Sen. Patty Murray gets it

Senator Patty Murray is the Chair of the Senate Budget Committee and a chief architect of the recently enacted Bipartisan Budget Act. Say what you will about that budget deal (too much, too little, just right), it has become clear that part of the impetus for the deal was Senator Murray’s understanding of the role of investment in intangibles as a driver of economic growth. Evidence for this is the following quote in a recent Washington Post Wonkblog column on “Sen. Patty Murray’s graph of the year“

(s)imply slashing investments in education, worker training, research, infrastructure, and key parts of the safety net won’t truly address our fiscal challenges and actually makes our economic challenges worse. These domestic investments aren’t driving our long-term budget deficit . . . and cutting them will only increase our country’s deficits in jobs, skilled workers, innovation, technology, and more. We should be investing in the areas that will drive broad-based growth, not cutting back on them.

Clearly, Senator Murray gets it.

Now, we will have to see over the next few weeks if the Congressional appropriators will follow up with real money for those domestic investments.