Brian Gongol
- USA Today has some poll results that suggest we need a national attitude adjustment. We're expecting higher taxes, more crime, a weaker economy, and a nation in decline.
- How ready are we for the real infrastructure needs of the future? Not just the "roads and bridges" that politicians like to tout as a way to "create jobs", but the real infrastructure improvements we need? There's a difference between spending borrowed money in the hope of putting some people to work (which, as we've seen, often just turns out to be a way to make it harder to recover later...see the example of the "cash for clunkers" scheme that boosted car sales in the short run, then depressed them later) and the kinds of serious investments that we need in order to maintain a modern economy.
- Rumor has it that Iowa City, Coralville, and North Liberty may be ready to call a truce in their civil war of economic development practices. That's great news. We (as Americans) waste too much money and effort trying to steal development projects from one another, in a zero-sum game for the country as a whole. Why are we stealing from one another when we're in a global fight for growth?