more to stimulate you

as a follow up to dave's quantitative question, and in response to ben's well-taken point about quality, i'm going to break down the stimulus package piece by piece and give my thoughts. $825 billion is the price tag. what are we buying? first, $167 billion in what i'd call direct capital improvements; these include measures to improve the energy efficiency of public buildings as well as traditional road-and-bridge projects (though only a modest $32 billion went in that direction). then, we have $71.5 billion for direct aid to the poor and unemployed, $159 billion for education, $154.5 billion for health care, $13 billion for 'housing' (under which they include money to combat homelessness), $4 billion for law enforcement, $140 billion in tax cuts to individuals and, finally, $116 billion in tax credits for businesses.

because the size of tax cuts vs. that of direct stimulus spending is already the belle of the economists' ball, i won't struggle to address it here. what most interests is the decisions made in infrastructure spending. it's hard to see why free marketeers would really be up in arms about the plan, given that, as one writer in the new york times noted today, the amount of money earmarked to improve transportation is insultingly small. i mentioned before that $32 billion had been allocated to rebuild highways and bridges. that doesn't compare favorably to the $1.6 trillion price tag the national society of civil engineers put on fixing all of our leaky pipes and half-finished overpasses (even if you reduce that number to allow for the overambitions of so many fresh-faced engineers looking to win battles and spill blood for the glory of science, it would still be big).

but even that number looks good next to the $10 billion that's being tossed over our shoulders at railways; are they joking? anybody who has had to take the 8:25 from new york to montreal knows the magnitude of our rail problem. in scientific terms, the problem is that we don't really have, you know, rail roads. there are, of course, sound fiscal reasons not to give the railways undue attention at this juncture. rail projects are time-expensive, and one thing that people seem sure of right now is that, far more so than money, our wallets are light on time. i wouldn't, therefore, be over hard on the obama administration for not reuniting the coasts. that having been said, if we are going to even begin to approach efficiency in public transportation--and thereby reduce overall CO2 emissions--we are going to have to have trains. that is a simple fact of the moment. the crisis has also given us the unique opportunity to introduce projects with a grander vision (health care, anyone?). and what seems like a cost of railroads, time, may, at a slightly later date, be an advantage: rather than being a one-time measure involving a quick splurge of cash, railroads will require sustained infusions of public- and private-sector money over many years, as well as providing a consistent source of labor demand over the same period. not only that, but with a proper subsidy regimen, we could be looking at a budding railroad-infrastructure industry. given how important providing a solid sectoral alternative to consumer spending will be in generating a sustained recovery, i don't think we can afford to pass up anything that may give us a competitive advantage in production. there're also the secondary benefits that will accrue from reducing transportation costs both for commercial and individual freight. obama, give us the iron horse.