Men, if we're going to capitulate to spending $1T, let's do it as manly men, on stuff we know will actually stimulate the economy, provide good jobs to engineers and joe sixpacks alike, and make us all proud to be Americans again. So, here's Jay's plan for spending the Trillion bucks:
- Defense Spending - there are numerous capital projects already in progress that could benefit from an injection of dollars - shipbuilding, fighters, new bombers that need to be delivered, maybe even a tanker decision could be made and the P8 replacement for the P3 sped up. We'd also need people to fly and man these and we, of course, could use more tanks, Hummers, and APC's. We also need to modernize our defense and intelligence satellite fleet, and we can probably make a military case for a space shuttle replacement, as well as building that missile defense system.
If we built up our military again like we did in WW2 (without the actual deadly war), we would reap tremendous benefits, as all these projects will have secondary impacts on the economy, and will yield tremendous fringe benefits. Like, the Chinese will know not to mess with us, the terrorists will know we're not taking their crap, and the Iranians will realize that we will kick their ass.
And, another place to help spend $1 TRILLION dollars is:
- Space Exploration - if we can't make the military case for a shuttle replacement, let's make a national pride case for returning to the moon and going to Mars with men. We all know the great stuff the space program brought us - velcro, Tang, the $6M dollar man - let's repeat THAT example of spending, not the boring and failed New Deal.
- Worthy transportation projects: Let's develop a workable SST, let's DO put more concrete on the ground for aircraft (those are called runways), and for automobiles (let's DO improve and expand the interstate highway system), and if the government must subsidize rail - let's do it in the form of high-speed rail connecting say BOS-NY-PHL-DC-ATL-MIA, and NYC-CHI-DEN-LA, and let's develop those flying cars finally!
So, these are my ideas if we must spend this money, let's not waste it on crap like infrastructure and "green" technology and bailouts for banks and auto manufacturers, let's spend it on real stuff that makes us cool again.
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