On infrastructure

I am in no way qualified to write on whether  government spending on infrastructure has a relatively high multiplier effect (try here, but see here, and here), or on whether it achieves a reasonable rate of dollars spent per job (Felix Salmon calculates it to be highly expensive on that score).

But it strikes me that since we need massive amounts of infrastructure spending, regardless of the economic collapse (google Bob Herbert and infrastructure and see what comes up.... it's been a recurring theme in his writing for a while), that we might as well try and kill two birds with one stone. That is, we can either invest heavily infrastructure now, while unemployment is high, or we can do so later, when unemployment is likely to be (hopefully) lower. Massive government spending in good times is likely to be costlier than it is right now. In fact, taking on additional debt to finance needed investments that also create short-term jobs is never going to be cheaper or more economically sensible.

Hell, even conservatives are agreeing with the basic logic of this. John Hawkins at Right Wing News writes that

Seldom does this happen, but I do have to say, Bob Herbert is right....As a conservative, I consider the government to be a necessary evil because we do need them to do things like this. They should be making sure the infrastructure in the country doesn't fall apart and it shouldn't take a bridge collapsing to get them to do something.

While Andrew Samwick ,former director for Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, writes 

If the Federal government could administer a problem this intricate [employment tax incentives], I doubt we would be in the shape we are in. We are over two years into these discussions of stimulus and bailouts, and it is disappointing to continue to see these gimmicks being discussed. What are we going to have next, "Cash for Coworkers?" ...

So what do we need that we typically entrust the government to provide? Infrastructure -- repair of the old and expansion of the new. We need trillions of dollars of it, more than enough spending to replace the reduction in private sector demand that has occurred during this downturn.

This last one via Ezra Klein.

The question with infrastructure spending, then, seems to be less about whether it has a significantly high multiplier (or even a positive one), or even whether the ratio of cost to jobs created is in a range that might conceivably be called a good deal. The question is whether we do it now, when unemployment is high, debt is cheap, and infrastructure is collapsing, or later, when unemployment is low, debt is potentially more expensive, and infrastructure has collapsed even further.