Never before has America approached a major national trial with such a low rate of economic growth, with such a meager savings rate, with such heavy public and private indebtedness to the rest of the world, and with so little available fiscal room—thanks to a large public sector that is now mainly dedicated (through benefits and tax breaks) to funding the personal consumption of its eldest citizenry. This time around, in short, the very structure of the economy is tilted steeply toward the old and the past. Unless America can rapidly reverse that tilt, no ambitious investment agenda on behalf
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