The stimulus package before Congress is only the first of what will likely be a series of expensive, expansive investments in American infrastructure. The composition of the current bill reflects short-sighted and mundane considerations and an occasional political farce: Nancy Pelosi's contention that family planning will stimulate the economy.
An article in City Journal, a small magazine with outsized intellectual weight published by the Manhattan Institute, discusses the pettiness of our politicians' infrastructural aspirations. The author Howard Husock cites projects like the Erie Canal, postbellum land grants to the railroad companies, and the interstate highway system as epochal investments that engendered economic growth far beyond their costs.
We clearly need infrastructure projects to spur the economy, but I do think policymakers should "think big" instead of throwing money at banal plans like road repaving. There should be a vision for where these expenditures will be directed, and it should look to our country's future needs. It should also address related socio-economic problems. For example, I think a nationwide high-speed rail network, possibly powered by something other than fossil fuels, would be an insuperably valuable investment. It would also counteract, to some extent, the overuse of automobiles. An even more creative idea, suggested by some, is to resurrect the Federal Writers' Project, to employ talented and patriotic workers less inclined to construction labor.
The point is, if we're going to spend all this money to revivify the economy, it should be on momentous projects that historicize our era, serve a practical purpose, and forge national cohesion and pride. For a trillion or two dollars, we should demand public works with symbolic and architectural potency and not settle for a thousand remodeled toll booths.
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