The Hood: "It's a no-brainer." More debt leads to a better economy!

US DOT Secretary LaHood was in Charleston today, urging more spending on government-monopoly transportation infrastructure as a way to grow the nation's teetering recovering economy:

“Americans can still build great things, not in spite of economic challenges, but as a means to overcome them,” LaHood said...

“We need to build infrastructure. We need to build America,” said LaHood, one of only two Republicans in the Obama Cabinet.

But paying for billions or trillions of dollars in railroads and highways is no simple task...

LaHood and Building America’s Future are pushing for the inclusion of a subsidized bond-issuing infrastructure bank as part of a transportation bill that LaHood hopes to have in front of the president by next August.  Such a bank would be similar to the Build America Bond program, which offered taxable financing instruments aimed at reducing the cost of borrowing for governmental agencies.

The Hood also excoriated South Carolinians to get their act Keynesian together:

If South Carolina wants to be part of big infrastructure projects such as a regional high-speed rail project, the state needs to get its act together, LaHood said.

“Get a plan. Become a part of region that’s going to go from Canada, along the Northeast corridor, North Carolina, South Carolina, all the way to Florida,” he said. “That’s what you want to be a part of. It’s a no-brainer.”

Dum spiro spero.  While Mr. Secretary breathes, he hopes for a gigantic larded up transportation bill from the new Congress.