An interesting document available for viewing from CAST, University of Arkansas addressing a proposal from a number of leaders in GIS / Geospatial Technologies

Summary...  As America struggles with the most significant economic downturn of the past 60 years, we need to take bold actions that ensure a rapid economic recovery and at the same time lays the foundation for a bright economic future for the nation. Decision makers must prioritize investments in infrastructure to accomplish both goals. As is the case with investment in physical infrastructure, investment in information and communication technology (ICT) have immediate fiscal impact as well as implications for broad downstream economic growth. An investment in building the US National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) will provide immediate benefits to the American ICT industry, including the seeding of new technologies, businesses and offspring industries. The collection and processing of geospatial data is a “shovel ready” activity able immediately to create jobs, though the shovels in this case comprise a wide range of geospatial technologies and tools for infrastructure design and modeling used by a large, nation-wide community of professionals. Further development of the NSDI will also yield tremendous long term benefits in such diverse areas as emergency management, sustainable urban design, disaster response, homeland security, environmental protection, green infrastructure development, natural resource management and disease control, as well improvements in the efficient provision of everyday government services at all levels. To broaden the economic impact of an NSDI development activity; to minimize the up-front and ongoing costs to taxpayers; and to maximize the effectiveness of Federal guidance and funding, the NSDI must be viewed as a "system of widely distributed systems" like the Web itself, based on openness and interoperability, and not on centralized control and ownership. Consequently, it is clear that creation of an effective NSDI can only result from two distinct but related programs of activity: a data/metadata collection and hosting effort which needs to begin as soon as possible; and, coordinated with it, a comprehensive planning process designed to consolidate the past successes and current activities of those organizations most concerned with building the NSDI and active in promoting its development over the last two decades.

View the Document HERE [ PDF]