How to Spend a Trillion Dollars
By Michael Grunwald Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009
"As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to throw money at the current downturn — a stimulus package starting at about $800 billion, plus the second $350 billion chunk of the financial bailout — we all really do seem to be Keynesians now. Just about every expert agrees that pumping $1 trillion into a moribund economy will rev up the ethereal goods-and-services engine that Keynes called 'aggregate demand' and stimulate at least some short-term activity, even if it is all wasted on money pits.
But Keynes was also right that there would be more sensible ways to spend it. There would also be less sensible ways to spend it. A trillion dollars' worth of bad ideas — sprawl-inducing highways and bridges to nowhere, ethanol plants and pipelines that accelerate global warming, tax breaks for overleveraged McMansion builders and burdensome new long-term federal entitlements — would be worse than mere waste. It would be smarter to buy every American an iPod, a set of Ginsu knives and 600 Subway foot-longs."
How to Spend a Trillion Dollars
By Michael Grunwald Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009
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