C3Solutions co-founder John Hart recently appeared on Bloomberg Radio’s “Balance of Power” with David Westin to discuss the economy and the environment.

“One of the best ways that we can stimulate in the economy long term is by investing in areas that have a great multiplier effect. For example, [Bill] Gates wants to spend $35 billion on research and development in clean energy. We’re a conservative organization, the Conservative Coalition for Climate Solutions, I think some research and development is a good idea, but we should do it by reducing spending elsewhere.

You can recycle government waste, you can take money out of projects and programs that have a very low multiplier effect and then redirect that money into activities that do have a high multiplier effect—particularly R&D, infrastructure. Those are the choices that Congress has to make. Larry Summers is in the camp of ‘we live in a world of finite resources.’

That is good common sense thinking that often doesn’t prevail in Washington, but it should. So the question is ‘well knowing that we have finite resources is how do you set priorities in a way that makes sense so that you not only keep the patient alive, but you get to a point that they can recover and rehabilitate. That’s the challenge that we have in front of us.”

Listen to the full interview here (John’s portion begins around 1:07).