America grew up investing in its land and its people. Today, America's challenge is to invest in its future in the midst of an economic crisis. What's needed is long-term thinking. What's needed is big investments for a big country ... like we used to.

Read our report: "The Investment Deficit in America: Yesterday's Achievements, Today's Problems, Tomorrow's Solutions."

Yesterday's achievements included transcontinental railroads and interstate highways. Elementary schools in every town and land grant universities in every state.

The investment paid off. Americans rode those roads and railroads to the pinnacle of the global economy. Kids went to taxpayer-financed elementary school and veterans went to college on the GI bill. They went on to invent computers, cancer therapies and rocket ships.

Now our investments have stopped. Today we cut taxes and sit in traffic. We defund public universities and complain that tuition costs too much. We import everything from oil to solar cells to hybrid motor cars—while the rest of the world pulls ahead in clean energy innovations.

America can do better.

Direct public investment—in new energy and conservation, in modernizing our infrastructure, in education and training, and research and development— is essential for lifting the economy in the short run and for sustaining in the long run a decent society that is competitive in a global economy. This website offers guideposts and debate on recovery and on long-term sustainable growth.