First, the crux of what I was saying is every dollar spend on infrastructure is a dollar that (mostly) has to be spent here. Our wind farms. Our power lines. And so on. Which in turn contributes to our jobs and our gross GDP.

And of course spending matters, but it's not as if we're not getting something for our money.

I also think the electric car thing is a bit of a strawman.

Yes, we'd be better off with a lot more mass transit. That said, roughly half of the US lives in a suburban environment with urban sprawl and single-family housing and long commutes and we're simply NOT going to be able to implement any kind of suitable mass-transit system that will serve those areas.

Further, not all vehicle emissions are equal. If we can electrify delivery fleets and SUVs and a lot of the "light" trucks we we can made a good-sized dent in pulling the vehicles that generate most of the polution.