According to the second preliminary estimates of GDP statistics for the January–March quarter of 2014, real business fixed investment showed a quarter-on-quarter increase of 7.6 percent; thus registering a significant rise for the first time in almost two years.
It falls to the Congress to determine how best to address the competing claims on our limited resources. In doing so, you will need to consider not only the distributional effects of policy changes but also the broader economic effects on labor supply, retirement behavior, and private saving. In the end, the consequences for the U.S. economy of doing nothing could be severe.