If there's one thing that economists all agree on, it's that investment is the foundation for economic growth and increasing our standard of living in the long run. These are investments in human capital, things like education, worker skill training; investments in physical capital, factories, machines, equipment; but also things like schools, transportation infrastructure, and investments in innovation. This is the scientific research and technological advancements that allow us to do more the with same amount of resources.

Public investment is so important because it plays a critical role for paving the way for the private investments, which drive our economic growth.

What areas of investment are most crucial for promoting economic growth?

The economics research is very clear on what leads to economic growth, and that's investment. In particular, investment in things like education are really critical for long-run economic growth. Education, investments in innovation, scientific research, and technological advancements, and investments in infrastructure that lead to higher productivity and lower business costs. These things are really important for economic growth, and they create the conditions that allow the private sector businesses to make investments and grow.

How will the Republicans' continuing resolution slow our economic growth?

The Republican's continuing resolution is bad news for our economy for two reasons. First, it's taking money away from our economy at a time when we have 14 million unemployed people looking for work, and when our economy is still struggling to recover from the Great Recession. Wall Street forecasters have looked at the Republican continuing resolution and they estimate that it could cut two percentage points off our GDP growth rate. We're not growing much faster than that right now, so the continuing resolution could put us at risk for a double-dip recession.

The second reason the Republican continuing resolution is bad news for our economy is that it takes away a lot of critical investments we need to build the foundation for productive and competitive U.S. economy for the long run, and also to create jobs putting people back to work today.