[Revi]

I like Obama's idea of making all those government buildings super energy efficient and rebuilding schools.

We are going to be paying to keep these places warm and I would love to spend less money on that.

That's stimulus because all that money won't be going to the people who sell heating oil and can be kept in the community.

Why not install some solar hot water and some wind if the resource is there?

Set up farmer's markets and bus stations while we're at it.

We'll be needing them soon enough.

[Pops]

Some might know one of my things is re-localization, especially small town rural.

I'd like to see some tax advantages given to new and old small retail and manufacturing businesses in declining rural towns like Wally gets. Perhaps a sunsetted fed subsidy of property/sales/payroll taxes so the local and state govs don't lose but gain from the income tax.

Make the existing tax laws to help small farmers: help small farmers and make separate laws for large farmers - we need both.

Improve tel-com infrastructure in rural America so the people at the end of the 1-800 number you call for service and support have an accent but one from Georgia, Maine or Nebraska.

Nationalize the electric grid with an eye toward grid-tie generation and equitable payout to individual producers - rural or urban.

Subsidize all energy saving schemes proven to have a short term return.

Rebuild.
Communities used to build churches, then schools, then courthouses, then libraries, then hospitals and common spaces, were proud of all and built to last as well as possible.
Churches were up to the parishioners, but the rest was built by the general community. We've gotten away from feeling anything but the thing we want today is worth spending on - public or private. So lets get back to spending money on things for the Community and not just tonight's entertainment.

Good today and good tomorrow.

[mos6507]

Obama was asked about net-metering in the town hall today. The term net-metering wasn't mentioned but that's what they were talking about. He's aware of the issue. These town halls are a great. I wish presidents did that on a regular basis.

[Snowrunner]

Money would go to:

- Employment Insurance
- A fund to provide seed money for new industries that actually produce something (e.g. Windturbines)
- A fund for research (e.g. renewable energies, batteries etc.)
- A fund for education (e.g. Universities, but also Highschools etc.)
- A fund for infrastructure upgrades (e.g. roads / rail etc.) with preference given to mass transit.

I could also be softened for a "bailout" fund for home owners, but I would make a few stipulatons:

1. The only reason they are about to lose their house is because they lost their jobs.
2. They must have lived in the house for at least 24 months.

[lawnchair]

Directly P.O., I'd use the fact that metals are relatively cheap right now and start hanging catenary over rail tracks. Immediately. The fact that the post-collapse Russians were able to electrify the entire Trans-Siberian, where we can't even run catenary on major commuter runs like CalTrain, is ridiculous.

More indirectly, fix the damned health care system. The current system, besides being a 5%-10% dead weight on our entire economy, also severely advantages larger employers over smaller ones. Just freaking do it. A big part of the investment would be massive, affordable, health care training programs, especially at the Physician Assistant and Nurse Practitioner levels.

Single-payer health insurance could also drastically change attitudes toward work, which can also have energy (and community-building) payoff. People don't take buses, ride bikes, use clotheslines, garden, etc, etc, etc, in part because they're all working 50+ hours a week. They're working 50+ hours a week, not necessarily because they want more 'stuff', but because they have to keep health insurance. Fixing health care is the first step of a push toward 30-hour weeks along with more stay-at-home parents. This attitude shift makes a lot of personal energy savings and conservation more doable.

Agreeing with others, ag reform is a Peak Oil, and more immediately Peak Natural Gas Fertilizer necessity.

[HeckuvaJob]

1. energy efficiency retrofits
2. increase minimum wage (easiest way to stimulate demand. See #6 before accusing me of signing the death warrant on small business)
3. repeal the tax breaks (the Reagan tax breaks)
4. rewrite the farm bill for small/local/organic and not factory farming
5. infrastructure (stressing rail over roads, though)
6. socialized medicine (yep, just like my communistic police & fire depts that I love)
7. some form of mortgage relief

I'm sure there's more I'll think of after I hit submit. Great post, Pops.

Edit:
8. end the ridiculous "war on drugs"

[UltraViciousBudgie]

This may be the last wad of phony money foreign suckers loan to us, so it needs to be used wisely. Unfortunately most of it will be wasted on things that will make no difference a year from now. Anyway, here's my list:

1. Rebuild the railroads and related infrastructure, including regional, so that rail freight/travel is possible to most towns and cities. Short-haul trucking from the closest rail freight depots can supply towns where rail is not practical (like where I live). Electrify where practical.

2. Bring trolleys back to town.

3. Absolutely no new highway or road construction. Instead put the money into repairing or replacing existing bridges, which will always be needed. Also use the money to maintain the most important roads and highways between cities. Close unnecessary highways, roads, and bridges ("Porkways" and "bridges to nowhere") to save money. There are a lot of them so it would be a lot of savings.

4. Make existing roads more bike/horse/pedestrian friendly.

5. Fix the power grid.

6. Nuclear plants. Many don't like them but we need something to fill the gap until advancements in technology and repair of the power grid can render practical renewable energy on a large scale.

7. Renewable energy on a smaller scale. Perhaps a voucher for each homeowner, apartment building owner, and small business owner to install rooftop PV panels and/or windmills.

8. Also a voucher for each homeowner, apartment building owner, and small business owner to improve insulation and install double or triple-paned windows.

9. Improve and make more efficient other infrastructure such as waterworks, sewage treatment, etc.

[seldom_seen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gnm', 'H')ow about we conduct a massive sell off of government assets - liquidate and pay back the taxpayers who are owed via social security and other such ponzi schemes - then cancel the programs. How about we pull out of the 120 odd military adventures around the world. How about we stop subsidizing industrial coal, etc and require that they be held accountable for their pollution - thus driving up the price of said dirty energy production. How about we scale back and encourage conservation on an individual level while dismantling the federal beast and returning power to the states and localities. How about we eliminate the status of "incorporation" behind which so many can hide with more rights than a citizen and no liabilities.

We can start by taking back all the TARP money the bankers got (plus interest) and liquidating their assets.

[Dreamtwister]

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times:

NATIONAL HIGH SPEED RAIL NETWORK

[jdmartin]

Best short-term use of the money: directly to citizens for the explicit purpose of paying off debt. This money would end up back to the corporations anyway, but along the way would clean the slate of millions of Americans.

Long term: No real good long-term "best uses" in my opinion, at least not without major restructuring of laws, policies and mindsets. "Free trade" with slave labor countries is not free. Tariff the shit out of goods coming from societies without basic citizen protections and reasonable standards of living - make it a race to the top instead of the bottom. Put people back to work in the US (or Europe, if you're there) making needed products at a fair wage & in a responsible way.

Most of the other stuff that people have listed are great ideas but have no real viability without fixing the basic jobs situation first. No one is going to go for the USG spending billions of dollars on energy efficient buildings and bike lanes unless they can tie that directly back to a job for their unemployed ass.

[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dreamtwister', 'I')f I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times:

NATIONAL HIGH SPEED RAIL NETWORK

[gnm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seldom_seen', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gnm', 'H')ow about we conduct a massive sell off of government assets - liquidate and pay back the taxpayers who are owed via social security and other such ponzi schemes - then cancel the programs. How about we pull out of the 120 odd military adventures around the world. How about we stop subsidizing industrial coal, etc and require that they be held accountable for their pollution - thus driving up the price of said dirty energy production. How about we scale back and encourage conservation on an individual level while dismantling the federal beast and returning power to the states and localities. How about we eliminate the status of "incorporation" behind which so many can hide with more rights than a citizen and no liabilities.

We can start by taking back all the TARP money the bankers got (plus interest) and liquidating their assets.

[IgnoranceIsBliss]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dreamtwister', 'I')f I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times:

NATIONAL HIGH SPEED RAIL NETWORK

[IgnoranceIsBliss]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'I') like Obama's idea of making all those government buildings super energy efficient and rebuilding schools.

We are going to be paying to keep these places warm and I would love to spend less money on that.

That's stimulus because all that money won't be going to the people who sell heating oil and can be kept in the community.

Why not install some solar hot water and some wind if the resource is there?

Set up farmer's markets and bus stations while we're at it.

We'll be needing them soon enough.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gnm', 'T')hanks, but it seems Pops felt I have nothing to contribute just because I dared to suggest that we can't spend our way out of this...

-G

[gnm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gnm', 'T')hanks, but it seems Pops felt I have nothing to contribute just because I dared to suggest that we can't spend our way out of this...

-G

[frankthetank]

I'm with high speed rail. I want something like the French or Japanese have. Something that actually goes 150mph and gets there on time. I want it all built in the USA too... I don't care if they have to steal the plans from the Japs/French...and not by illegal immigrants, real Americans with chest hair...

[Serial_Worrier]

Nothing. What we need is free market capitalism. Cut the tax rates and cut federal spending by 70%. Federal money should only go to basic infrastructure and military. Nothing else.

[HeckuvaJob]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Serial_Worrier', 'N')othing. What we need is free market capitalism. Cut the tax rates and cut federal spending by 70%.

[Hawkcreek]

We need a moral stimulus. How about a national effort to identify the people most responsible for the sorry shape our nation is in. Maybe make a list of the worst offenders (about 1/2 a million should do it),
and then have a fair trial and execute them.