INTRODUCTION

The United States faces a genuine, long-term economic crisis.

Whatever else the new president accomplishes, the American peo-

ple will hold him directly accountable for providing a new strategy

for rebuilding the American economy.

By nearly every basic measure, the U.S. economy s fundamental

capacity to create wealth has been deteriorating. The presidential

campaign focused on the protracted slowdown of the last four

years, but the problem has be*n unfolding for a generation. Over

the last 20 years, America s productivity gains, net investment

rates, income gains, and overall growth all have lagged behind the

records of both other advanced economies and our own past per-

formance. The choice is clear: change, or face smiled living stan-

dards for the rest of this century attd beyond.

To reverse these trends, the new President must leave behind the

conventionai economic prescriptions of both Right and Left. His

strategy must go beyond the traditional conservative approach by