Clap. Clap. Clap.

Editor,

A real stimulus would simultaneously address real needs our country faces: construction of high-speed rail and other mass transit infrastructure, solar panels on every rooftop in America, smart grid development, and the usual infrastructure repairs that are put off year after year: roads, bridges, levees, schools, water mains, sewage treatment facilities, airports, etc., etc., etc. Our country is falling apart because multinational corporations and the mega-rich do not care to spend anything on rejuvenating it: the big bucks are to be made in China and 3rd-world "free trade zones."

And then there is education. All the bloviators prattle on about how American "innovation" and "technology" and "entrepreneurialism" are going to win the race to "lead the world," while simultaneously firing thousands of teachers, cutting funds to public schools, hobbling the very educational process with excessive testing and crazy ideological warfare over what American kids can be taught, attacking teachers' unions, and creating a nation of functionally illiterate college graduates and mentally disturbed high school drop-outs.

Oh, yes. The payroll tax cut. Bravo. Clap. Clap. Clap.

Re: "Some in G.O.P. Seem Open to Obama Call for Payroll Tax Cut" (9/9/2011)