by Michael Cook

Created on: February 03, 2009

www.stimilus

Like most people, I am concerned about the size of the federal deficit.

That said, I believe the proposed stimulus package is absolutely essential if we are to have any real hope of jump starting our economy, stopping the decline in our standard of living, and maintaining our competitive edge in an increasingly competitive global marketplace.

Now, I do not believe in pork barrel spending.

I want public money to be wisely invested in areas that will bring about, as the saying goes, the biggest bang for the proverbial buck, especially when that buck is a public one.

To that end, I believe the bulk of the stimulus should be targetted toward these four areas; education, health care, the development of state of the art "green" energy technologies, and the rehabilitation and modernization of our nation's infrastructure.

In the last few decades, America has lost her ability to claim she offers her students access to the best education in the world. All one need do is read the many studies that document the drop in American high school students' proficiency in mathematics and science compared to their counterparts in other industrialized countries, and even in India and China.

A year or two ago, Bill Gates gave a speech, I believe it may have been at Boston University, in which he described American high schools as "obsolete".

He said many were relegating American students to "Second", even "Third World" status in terms of their ability to compete in the evolving global economy.

Surely, no patriotic American, liberal or conservative, believes that relegating America's high school students, America's future, to "Second or Third World" status in anything, is in either the economic or national security interests of the Unted States of America.

I want to see public money invested in health care. As someone who lives abroad much of the year, it is a source of great embarassment that mine is the only industrialized nation in the world that does not offer all its citizens access to universal health coverage.

The costs to society of that reality far outweigh any short term costs that would be incurred to see to it no American goes bankrupt or dies for lack of health insurance.

I want to see a large and sustained public investment in renewable and sustainable "green" and clean energy sources which, much to the chagrin of many of my fellow liberals, will include nuclear energy. I believe the long term economic gains in such an investment will far surpass the cost of short term

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