In this context, the decision of a group of corporate CEOs to form a new group, the Campaign to Fix the Debt, to push for a budget deal can be seen as a big deal. This group brings back memories of a 1970s TV ad that featured a middle-aged man wearing a bad toupee pushing totally fake-looking toupees. The narrator assured viewers that no one would recognize that these toupees were not your real hair saying, “I wouldn’t lie to you, I’m the president of the company.”

It’s hard not to think of this ad when listening to the agenda being pushed by the Campaign to Fix the Debt. This is yet another project supported by Wall Street investment banker Peter Peterson. For the last two decades Peterson has used his fortune to bankroll a number of organizations that were ostensibly pushing fiscal responsibility, but always had the same punch line: cut Social Security and Medicare.

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Infrastructure and green investment should be a central part of the Obama stimulus program. It will provide early spending to raise the nation's demand in a time when that is being undermined by lost jobs, more savings by consumers, and the famed wealth effect that reduces consumption with the loss of more than ten trillion dollars in wealth in houses and stocks. It will also create good domestic jobs and improve the long-term productivity of the economy. This is a triple play.

But it is most important that these efforts be coordinated both regionally and nationally. Infrastructure is by and large run by state and local governments, whose tills put up most of the money. The federal government is critical but not the main player. What complicates matters is that transportation and energy infrastructure usually affects at minimum a region, not just a city or state.

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