As Congressional Democrats and Bush Administration officials evaluate additional legislative ideas aimed at further stimulating the anemic U.S. economy, one proposal that could gain more traction in the months ahead concerns domestic infrastructure.

The consensus among economists is that the first economic stimulus package will provide only a modest boost (at best) to the U.S. economy, economist David H. Wang told BloggingStocks Tuesday. Further, if many Americans choose to save or invest their $300-$1200 tax rebate, instead of spending it or using it to pay down debt, the stimulus effect will be even less than projected.

That would leave the U.S. economy with a correcting housing sector, record-high oil prices (oil topped $113 per barrel Wednesday), a contracting job sector, an investment banking sector largely seeking to rebuild balance sheets and not lend money, and rising living costs weighing on consumer spending. In other words, Wang said, all of the classic U.S. growth engines, except exports, are likely to serve as contractionary forces through at least the first half of 2008, and most likely for considerably longer.

Hillenbrand Industries Inc. (NYSE: HB) recently announced that it will split into two independent publicly traded companies. While this move will most likely be beneficial for investors, it is too bad for those favoring comic irony. How can one not like a company that markets itself as both a health care company through its Hill-Rom unit as well as a death-care company through its Batesville Casket unit? The company will get you coming and going. But the numbers for Hillenbrand haven't been good for the past few quarters, so management had to make some move to stop the flow of red ink.

The 3Q 2007 numbers released earlier this month paint a distressing picture overall. Revenues were up 5% to $494 million, but net income declined by 31% to $35.7 million. Hillenbrand missed Wall Street's guesstimated EPS of $0.68 by $0.02, not a big deal, but the stock has been out of favor for a while. There are few growth prospects in the U.S. for Hillenbrand's living or dead customers. Hill-Rom Health Care posted a sales increase of 12.8% for the quarter, but only 1.7% of that growth was in the U.S. Hill-Rom continues to lose money on its medical bed product lines in the U.S, due to decreasing reimbursements from Medicare and private insurers. On the positive side, Hill-Rom recently entered into an agreement to supply medical bed frames and other movable medical equipment to hospitals in Japan, the world's second-largest medical goods market after the U.S. Hill-Rom is also aggressively moving into medical equipment markets in the Middle East and Latin America.

Hillenbrand's dead customers are not enough to keep Batesville Casket Company alive in its current form. Casket sales were flat as more people opted for cremation or more ecologically-sensitive burials. Batesville Casket has introduced a new line of lower-priced caskets, but the company's profit margins continue to be squeezed by rising steel prices. CEO Peter Soderberg expects 4Q revenues to decline even further, and operating expenses to increase, beyond the planned February 2008 separation of the two companies. The stock has done absolutely nothing for months, opening the year trading at $56.70, and closing Thursday at $56.95.