For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: The NEW New Deal.
President-elect Barack Obama added sweep and meat to his economic agenda on Saturday, pledging the largest new investment in roads and bridges since President Dwight D. Eisenhower built the Interstate system in the late 1950s, and tying his key initiatives – education, energy, health care –back to jobs in a package that has the makings of a smaller and modern version of FDR's New Deal marriage of job creation with infrastructure upgrades.
Is this a good idea? With an exploding budget deficit, can the nation afford all this? Will he be able to get this all through Congress? Or, is he overreaching like Clinton did in his first few years in a fashion that Americans will be offended by setting up a very bad midterm Election Day for Democrats in 2010?
