To lift a line from one of last year's best films: You mustn't be afraid to dream a bit bigger, darling.
You can always go bigger, and in such an incredibly desirable position as you describe, the potential economic feedback loop from going even further with investment in infrastructure and public services is too big to ignore.
Imagine an alternate universe in which there is still a Glass-Steagall act, the Bush tax cuts were never passed, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were never started, the financial crisis was limited to a few isolated dominoes, and the US is on track to pay off its sovereign debt completely by 2016. We could build a competent, national network of high speed rail without borrowing anything. Or, we could borrow again and build a world-class rail network, invest heavily in education, transform the nation's healthcare system, revitalize NASA... There is always room for more investment.
Also, this is a really depressing fantasy to return from.
That's a fantasy which could never have come to pass in any universe. The only reason the budget was in surplus (technically) is the economy was so white hot revenue was coming in faster than Congress had anticipated. As soon as this was apparent, our legislators were falling all over themselves to spend money on their pet pork projects.
We would have ended up in the hole anyway, since the revenue burst was bubble induced and destined to go down. But even if that wasn't true they would never have allowed the surplus to continue.
Even then it was imaginary, because the growth in Social Security and Medicare spending was always going to outstrip revenue under the rosiest of scenarios.
You can always go bigger, and in such an incredibly desirable position as you describe, the potential economic feedback loop from going even further with investment in infrastructure and public services is too big to ignore.
Imagine an alternate universe in which there is still a Glass-Steagall act, the Bush tax cuts were never passed, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were never started, the financial crisis was limited to a few isolated dominoes, and the US is on track to pay off its sovereign debt completely by 2016. We could build a competent, national network of high speed rail without borrowing anything. Or, we could borrow again and build a world-class rail network, invest heavily in education, transform the nation's healthcare system, revitalize NASA... There is always room for more investment.
Also, this is a really depressing fantasy to return from.