<em>If</em> taxpayers’ cash is to be spent in clunking fistfuls, what should it be spent on?

Ok, I’m as sceptical as Peer Steinbrück when it comes to Gordon Brown’s big-spending, debt-heavy approach to managing our economy.  And I regard the main fiscal debate between the splurgers and the thriftniks as perhaps the most important in British politics today.  But the fact remains that the splurgers are in power.  As Andrew Rawnsley points out in his Observer column this morning, that means that – at some level – there needs to be a secondary debate; a debate over what the splurge should be used to fund.  Rawnsley’s not impressed with where the money’s been going so far:

“The more I think about it, the more sure I become that there have to be smarter ways of using billions of pounds than encouraging people to go shopping for more foreign imports [via the cut in VAT]. If the government is going to spend like there is no tomorrow, better to use the money building things that might be useful when tomorrow comes. Better to invest in Britain. That way, when we do eventually emerge the other side of recession, we will be in a fitter place to exploit a resumption of growth. The case is even more compelling because this is a country crying out for serious investment to improve its creaking infrastructure.”

So if taxpayers’ cash is to be spent in clunking fistfuls, what should it be spent on?  What might help push the economy along as we emerge from the downturn?  I’m quite taken with Rawnsley’s suggestion that money be put into both our rail system – which seems to be more dilapidated every time I use it – and into providing high-speed internet across the country.  Any ideas, CoffeeHousers?