Ruth Marcus gets it wrong:

[The economic crisis] could give the next president more maneuvering room to extricate himself from unaffordable campaign promises and to build political consensus for painful but necessary budgetary choices.

Nobel economics prize winner Paul Krugman gets it right:

And this is also a good time to engage in some serious infrastructure spending, which the country badly needs in any case. The usual argument against public works as economic stimulus is that they take too long: by the time you get around to repairing that bridge and upgrading that rail line, the slump is over and the stimulus isn’t needed. Well, that argument has no force now, since the chances that this slump will be over anytime soon are virtually nil. So let’s get those projects rolling.

Smart grid anyone? SUPERTRAIN?