What Washington can't do - nothing

The debate in Washington this week - and likely for the next several to come - isn't just over whether some vague faceless megacorporations should be "bailed out."

It's also about potholes.

And crumbling school buildings.

And computer upgrades in DuPage County.

And the Stearns Road Bridge area near Wayne.

And sewers in Cook County.

And deteriorating roads in Lake County.

And, let us not forget, the size of your paycheck. If you're one of the tens of thousands of people suddenly finding themselves in unemployment lines these days, it may even have an impact on whether you get a paycheck at all.

This week, President Obama is said to be on a "lobbying and listening" tour, pressing his ideas on reluctant congressmen and, we hope, trying to incorporate many of theirs.

In the task that Obama is about, there are probably too many grave dangers to list, but surely one of the gravest is that we do nothing. We need only look at the wretched condition of our own state to see what dug-in stubbornness can do. As we've detailed many times, schools in Illinois are in desperate need of promised funding, roads are flaking away as we speak and bridges, sewers and other key components of our transportation and environmental infrastructure languish on the verge of decay - all because the governor and lawmakers have been unable for years to reach consensus on the work that must be done and the means of financing it.

If possible, the circumstances facing Washington are even more dire. If we are not in a depression already, we are all but certain to fall into one. More than 60,000 layoffs in one day Monday at companies from Home Depot to Caterpillar Inc. highlight the urgency of action.

So, we must hope that President Obama is doing more than just listening to the concerns of Republicans about spending proposals in his $825 billion plan, and likewise we hope Republicans and Obama's fellow Democrats are paying more than lip service to the notion of nonpartisanship in approaching this crisis.

Local jobs and local projects are at stake.

"These are not pork projects," Lake County Administrator Barry Burton told the Daily Herald's Marni Pyke for a story last weekend on local projects in dire need of federal help.

Let us hope Washington sees things as Burton does. For the stimulus bill ought not be about "pork," or simply bringing something back home to curry votes, but about demonstrable community and individual needs in a time of crisis.

If Obama sees things this way, as he claims to, and if senators and congressmen recognize this as well, surely they can eliminate truly wasteful and unnecessary spending, identify projects that will immediately create good-paying jobs and control their own spending in a way that will allow for meaningful tax cuts to restore wage earners' confidence and sense of security.

If they need any help, we'll be happy to show them Pyke's story again.