To: RetiredNow who wrote (307841 ) 10/27/2006 4:10:19 PM From: TimF Read Replies (1) | Respond to I have many times on this thread stated that sometimes government action is necessary, and that sometimes when it isn't necessary its clearly worth the cost. In many other cases its hard to tell if its worth the cost because while there is a clear benefit, its impossible to tell how much of the benefit might have been realized without the government spending, and its hard to tell exactly what was lost because of the government spending. I've never argued that all government investments, even in areas where government spending isn't necessary wind up being negative for the country. If we'd spent $500B on oil independence, we'd have already guaranteed we'd get there within 20 years. Instead we spent that on Iraq. Even if we spent $1 trillion to buy every US car driver, a plug-in, hybrid, flex fuel vehicle, we'd make our money back in less than 5 years. I haven't even included all the other benefits, such as a reduced need for military spending in places like Iraq and the money we can make from licensing all of our patents on new automobile technology for cars that don't use oil, etc.
