Yesterday, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty gave a detailed speech on how to bring the American economy back from its current perilous state. The text of the speech is available at the Pawlenty website; it is worth reading. It is a remarkable document in my opinion. Not remarkable for what it proposes; there are some very good ideas in it, but I would not call it extraordinary. Rather, it is remarkable because of the contrast that it provides to the actions of president Obama. Obama is in office and ought to be providing leadership on the economy. Instead, all that we got from Obama was a silly budget that no one took seriously; indeed, every Democrat in the Senate voter against the president's proposal. We also got a vague speech with no detail provided. Even a month later, the president has not bothered to flesh out any part of what he thinks should be done. Instead, he has spent the time campaigning against the budget passed by the House without offering any alternative. Oh, and he has been raising money for his re-election campaign. In other words, Obama has provided no leadership with regard to the economy at all; nothing, nada, zilch, zero!
Pawlenty's basic idea is one that ought to become the rallying cry for all those who want to see America succeed. He wants to bring the country back to 5% growth from the terrible low level that we are at now. Pawlenty correctly points out that with 5% growth for a few years, there will be much less unemployment, much less need for the federal safety net, much higher federal tax revenues, and a much smaller and more manageable deficit.
Pawlenty's first plan to restore economic growth is to do a basic restructuring of the business taxes in the country. Right now, the USA has the second highest corporate tax level in the world. This makes it much more attractive for business to locate their facilities elsewhere, thereby slowing growth here. Pawlenty wants a cut in the rate from 35% to 15% while at the same time doing away with all the loopholes and special deals that allow certain well connected companies to avoid taxes. We all know that Obama's buddies at General Electric made billons of dollars in profits last year but paid no federal taxes at all. Pawlenty points out that business taxes ought to depend on success in business, not in politics.
Pawlenty also wants to do away with much of the enormous federal regulatory structure that makes it so expensive to do business in the USA. For example, the Interior department is preventing the drilling of oil and gas wells in the Western states because the duen sagebrush lizard gets disturbed by the vibrations from the drilling. In other words, millions and billions of dollars of job producing work is ordered stopped so that the lizards can have a nice peaceful neighborhood. There are countless other examples of this sort of stupidity. Pawlenty wants the principal goal of the federal government to be to make things better for the American people.
Pawlenty also proposes major changes to the rest of the US tax structure as well as to the various entitlement programs. I will discuss some of these in the near future.
The bottom line here, however, is that Time Pawlenty deserves a great deal of credit for doing what Obama ought to have done for the last three years. Pawlenty is providing the American people with a comprehensive plan for how to deal with the current economic problems. Some people will disagree with his ideas; that is inevitable. Some people will think his plans are great. The point is not that, however. Rather, the point is that Pawlenty is telling the American people what he thinks needs to be done and allowing them to make a rational decision as to who should lead and what policies should be followed. Pawlenty lights a candle while Obama curses the darkness (and the Republicans).
The truth is best said by one of Obama's favorites from the 2008 campaign. Pawlenty and people like him are the ones we have been waiting for! The AMerican people deserve a leader not an orator. We need a president, not a teleprompter. We need fresh ideas and explanations, not tired old calls based upon class warfare and the like.
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