Why we still need a serious clean energy and green manufacturing stimulus on the scale of WW2 spending Dept.

Paul Krugman hits the nail on the head in today’s 7/11/11 NYT:

“Excuse No. 4: We tried to stimulate the economy, and it didn’t work.

Everybody knows that President Obama tried to stimulate the economy with a huge increase in government spending, and that it didn’t work. But what everyone knows is wrong.

Think about it: Where are the big public works projects? Where are the armies of government workers? There are actually half a million fewer government employees now than there were when Mr. Obama took office.

So what happened to the stimulus? Much of it consisted of tax cuts, not spending. Most of the rest consisted either of aid to distressed families or aid to hard-pressed state and local governments. This aid may have mitigated the slump, but it wasn’t the kind of job-creation program we could and should have had. This isn’t 20-20 hindsight: some of us warned from the beginning that tax cuts would be ineffective and that the proposed spending was woefully inadequate. And so it proved.”

I’m printing out this quote, and together with a bunch of labor activists, I’ll drop it off today at my Blue Dog Congressman’s office. Since I doubt it will do much good with him, I’ll pass it around to everyone else, preparing for bigger and tougher vattles to come.