bq. “[L]eave Social Security intact. Paying down debt now is fiscally useful but politically useless. Instead, be bold, invest for future productivity growth in a way that the private sector cannot do, and in ways which (given the dearth of public investments recently) are very expeditious, offering high rates of return… What should the government do, with the present blessing of low long-term interest rates? Obviously, it should borrow! But for a purpose, please — not merely to keep 150,000 soldiers on a mission impossible in Iraq. It should borrow to repair and rebuild our cities, our transport, our schools, our environment — either directly or through state and local government. That’s the only way the country as a whole can become materially richer, a generation from now, than it would otherwise be.

James Galbraith, in “Salon”:http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/03/21/greenspan_deficits/index1.html