Instead of malaise, pull out the stops and spark some imaginations.
Revive the American SST, and make that a double-decker with at least 400-passenger capacity. Commit to unconditional support as long as prototypes are flying around by 1980.
Cancel the shuttle. Revive the Saturn V. Declare commitment to a moon-base and pedal to the medal in following through. Declare commitment to Skylab II and Skylab III.
If the Japanese can do bullet-train, then, shucks, USA can do missile-train. (coast to coast, the old way is toast!)
Declare early and often that if "21st Century" mass transit is government funded the way that highways are, progress shouldn't be a problem at all.
Lean on
Chrysler to
build the damn
turbine car that they keep dancing around. They were able to build a freaking daily-driver turbine car with solid consumer appeal in the mid-1960s. It's time to use that pot, so to speak.
Yank up CAFE "Corporate Average Fuel Economy" requirements and establish it so that cars with alternate engines (like turbines) need not be factored in. Decree that electric-only cars (city/town commuter cars would have been doable with 70s tech, why not a two-seater with 35 miles range and pricing aided by government incentives?) would earn an extra kind of bonus for CAFE calculation. The CAFE would apply only to large-scale manufacturers, exempting "boutique" or "specialist" companies like Ferrari, Vector

cool

, etc.
Work like hell to get internet established ahead of schedule
Aggressively support solar and wind power for areas where solar and/or wind power would be feasible. (In other words, a place like Las Vegas should be the freaking solar power capital of the planet.) This would be in conjunction with myriad energy-saving measures, including supports and incentives for tankless water heaters or water heaters with sun-heated tanks, etc.
edit: other imagination-stimulating projects could include....
high speed hydrofoil ferry services on the west and east coasts of North America
encourage widespread embrace of ultralight airplanes
decree that lightweight high-efficiency two-seat cars could bypass certain federal requirements to further support provision of inexpensive high-mpg daily-use vehicles