Take $100B |
How much could it possibly cost to wire the entire country...a trillion dollars? Take $100B from defense each year for 10 years. I don't believe for a second that a military that was just fine at $350B in 2000 needs $650B today (the wars were largely funded from supplementals). I have a hard time believing that spending $550B instead of $650B would decimate our ability to defend ourselves. Maybe it would give us pause before we start a 3rd. It also wouldn't cost any jobs since private companies will be the ones bidding to build it just as they're the ones building tanks, rockets and fighter jets.
And that infrastructure is government owned and then private companies compete to deliver content, governed by rules of net neutrality.
You don't need private roads to have a thriving taxi, limo and bus industry.
In other words, if taxpayers are going to do this, then we're going all hog and will OWN it.