It's Not Stimulus; It's Counter-Terrorism

When you're losing the argument, redefine the terms. Repugs do it all the time, while dems flop around like fish gasping for air.

But it's not about just elections anymore. The economy is not only not recovering, not even slowly - it's actually losing jobs. Permanent unemployment is on a permanently increasing trajectory, and the economy is on the verge of total collapse.

This is now a matter of national survival. National security. Counter-terrorism.

Marcy Wheeler at Firedoglake:

Jared Bernstein (whose blog I still recommend) has responded to his 2-day PEPCO power outage by posting the crummy infrastructure report card the US got in 2009:

Check out the 2009 Report Card from the American Society of Civil Engineers:
Aviation D
Bridges C
Dams D
Drinking Water D-
Energy D+
Hazardous Waste D
Inland Waterways D-
Levees D-
Public Parks and Recreation C-
Rail C-
Roads D-
Schools D
Solid Waste C+
Transit D
Wastewater D-
America’s Infrastructure GPA: D
Estimated 5 Year Investment Need: $2.2 Trillion

Bernstein’s take (channeling Atrios) is that fixing all this infrastructure ought to be a good way to get 20 million people back to work.

But fixing just about every single one of these infrastructure problems is also a way to make our country more resilient to terrorism. Bridges? Dams? They make attractive terrorist targets, particularly if they’re already crumbling. Drinking water? Another vulnerability to terrorist attacks. Rails? We know Osama bin Laden was reviewing plans to derail trains (as it crossed a bridge–this one’s a twofer).

So can’t we start fixing this stuff and, rather than calling it stimulus, call it “counter-terrorism preparedness”? There’s no way, of course, the idiots in DC would support 2 trillion of stimulus, but their willingness to keep funding multiple wars in the name of terrorism–to the tune of trillions–show they might do so if we can give it a national security spin.

And between us? If we fixed things like levees and energy plants, we’d also be more resilient to things like earthquakes and climate change. Mind you, if Republicans found out about that, it’d be enough reason to defund it. So we’ll just keep that part a secret between us.

Jared Bernstein, a former aide to Vice President Biden, was the Last Economic Leftist in the White House before his resignation last month. He may no longer be in the room to contradict Little Timmy and the other Wall Street cocksuckers in the administration, but he's got a blog, where you can read his reality-based take on economics for yourself.

Here's a good place to start, in which Bernstein reveals why the Obama administration never had any interest in the kind of massive job-creating stimulus program that might have actually saved the economy two years ago.