession gets too deep. Any major project or group of projects the Government could spend the money on would take years for that money to actually be spent.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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) national public transportation train system, locally and between distant sites -- no more pullovers every few hours to let freight fly by, no more unpredictable schedules.
