Bailout banks or investment in infrastructure with a good ROI?

I recently watched a video you can find on Google Video called Money as Debt. It was pretty interesting and a good overview of the nature of money and where it comes from. Most of the money we use is created as debt. Is this a good way to create money?

Rather than delegating the responsibility of creating money to banks, which they pay themselves handsomely for, why doesn't the federal government create the money directly? Of course they do create some money this way, but most is created as debt. 

From the federal government's perspective today, I hope they are asking themselves what the most productive use of the money they create is. Every dollar they create should be viewed through the lens of investment and return on investment. 

Should the money flow back into the unsustainable banks which got us into this mess? What would the return on that investment be? Or, should they invest in our national infrastructure, especially infrastructure that will help us be more productive in the future?

I certainly lean towards the latter. For the record, I consider education to be "infrastructure" as well as items more commonly considered infrastructure.

At the top of my list of areas for investment would be the following, based on the large ROI:

• Renewable energy sources. These create more jobs than fossil fuel energy, AND they have the benefit of keeping those dollars circulating in the US rather than getting siphoned off to hostile foreign governments.
• Energy infrastructure and a "green grid." Our grid cannot handle much more renewable energy as currently constituted. We need to upgrade this infrastructure badly. It is helpful that is generally very old and in need of replacement anyway. The incremental capital needed to restructure the grid will be small in comparison to the base case of simple replacement.
• Education and workforce training. We need to retrain people for emerging green jobs and improve the quality of our K-20 system. What can be a better investment than an investment in capable, innovative, and collaborative human capital?
• Public transportation and infrastructure for plug-in hybrids.