Professor Michael Hudson, economist often talks about this. He wants the US to have a national bank which can provide financial services to the population at cost. He also often talks about the lack of infrastructure investment and privatization hurting the economy.

Basically the infrastructure can be viewed as a 4th factor of production, like capital, labour and land. Government subsidized, low cost infrastructure allows for a more competitive economy, because of lowered costs for businesses and individuals.

His thesis is that the end of the 19th century it was understood that government investment in infrastructure and public subsidy for services allowed the USA (and other countries) to become globally competitive. But now the opposite is occurring.