"Republicans will make US 'Third World' nation: Obama"

So what is going to be more effective? Government investments (generally political payoffs and money spent on projects that no private person would put their money in (alternative energy or high speed bullet trains that no one is going to ride)) or private investments where people have put their own money? Republicans "plan to shrink" government all the way back to the tiny government we had in 2008? Wasn't the Stimulus supposed to be temporary?

US President Barack Obama accused Republicans of wanting to turn the United States into a "Third World" country as he rallied support for his reelection campaign.
The attack came a day after Obama savaged Republican budget plans and unveiled his $4-trillion deficit reduction drive that aims to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans in order to preserve key social services.
The debate over fiscal policy will prove critical to the 2012 campaign and Obama sought to frame it as a "stark choice" between investing in the future or watching the country fall apart.
"Under their vision, we can't invest in roads and bridges and broadband and high-speed rail," Obama told a select group of the Democratic faithful at the second of three fundraising events in his hometown of Chicago.
"I mean, we would be a nation of potholes, and our airports would be worse than places that we thought -- that we used to call the Third World, but who are now investing in infrastructure."
Republicans plans to shrink the reach of government is "not a vision that's impelled by the numbers" but a "choice" to give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the rich rather than ask those who've been "blessed" to "give a little more.". . .