If the new administration can pull off what's described in this New York Times article, I will really be impressed. Have a stimulus plan designed, passed by Congress, and ready for his signature right after the inaguration? Wow! It can't be more efficient than that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/us...3obama.html?hp

I thought the only reason that Congress was coming back to Washington before the inaguration was to get ready for all the parties. If they actually go to work and approve an economic stimulus bill in the couple of weeks between being sworn in but before the inaguration, that would be an impressive achievement. It would give the Congress good reason to celebrate for a few days.

I wonder whether the bill has actually already been written by the Obama economic advisors and ready to go to Congress for final wording and the vote as soon as the 111th Congress is sworn in? If that turns out to be the case, that would be doubly impressive.

The short poles in any "New Deal" tent will be setting up the labor rates to match the occupations and having schools "teach" again. There's more involved than just creating an "economic policy," as the nation must have the capacity to fulfill the plan.

Infrastructure rebuilding is a "construction trades" effort. For quite a while, the competitive nature of the construction business often resulted in wage levels dipping below the rate of inflation and contractors found that Americans went looking for greener employment pastures, causing the construction field getting swelled with illegal aliens willing to work at any wage. Unless construction contracts require DOL wage levels (as a minimum) to be paid, Americans won't take the jobs, projects will fall behind schedule, and contractors will spend the bailout money on illegals again.

Economic recovery goes hand-in-glove with having an education system which feeds the labor market needs. Public schools have all-but-ceased "blue collar" education - providing the knowledge and skills necessary for young people to work in the trades. Everyone DOESN'T have to go to college, and today's high school graduates as-a-whole aren't ready for the labor market and rarely ready to do anything but attend "13th grade." Rebuilding America means having a labor force which can BUILD things, not just observe the construction through an office window while drinking a double-latte.

I'm 100% behind any "New Deal" plan. I just don't want to see a national rebuild effort accomplished by Mexican blue collar labor being paid slave wages and receiving basic health care at hospital emergency rooms via county indigent support funds. Unless American youth is willing to earn money via sweat and callouses, and teachers TEACH the "3 R's" again as the foundation of public education, we're destined for massive funds rip-offs, incomplete projects, and the continued downward slide of the nation's ability to be self-sufficient.

SteveZ ... AMEN

I agree, Steve. It wouldn't do any good if the Mexican labor took all their wages back south of the border to spend them.