Stimulus Bill Draft Released By Democrats in Congress

You can find the full text here.

My quick take, is that I would like to see:

  • More rail investment.
  • More mass transit investment.
  • That the $32 billion for, “to transform the nation’s energy transmission, distribution, and production systems by allowing for a smarter and better grid,” sounds like a giveaway to the electric utilities.
  • The money for broad band should be better defined, so that it goes to public and cooperatively owned agencies and infrastructure only….We already threw billions at the incumbent telcos in the late 1990s/early 2000s with little in the way of results.
  • Flood control is almost always a synonym for pork.
  • The spending on schools should target the poorest districts.
  • The increases in unemployment benefits are the most bang for the buck in generating economic activity, and the increase in food stamps is a close second.
  • I think that the tax cuts are a lose.

That’s based on a 15 minute read of the summary, though.

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