Judis says Obama needs to think bigger

John Judis, over at The New Republic, has written a piece arguing that Obama needs to think bigger than investing in roads and bridges. He needs to do something massive, the economic equivalent of war. Judis talks about high-speed rail, the kind they have in Europe and Japan. The Amtrak train from DC to Chicago takes 24 hours, I wrote a while back. If we had a French-style TGV connecting the two cities, it would take less than 6 hours. Anyone who has flown abroad and then returned to airports like Washington Dulles, knows the culture shock from suddenly realizing that we are no longer number one in far too many areas. Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris is a 21st century marvel. Dulles is a trip in time back to the Soviet Union (if you never got to experience the Soviets, just buy a ticket to Dulles some day - it wasn't much different).

Charles de Gaulle:



We are falling behind, and to get ahead, we may need to get a lot more creative than $19 handouts and $300bn Bush-era tax cuts. We need the economic equivalent of war, the economic equivalent of putting a man on the moon. Spending 40% of the stimulus plan on tax-pork to woo Republicans because someone arbitrarily decided that 80 votes was better than 50 or 60 is not change.