Andrew Samwick makes the case for infrastructure as the cornerstone of stimulus:

[T]here is no free lunch: the money we spend today is a loss to the Treasury, whether as “timely, temporary, and targeted” tax cuts that have no discernible impact; payments to delay bankruptcy for large, mismanaged entities, whether AIG or the Big 3; or the largest public works program since the interstate highway system. That loss to the Treasury must be made up at some future date, by later cohorts of taxpayers.

Fortunately, both of these problems can be overcome by focusing all new spending on investment rather than consumption and on public investment rather than private investment. By their nature, capital investments last for years or decades, so that there is a better chance that those who are paying for the spending are reaping its benefits. Public investment also meets the criterion that the spending goes for projects that are within the government’s responsibilities. Repairing roads today removes the need to repair them for a number of years. In 2005, the American Society of Civil Engineers released a report card in which it estimated that $1.6 trillion would be required over a five-year period to restore the nation’s physical infrastructure to good condition. If I had a target of $500 billion to spend, every dime would go for public infrastructure investments, and we’d still have quite a bit of work to do.

These are reasonable points. The counterbalancing consideration is that it takes time to get these projects going. My understanding is that there aren’t $500 billion worth of products that are “ready to go” within the relevant time frame. So we need to mix infrastructure investments with other stuff that acts faster like aid to state and local governments.

Good times:

literally.

Transportation will play a central role in Obama’s first months in office, not just for policy changes aimed at improving highway, air and rail travel, but as a road toward economic recovery, energy independence and environmental protection.

Solve road congestion, Obama’s reasoning goes, and you put people to work.

Use less gasoline and help clean the air.

Build better trains and move goods more efficiently.

Get people out of their cars and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“We will create millions of jobs,” he said recently, “by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s.”

[...]

Bush’s transportation philosophy “seemed to be, ‘This is what the federal government should be responsible for and nothing else.’ And the ‘nothing else’ category was public transportation,” said William Millar, executive director of the American Public Transportation Association, whose members include transit agencies.

Obama, on the other hand, has described himself as a strong advocate of mass transit.

While Bush proposed what some lawmakers described as “starvation budgets” for Amtrak, Obama has pledged support for the passenger rail carrier and for developing a national network of high-speed passenger trains.

I’m excited. The economic cost of traffic jams is both incredibly high and also absurdly preventable. Getting things totally right requires smart state and local policies, but a federal government that offered good incentives rather than bad ones could make a huge difference plus the direct federal role is pretty big.

Megan McArdle observes that you can too use your Kindle in the bathtub (contrary to my previous assertions) by inserting the device into a ZipLock bag (or similar) before entering the watery zone. I stand corrected.