President Obama’s speech to Congress on Thursday was well delivered, but it lacked something.  That something was ideas.

The unemployment rate has been consistently over 9% for better than two years.  As the 2012 election approaches, the Obama Administration is becoming worried that the sluggish economy will be detrimental to the possibility of a second term.  Even folks inside the beltway are becoming increasingly aware that good ideas are not to be found in Washington.

When this Great Recession started, jobs were being lost at the rate of 100,000 a month and most economists were alarmed.  Now more than three years into this mess, there are more than 16,000,000 people are out of work or underemployed.  The answers to solve this problem may not be clear, but the question is:  how do we get these people back to work?

Looking at history can give us a clue as to how to spend borrowed money.  In the first century A.D., Caesar Augustus ruled Rome, and for more than forty years he built roads, aqueducts and port facilities.  These facilities lasted hundreds of years and provided for increased commerce making Rome the trading center of the world.  These were big ideas.  In the twentieth century, during the Great Depression, money was borrowed to build the Golden Gate Bridge, the Hoover Dam, and even the San Antonio River Walk.  All of these projects have provided for commerce and jobs for generations.  There are no big ideas like these coming from the Washington these days.

According to the Dow Jones Index, there are basically three sectors of the economy:  the industrial sector, the transportation sector, and the utility sector.  The transportation sector of the economy could easily be invigorated with twenty-first century ideas.  One example that should be considered is a coast-to-coast MagLev Rail system—literally a train suspended by magnetic fields that can reach speeds of 250 miles per hour or more.  This would transport goods across the continent at near-Internet speeds.

The utility sector of the economy could be revitalized with desalination projects designed to purify subterranean brine water for agriculture and industry.  Electrical transmission lines could be strung to the wind belt and solar belt for the transportation of renewable energy.  These projects will create jobs and provide for future commerce.  The financial model for all of these projects could be identical to the model that built the “Chunnel” from Great Britain to France, which was a cooperative public/private success back in the 1980s.  Most of the money to fund these extraordinary projects was from share holders and banks; the role of government was to see that there were no obstacles.

So what has Washington done:  “cash for clunkers” and “shovel ready projects” that have produced no tangible results.  “Shovel ready?” In this administration that’s for a deeper hole to bury all that government spending!

Tune in to The Boiling Point radio show, Saturday mornings, 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM,  on 92.5 FM, the Patriot, in San Antonio, available live, streaming or by podcast.

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