Comments on: Smart grid, broadband appear in $825 billion 'stimulus' plan

A 258-page bill proposed by House Democrats as a way to counter the economic downturn spends billions on clean electricity generation, better battery technology, and broadband deployment.

[okoboji]

This is an opinion piece, which is fine, but it should be flagged as such. It almost seems to be under the guise of 'news'.

[drywallbmb]

Wow, this isn't skewed reporting at all. Especially not the thoroughly-debunked $3-per-$1 figure.

Give me a break.

[declan00]

Why do you think the $3-for-$1 is "thoroughly debunked?" The first-listed author of the study I linked to is Christina Romer of UC Berkeley, who is the chairman-designate of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. I'd be interested to know why you're better qualified to make these estimates than Obama's top economic aide.

The paper says: "The resulting estimates indicate that tax increases are highly contractionary" and includes that ratio. (http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/~cromer/RomerDraft307.pdf) If you increase taxes by one percent of GDP, say $135 billion annually, the annual cost in terms of lowered GDP soon becomes $400 billion annually.

[Chullunder]

"a dollar of tax cuts raises the GDP by about $3. "

So, did the Bush tax cuts raise GDP by three times the amount of the cuts?

If this is really the case, why not cut taxes to 0?

[hador_nyc]

Because nothing is true when taken to the extreme. 1 or two aspirins will take your headache away. Swallow the whole bottle, and you'll be in the hospital; if you don't die from internal bleeding.

[forever4now]

For broadband access to "rural, suburban, and urban" areas, they should stick with wireless technologies (WiMax/LTE). WiMax is suppose to provide up to 75 Mb/s symmetric broadband speed (according to Wikipedia) and LTE is even higher.

Who really needs more bandwidth than that?

The benefits would be:
1. Unserved users (both indoor & outdoor) are served.
2. Lower deployment cost (no underground cables, etc.).
3. Accelerated development & deployment of these wireless broadband technologies (which are exportable).
4. Development of applications that can take advantage of this infrastructure (also exportable).

Users win and the tech companies are strengthened for global competition.

[samason1]

With regard to the quote by Tyler Cowen of George Mason University who suggests that "we are being asked to spend (untold) hundreds of billion dollars" even though the evidence it will have a positive impact "is inconclusive."

The evidence may be inconclusive that there will be a positive impact...but the negative impact of NOT spending the money is indisputable. Case in point: if we allow our system of education to spiral down the drain as it surely is as I am writing this, the NEGATIVE economic impact will be significant and will cripple our economy for years to come.

From the Arizona Daily Star: "State aid for K-12 education could be cut by about $900 million and Arizona's three universities could lose more than $300 million between now and 2010 under options presented Thursday by Republican lawmakers who will be negotiating the state budget..."

I'm certain other states are experiencing the crisis my state is with regard to education. It's about time we stop passing the buck and shoulder the burden of responsibility. If the states can't provide the funds then the feds will have to. The repercussions of allowing our system of education to fail will doom us as a nation.

[Manhattan2]

January 20th, 2009 will be the biggest news day this century and it will not just be all about Barack Obama. Solar Transfer and "The Manhattan 2 Project" will be putting on display, on a number of media channels the solution to energy independence and some powerful security and public health products. Included will be the Seeing Aid, and the Haptic glove technology that will be needed to view or touch the solutions. Just Google Solar Transfer or Seeing Aid to find our Jan 20th announcement.