One of the biggest problems facing the U.S. today is the slow growth of our economy, averaging just 2.1% per year since the end of the Great Recession seven years ago, well below the 3.5% average from 1950 – 2000.
My last post introduced an excellent Wall Street Journal Op Ed by the Hoover Institution economist John Cochrane.  He says that “the U.S. economy needs a dramatic legal and regulatory simplification.”  In particular:

• Tax reform. Instead of arguing over tax rates, what’s really needed is deep tax reform, cleaning out the insane complexity and cronyism.
• Social programs. Rather than arguing over whether to increase or cut spending, what’s needed is a thorough overhaul of the programs’ pernicious incentives. For example, Social Security disability (almost 9 million beneficiaries in March 2016) needs to remove its disincentives to work, move or change careers.
• Education spending. Rather than arguing about the level of public spending, America needs the better schools that come from increased choice and competition.
• Over-regulation. Most of all the country needs a dramatic legal and regulatory simplification. Middle-aged America is living in a hoarder’s house of a legal system, including state and local impediments such as excessive occupational licensing.
• Growth-oriented policies will be resisted. Growth comes from productivity which comes from new technology and new companies. These displace the profits of old companies, and the hefty pay and settled lives of their managers and workers.
• The presidential frontrunners are not championing economic growth. But the House of Representatives, under Speaker Paul Ryan, is doing exactly this. Perhaps economic policy leadership can be transferred from the Presidency to Congress.

After two disappointing presidencies our economy is lagging far behind where it could and should be. This is the reason for the rise of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.  Regardless of the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, there is hope for better days ahead!

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