But we do not have a monopoly on how to fix what ails the country. Consider the following expert opinions from people more experienced than me in the world of economy, finance, and the Federal government. These expert opinions were listed out in the November, 2011 issue of Reason magazine and are summarized below. I have not given the full reasoning behind their opinions but hopefully I have provided enough detail to justify and explain their rationale.
As you go through these experts' opinions, take note how many of them line up with the common sense, simple, and logical ideas we presented versus the tired, ineffective, and useless ideas the Obama administration and the rest of the political class have implemented to no avail:
- John Stossel, Fox Business Network - Close the Federal Departments of Labor, Commerce, Agriculture, Energy, and HUD to cut government spending. Terminate 75% of all Federal regulations.
- Robert Higgins, author and senior fellow at the Independent Institute - Repeal Obama Care since it is so large, unwieldy and confusing it is introducing confusion and uncertainty (his word, not mine) into the minds of business owners, increasing the risk of them hiring permanent workers. As a result, they cut back on hiring, especially permanent workers who made add a substantial cost increase to their operations under Obama Care.
- Peter Schiff, author and CEO of Euro Pacific Capital - substantially reduce government rules that oversee and regulate wages, benefits, and all other issues related to employment. In other words, make it easier, less bureaucratic, less dangerous, and less risky for businesses to hire employees to fulfill their business needs.
- Ira Stoll, author and the editor and founder of http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/ - Restructure unemployment insurance so it creates an incentive for recipients to get a job rather than an incentive for them to remain unemployed. This suggestion is consistent with one of the tenets of the United States of Purple as laid out in the following post:
http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/02/united-states-of-purple-fixng-our.html
- Jeffrey Miron, Director of undergraduate studies and professor of economics at Harvard University - The political class should focus on getting rid of economic policies that impede economic efficiency such as runaway debt and entitlements, over regulation, an ineffective tax code, and impediments to free trade, i.e. get out of the way and let the free market economy heal itself.
- Bryan Caplan, professor of economics at George Mason University - cut EMPLOYERS share of the payroll tax.
- John Berlau, director of the Center For Investors and Entrepreneurs at the Competitive Enterprise Institute - repeal financial regulations include parts of the Sarbannes-Oxley Act, parts of the Dodd-Frank Act, which Mr. Berlau feels "has created hundreds of pending rules causing uncertainty (his word, not mine) and a halt in hiring from banks and credit unions to retailers," and pass the Small Business Lending Enhancement Act which would raise the cap on business lending done by credit unions, freeing up more capital for small business growth opportunities.
- Dan Mitchell, senior fellow at the Cato Institute - shrink the size of our bloated government and replace our current tax system with simple and fair flat tax which would eliminate tax loopholes and provide incentives to work, save, and invest while terminating the need to play games with wealth and resources which reduce the efficiency of a free market.
- Allan Meltzer, professor of economics at the Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business - He has a four prong approach to fixing the economy which includes reducing the amount of uncertainty in the market by freezing the creation of all new Federal regulations for five years (with an exception for national defense exceptions), reduce government spending to get debt under control, reduce the corporate tax rate and pay for the reduction by simplifying the tax code and reducing loopholes, and work hard to keep inflation under control.
- Donald Boudreaux, professor of economics at George Mason University - simply the entire tax system by replacing the whole system with a consumption tax and and in the absence of this overhaul, amend the Constitution so that all types of incomes taxes are capped at 20%.
- Fred Smith, president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute - Build the Keystone pipeline to 1) generate tens of thousands of long term and short term jobs and 2) increase the amount of oil we import from friendly nations while reducing the amount of oil we import from unfriendly nations.
- Deirdre McCloskey, professor of economics at the University of Illinois in Chicago - Eliminate the minimum wage regulation for anyone under the age of 25 years old as a short term solution to the jobs problem and eliminate government intervention in the employee/employer relationship, e.g. eventually eliminate the minimum wage for everyone and let the market set the "price" for labor.
- Mitchell Munger, director of the philosophy, politics, and economics program at Duke University - Dump Obama Care since "the fiasco of the health care reform in 2008 made this problem (job creation) worse, not better. The new law created a complex, expensive system with no cost controls. And since insurance cannot cost less than the care it provides, this implicit but very real tax on job creation is hamstringing the recovery."
- John Berlau, director of the Center For Investors and Entrepreneurs at the Competitive Enterprise Institute - Repeal many of the regulations put forth by Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank to reduce the business uncertainty from the hundreds of defined and still to be defined regulations from both laws which are restricting hiring and business expansion. Pass the Small Business Lending Enhancement Act to lift the arbitrary cap on lending imposed on credit unions for small business loans.
- Alex Tabarrok, professor of economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University - Implement Quantitative Easing 3 (QE3).
- Bruce Bartlett, former Presidential advisor and U.S. Treasury official - Stimulate consumer and market demand by increasing government spending.
Removing uncertainty will provide all businesses, both large and small, with a clearer, more stable and less risky view of the future which will go a long way to getting business expansion and consumer demand underway. Reducing regulations, reducing government spending, simplifying the tax code, cleaning up government spending waste, keeping taxes low, and getting government and the politicians that operate it out of the way is the only way to get the economy rolling again.
Regarding the last two opinions, we have already tried these two approaches and the have failed miserably. With regards to Mr. Bartlett's suggestion, the Obama administration's budget this year is almost $4,000,000,000,000. It has been close to that for three years. Given the atrocious amount it spends already, with a very large percentage of it being pure waste, I doubt if it spent anymore we would solve our economic problems.
The original $813,000,000,000 government spending stimulus did no good, spending more is unlikely to do anything positive either. With the government already spending almost $4,000,000,000,000 and the nation's GDP about $15,000,000,000,000, there is not enough money laying around that Washington could spend that would make any real difference.
With regards to the suggestion of implementing QE3, since QE1 and QE2 did nothing long term for the economy, except insert over $2,000,000,000,000 of fake money into the financial system, fake money that will eventually cause a pretty good shot of inflation, why would we do QE3? Remember the words of Einstein: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." QE3 would be the same insanity of the failed QE1 and QE2 efforts.
Also, consider the conversation between the two experts in the following video as they discuss the folly of quantitative easing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k
They do not see quantitative easing being the answer either.
The politicians and the Obama administration have had their chance to fix what ails the economy. Their tired ideas have resulted in persistently high unemployment, wasteful government spending, skyrocketing national debt, sovereign debt credit downgrade, and a work force that is becoming very discouraged. Their failed concepts need to be put to permanent rest.
We need to clear the decks and get rid of excessive government regulation, excessive government interference, escessive and complex taxation, excessive government bureaucracy, and let the market and the economy start healing itself. Recent attempts to do that by the political class has been nothing more than voodoo economic theory by voodoo doctors in Washington.
We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at
http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/
The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.
The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of our times.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment
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