The Raleigh paper has a story today about various tax-funded projects ? including a new, costly convention center and a rail-transit boondoggle ? going up downtown and how civic boosters are justifying them to a skeptical public. Assistant City Manager Dan Howe has mastered the relevant terminology, though he apparently doesn?t see how revealing it is. He calls the massive new government expenditures ?pump priming? (wow, what a fresh and promising concept) and says that ?people now are scheming and dreaming.? I think he meant that in a good way.