Obama's Down Payment

In an interesting essay on the economic stimulus package that the incoming Obama administration is devising, Lawrence Summers makes this encouraging remark:

The Obama plan represents not new public works but, rather, investments that will work for the American public. Investments to build the classrooms, laboratories and libraries our children need to meet 21st-century educational challenges. Investments to help reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil by spurring renewable energy initiatives (many of which are on hold because of the credit crunch). Investments to put millions of Americans back to work rebuilding our roads, bridges and public transit systems. Investments to modernize our health-care system, which is necessary to improve care in the short term and key to driving down costs across the board.

Those are classrooms, laboratories and libraries. For a librarian, that's good news.

In fact, on Sunday, on Meet the Press, David Gregory of NBC interviewed David Axelrod, who helped run the Obama campaign and has been appointed an adviser, also spoke of investing in libraries.

It is good to know that the incoming administration intends to do more than just build roads and bridges.