That’s a seventy-year-old sidewalk laid down by WPA workers in the Great Depression. Still sound, like a lot of the infrastructure work done then.
The New York Times business section puts in simple terms why stimulus money used wisely on needed repairs is smart policy…
Millions of Americans remain out of work only because employers can already produce more than enough to meet depressed demand. The obvious remedy is to increase total spending. Although economic stimulus has become a controversial topic in the abstract, a few simple observations should persuade every sensible legislator — perhaps even a majority! — to support a specific type of higher spending: accelerated refurbishment of our crumbling infrastructure.
Some in Congress have consistently opposed the president’s infrastructure proposals, citing the huge national debt. But that’s an incoherent objection. If repairs to the Capitol dome or a tattered stretch of interstate highway are postponed, they will just become more costly. Many job seekers have the skills for this work. If we wait, we’ll have to bid them away from other tasks. The required materials are cheaper now than they will ever be. And interest rates are at record lows.
Of course, the debt is an important long-run problem, but deferring infrastructure repairs will only worsen it. Relative to current policy, then, such projects would address multiple pressing problems without distress.
Pumping up consumption while neglecting essentials just means that the car we bought on credit gets dinged in the pothole we didn’t fix.
It’s true, Americans want jobs, but when we get past the desperate stage we want work that matters. The WPA created both jobs and useful work. Why not build on what we learned then at such cost?
Kmareka.com 
I agree with you on this. Trickle down economics whereby wealth and income is so concentrated in a small % of wealthy doesn’t generate the demand to justify business investment in making more products. We need to jump start demand in a useful way as you suggest.
But there are major political obstacles The GOP is in the hands of politicians who openly say their priority is to defeat Obama and not to help the economy recover, thus they resist infrastructure spending. The WPA is also associated with conservation spending, and though the Republicans were the original comservation party (think Teddy Roosevelt, the Rockefellers..) that party has now turned its back totally on conservation goals. All
this is facilitated by an upper class that has now largely turned its back on the US, off-shoring both jobs and their profits, they simply don’t care that much about America.
Barry-open your eyes a little-the moneybags bankrolling Obama also want to invest their money where they can get the biggest return like China-there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between them and those “terrible”Republican donors.