Democrats Among Stimulus Skeptics – washingtonpost.com (1/27/09):

“Every penny of the $825 billion is borrowed against the future of our kids and grandkids, and so the question is: What benefit are we providing them? What are we doing for the country? It’s the difference between real investment that will serve the nation for 30, 50 years and tax cuts, and that’s a very poor tradeoff,” said  Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.). “I go to my district and people say, ‘Yeah, I can use 10 extra bucks a week, but I would rather see more substantial investment.’ We’ve gone through a couple bubbles that were borrowing and consumer-driven. We want a recovery that’s solid and based in investment and productivity, and that points us at building things that will serve us decades to come.”

Even some Republicans echo the call for more infrastructure spending, saying they would be more willing to support the bill if it showed more tangible and focused benefits, instead of being scattered across an array of existing programs.  Rep. John L. Mica (Fla.), the ranking Republican on the transportation committee, called the proposed infrastructure spending “almost minuscule” and expressed regret that the administration had not crafted its plan around an ambitious goal such as building high-speed rail in 11 corridors around the country, which Mica said would cost $165 billion.

“They keep comparing this to Eisenhower, but he proposed a $500 billion highway system, and they’re going to put $30 billion” in roads and bridges, he said. “How farcical can you be? Give me a break.”

DeFazio makes the key argument, and has been out in front on this all month. I don’t know enough about Mica to tell whether he’s acting in good faith or not, but his point is well taken as well. The one point that no one is making is that these diffuse tax cuts that result in a couple extra bucks per week will end up being spent at Wal-Mart on crappy Chinese goods. It’s possible that no one wants to piss off China any further when we need them to continue buying Treasuries. But it’s infrastructure and transportation spending that will keep the knock-on effects of the stimulus at home, and also provide future generations with something to show for the debt we’re leaving them. This is a shockingly easy argument to make, and yet DeFazio has precious few teammates when he lays out his case.