Dear Mr. President,

As a lifelong Democrat, business person and proud supporter of yours, I applaud the breadth, scope, reach and intent of your economic stimulus plan. I also commend to your attention ways in which you can leverage your efforts to achieve even greater stimulus — more jobs — with greater success by availing the benefits conferred by the lens of the marketplace.

In every state in this nation there exist "spade-ready" capital projects aggregating billions of dol-lars, which require little additional support for construction to commence immediately, thus presenting enormous opportunities for leveraging the stimulus funds to create instantly hun-dreds of thousands of jobs. These projects are likely private/public/philanthropic collaborations that include approved state bond financing and await the last round of private finance. In our own city of Minneapolis, we have just such a project, the Artspace/Shubert Theater Project:

The Shubert project has completed architectural construction drawings, will be quickly rebid by subcontractors upon final financing and lacks only a City of Minneapolis permit to commence construction now. If in the nation there is a "spade-ready" project, here is Exhibit A.

Investments in our long-neglected infrastructure are important and we applaud their inclusion in the stimulus plan.  But when we build a bridge, we spend a dollar to achieve a dollar of stimulus for the money we invest. When we spend $5 million to jump-start the $41 million Shubert Project, we leverage the stimulus funds by returning $8.20 of stimulus for every $1 of stimulus money we invest. Additionally, the illuminating lens of the marketplace has already been applied to this project as the State of Minnesota through bonding provisioned by the Legislature (60 percent of votes required) and the commitments of corporations and foundations for grants and the contributions of individuals have already firmly underwritten nearly 90 percent of the project.

The point is not to achieve funding for the Shubert Project; rather, it is to suggest that you look in the pending-projects files in the Finance Office of every state government.  There you will find hundreds of billions of dollars of projects similar to the Shubert Project that are "spade-ready" but for a small investment of stimulus funds.  In each instance, you will likely find that the hard-nosed analysis of the marketplace has already been applied, vetting each project and giving you the assurance that the projects are likely worthy and will successfully proceed after having lever-aged the available stimulus funds, providing jobs now and, usually, new and continuing post-construction jobs.

A caution, Mr. President: The priority of jobs — jobs now — that you and Congress have established in the stimulus plan are not being universally heard or applied. I hear the pretentious voices of contention saying, "Well, you may get much more stimulus with that project, but I would rather spend money on this project."  Forgotten in the debate are the lost jobs and the economic stagnation that beset our nation today and the economic response and priorities that you and Congress established as the remedies to be applied.

Your economic stimulus plan already avails the Internal Revenue Code to stimulate economic expansion. Other economic incentives will be found in our nation's historical economic-stimulation toolkit, including:

• An investment tax-credit of 7 percent — applied without restrictions to unlimited purchases of new equipment

• Tax loss carry forwards/carry backs — applied without restrictions, unlimited as to the size of the enterprise

• Unique and creative depreciation rules — universally available and without limitation  regardless the size of the enterprise

If the granting of such tax benefits is directly tied to the hiring of employees — saving such jobs is one of your stated goals — it can be a win-win for all. And here, again, the incentive involves the application of a market lens regarding the future success of the now stimulated and incentiv-ized business.

If those who have fashioned the current economic stimulus plan have not already done so, I suggest a look-back into history to learn what tools have historically been employed and study the results that were achieved, or not. From the experience of mining this data, you may reap additional ideas of proven efficacy to avail now.

It is hoped that these suggestions will enable you to further leverage our economic stimulus plan and make even more likely the success you and all of us seek.  Mr. President, I wish you well.

Paul Rexford Thatcher Sr. is a Minneapolis business person long active in Minnesota civic, political, cultural and religious life.