Hold A Gun To Their Heads

Right now Obama is focusing on saving the banks and stimulating the economy, hopefully with unemployment extensions and aid to education and health care that do two kinds of lifting.

But the second string to our bow should be a national program to build mass transit, low income housing, single-payer health care, and clinics and schools. This would be the kind of direct investment in our own future that will pay dividends.

And the banks and financial industry should be given notice that we will do it without them if we need to. Let them watch several hundred billion flow into construction projects without their participation and they will have a new interest in cleaning up their financial house so they can qualify as responsible lenders.