People, not governments, are the engine of human progress. If free men cannot solve this problem, then it is very unlikely it can be solved by government.
It would be great if we could give everyone a job. But whenever we do this, taxes must be imposed. There is no other solution. And for every visible improvement in infrastructure, taxes must be raised higher and higher. A $10 million bridge is $10 million diverted away from the taxpayers. People under heavy taxation limit their spending - if there is anything to deepen, rather than end, the recession (or depression), taxing would be a good solution.
So now you have a bridge (which may or may not be necessary), a few people put to work building this bridge, with everyone given a heavier tax burden and denied what they could have bought with the money diverted to the bridge that they may or may not use. Nothing has been solved.
What the heck?
That reads like a WSJ editorial written by George W. Bush.
Well. It
is VB, afterall.
What Blubb doesn't quite get is that in a nation of a few hundred million people, paying a few cents for said bridge, and that the bridge in his scenario would affect more people than just the workers that built the bridge. Not only do you get people into a job by building the bridge, you get permanent jobs repairing and maintaining the bridge, travel across the bridge, the bridge allows easier access to businesses and other institutions, etc. All in all, you have a project that cost virtually nothing for the entire taxpaying American population but benefits several groups in the immediate area.
In any case, higher taxes don't necessarily mean a weaker economy, as our taxes (compared to the last 70 years) are historically pretty low.
