As the President argued early in his Administration, public investment in education, infrastructure, and basic research are as important to future growth as is private investment. Families and businesses borrow all the time in order to invest. As long as the economy grows faster than the national debt, the exact size of the debt isn't worrisome. And that is precisely what has been occurring. This year, it will be below that even if we were to spend every penny of the surplus, and it will continue to drop if the budget stays balanced.
Economic growth is the key, and the way to grow faster is to invest-privately and publicly.
It is worth noting, by the way, that federal investments in education, infrastructure, and research have continued to fall over the last three administrations. They represented 2.5 percent of GDP in 1981, fell to 1.8 percent by the time Ronald Reagan left office in 1988, and ten years later remain at 1.7 percent-lower than at anytime since 1962. The trend is well documented in a table in the back of the annual budget books distributed by the Government Printing Office. Even if enacted, the budget initiatives of which the President spoke in his State of the Union Address would notch public investment up only incrementally. Without a larger vision, Social Security First is, at best, a momentary stay.