Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the federal government's need to increase investment, both public and private.

GAO found that: (1) during the last two decades, growth in U.S. productivity has slowed substantially; (2) U.S. investment is at its lowest level in three decades; (3) the federal government's impact on state and local governments and the private sector in the last decade has been increasingly unfavorable; and (4) recent trends in the investment share of the budget represent the accumulated results of a large number of individual budget decisions regarding dozens of programs.