Invest In America
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.
The Latest: Invest in America
Stop Starving Public Universities and Shrinking the Middle Class
- Feb 29, 2012
From robertreich.org
Last week Rick Santorum called the President “a snob” for wanting everyone to get a college education (in fact, Obama never actually called for universal college education but only for a year or more of training after high school). Santorum needn’t worry. America is already making it harder for young people of modest means to attend college. Public higher education is being starved, and the middle class will shrink even more as a result. Public higher education has been the gateway to the middle class but that gate is shutting – just when income and wealth are more concentrated at the top than they’ve been since the 1920s, and when America needs the brainpower of its young people more than ever. This is nuts. read more » We Need FDR-Style Proposals to Solve All Our Big Problems
- Jan 3, 2012
From newdeal20.orgoth Democrats and environmentalists seem to be searching for new sources of support, according to articles from Thomas Edsall and Leslie Kaufman. For Democrats, the problem is the state of mind of the “white working class,” while for environmentalists the problem is to convince the public that something should be done about climate change. In both cases, the dilemma is the same: the solutions offered do not solve the existing problems, and the public knows it. The New Deal offers a political lesson on the importance of an interlinking set of policies that cut across issue areas, a lesson that can help both the Democratic Party and the environmental movement. The point is not to idealize the New Deal or deify FDR. We need to learn the lessons of American history that can be useful for us today. read more » Shouldn't Americans Repair America's Infrastructure?
- Nov 7, 2011
From otherwords.orgListening at last to his inner FDR, President Barack Obama is going straight at the Know-Nothing/Do-Nothing Republicans in Congress. At a rally in September on a bridge connecting Rep. John Boehner's state of Ohio to Sen. Mitch McConnell's state of Kentucky, Obama challenged the two GOP leaders to back his plan for repairing and improving our country's deteriorating infrastructure. "Help us rebuild this bridge," he shouted out to Boehner and McConnell. "Help us rebuild America. Help us put this country back to work." Yes, let's do it! However, in addition to the usual recalcitrance of reactionary Republican leaders, another impediment stands in the way of success: many of the infrastructure jobs that would be created could end up in China. Holy Uncle Sam! How is this possible? read more » 'The Silent Masses Aren’T So Silent Anymore'
- Oct 5, 2011
From Washington MonthlyPress releases from Capitol Hill are generally easy to dismiss, but one this morning caught my eye. It was sent by House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson (D-Conn.), sent on behalf of the caucus, as opposed to just himself, “applauding” the “Occupy Wall Street Movement.” “In New York and across the country, thousands of Americans have taken to the streets, certain of the morality of their message: bringing fairness to Main Street,” Larson said. “The silent masses aren’t so silent anymore. They are fighting to give voice to the struggles that everyday Americans are going through.” These protests aren’t invisible to the establishment anymore, and when the House Democratic Caucus is officially applauding the demonstrations, it’s clearly a positive development for the burgeoning movement. read more » How Greedy Corporations Are Destroying America’s Status as ‘Innovation Nation’
- Jul 28, 2011
From newdeal20.orgThe U.S. economy is a mess. Over two years since the Great Recession officially ended, the unemployment rate is over nine percent, the foreclosure crisis rages on, and households remain loaded up with debt. The fiscal situation of federal and state governments is dire, in part because free-market ideologues think that low taxes are a God-given right. Much of the mess is the result of an economy in which the forces for extracting value have come to dominate the forces for creating value. In the process, industrial innovation — the generation of higher quality, lower cost products that provide the foundation for economic growth — is suffering from neglect. read more » A Love/Hate Relationship with Infrastructure
- Jul 7, 2011
From Washington MonthlyOh, great. Now we have conservative House Republicans arguing publicly that the Democrats' stimulus bill wasn't liberal enough when it came to public investments. The GOP has been attacking the Recovery Act for so long, the party no longer even notices that it's arguing, simultaneously, that it spent too much and spent too little. Of course, the dirty little secret is that Republicans have been engaged in this little shell game for quite a while. Remember the "Highway Hypocrites"? These are the conservative Republican lawmakers -- representing most of the House caucus -- who swore up and down than additional spending, including in areas like infrastructure, would be awful for the economy, right before they begged the Obama administration to spend the money on their constituents, argued it would create jobs, and showed up smiling at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. read more » Infrastructure Work Is Needed And People Need The Work
By Dave Johnson - Jun 14, 2011
We've been deferring maintenance of our infrastructure since the Reagan tax cuts - never mind modernizing to restore American competitiveness. It is something that has to be done anyway, and here we are with so many people needing work. It's just nuts. Millions of jobs that need ... read more »
Why Washington Isn't Doing Squat About Jobs And Wages
- Jun 6, 2011
FromThe silence is deafening. While the rest of the nation is heading back toward a double dip, Washington continues to obsess about future budget deficits. Why? Republicans don’t want to do anything about jobs and wages. They’re so intent on unseating Obama they’d like the economy to remain in the dumps through Election Day. They also see the lousy economy as an opportunity to sell Americans their big lie that government spending is the culprit. Democrats, meanwhile, don’t want to admit the recovery has stalled. They worry such talk will further undermine consumer confidence or spook the bond market. They don’t want to head into the election year sounding downbeat. And they don’t think they have the votes for anything that will have much effect before Election Day anyway. But there’s a third reason for Washington’s inaction. It’s not being talked about — which is itself evidence of the problem. read more »
