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8th June 2015, 03:01 PM
-- Posted Sunday, 7 June 2015 | Share this article | 1 Comment (http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1433711587.php#disqus_thread)
By John Mauldin
A Six-Point Plan to Restore Economic Growth and Prosperity
Cleaning Out the Attic
Restructuring the Tax Code
Designing a 21st Century Government
More Than Just Drill Baby Drill
There’s a Lot More
New York, Maine, and Boston
Three weeks ago I co-authored an op-ed (http://email.mauldineconomics.com/wf/click?upn=MziU0lVea2-2Bh4ovRnBlbLLwJsoE2g4QliJ-2F9w0e73sXa6Rlb5p5ZCgSvVIUp33W4hG6A-2FqXeF3P1fkeC6sLsRi2krNJWYKW3am1sOmLC-2Fc3BmVbD7fd8Yx282Xs5VsZEjdVhto0qaNlpTehTuR7av1fhE NHdQ9K4RrMdIg01o2wCba-2BphQlPQ4jmGgHngFCxxWnK-2F-2FedaCOGr5qf-2Fdcc6w-3D-3D_aWDIlLU8GHIzAwNDuKucrFpH6M-2BVM9EzFKiheiTOrrETMEe05cF7Mr-2FfVOa16tPw-2BI5FTIU2eUgM-2F7QvznzPQEaUqUPz3XNDWI54vNQ-2Bz2-2BLzPlUlt8jwDlh6SfUOvj46HYWcuWed0CXQd0VPPRSewlaWKm 9C5P9Q9M-2F5pmF-2BNanZgnfKoO1gI6vTb7ulwdLbhQdJMNWxOcgZisNZxB0rqn8H lJ0d9Zq8heS3DwVcfxX9ciuqQAzhn3-2FefZcDVJ-2BcnlH2AW3sfmh2PIbO3W6RN9AsUeLBU1y8jDDMDBL3qY-3D) for the Investor’s Business Daily with Stephen Moore, founder of the Club for Growth and former Wall Street Journal editorial board member, currently working with the Heritage Foundation. Our goal was to present a simple outline of the policies we need to pursue as a country in order to get us back to 3–4% annual GDP growth. As we note in the op-ed, Stephen and I have been engaging with a number of presidential candidates and with other economists around the topic of growth.
We spent a great deal of time going back and forth on a variety of topics, trying to get down to a few ideas that we think make the most sense. I should note that few people will read the piece below without being upset by at least one of our suggestions. The goal was to not just list the standard Republican “fixes” but to actually come up with a plan that might garner support across the political spectrum on ways to address the critical problem of how to get the country back to acceptable growth.
Part of the challenge was reducing what could have been a book to just 800 words. Today’s letter will start with the actual op-ed, and then I will expand on some of the points. Readers and friends have been pressing me to offer some ideas as to what policies I think we should pursue, so here they are. I hope the op-ed will create some thoughtful response. It would be nice if we could get a few candidates to embrace some or all of what we are suggesting, even (or maybe especially) some of the more radical parts.
(I have made a few very minor edits to the op-ed.)
A Six-Point Plan to Restore Economic Growth and Prosperity
By John Mauldin and Stephen Moore
The dismal news of 0.2% GDP growth for the first quarter only confirmed that the US is in the midst of its slowest recovery in half a century from an economic crisis.
Could it be that at least some of the rage we've seen in the streets of Baltimore is a result of a paltry recovery that hasn't benefited low-income inner-city areas?
We are at least $1.5 trillion a year behind where we would be with even an average post-World War II recovery.
While many blame a lack of sufficient demand and even insufficient government spending, our view is that the primary factors behind the growth slowdown are an increasingly intrusive regulatory environment, a confusing and punitive tax scheme, and lack of certainty over healthcare costs.
Each of these factors has contributed to a climate where growth is slow and incomes are stagnant. These are problems that cannot be solved by monetary and fiscal policy alone.
To get real growth and increased productivity, we need to deal with the real source of economic progress: the incentive structure.
The coming presidential race offers an opportunity for candidates to put forth concrete and comprehensive ideas about what can be done to create higher economic growth – as opposed to platitudes and piecemeal ideas that don't address the entire problem.
The two of us have met with several candidates and discussed tax reform and other economic growth issues. We offer here some solutions of our own for them to consider.
1. Streamline the federal bureaucracy. Government has become much like the neighbor who has hoarded every magazine and odd knick-knack for 50 years. The attic and every room are stuffed with items no one would miss. The size of the US code has multiplied by over 18 times in 65 years. There are more than 1 million restrictive regulations.
Enough already. It's time to clean out the attic. The president, with some flexibility, should require each agency to reduce the number of regulations under its purview by 20%, at the rate of 5% a year. And then Congress should pass a sunset law for the remaining regulations, requiring them to be reviewed at some point in order to be maintained.
Further, if new rules are needed, then remove some old ones. Stop the growth of the federal regulatory code. We have enough rules today; let's just make sure they're the right ones.
2. Simplify and flatten the income tax. Make the individual income rate 20% (at most) for all income over $50,000, with no deductions for anything. Reduce the corporate tax to 15%, again eliminating all deductions other than what is allowed by standard accounting practice. No perks, no special benefits.
Further, tax foreign corporate income at 5%–10%, and let companies bring it back home to invest here. This strategy will actually increase tax revenues.
3. Replace the payroll tax with a business transfer tax of 15%, which will give lower-income workers a big raise. Companies would pay tax on their gross receipts, minus allowable expenses in the conduct of producing goods and services.
Nearly every economist agrees that consumption taxes are better than income taxes. Further, this tax can be rebated at the border, so it should encourage domestic production and be popular with union workers since it makes US products more competitive internationally.
4. Provide certainty by keeping tax rates low through a tax-limitation constitutional amendment that would require future tax increases to be passed by 60% of the Congress, in combination with a balanced-budget amendment.
We realize that implementation of these measures could be somewhat jarring, so we'd suggest phasing them in over four to five years – more than enough time for everyone to adjust.
5. Roll back the regulatory state. Recognize that many federal agencies are still mired in the mid-20th century if not the 19th. It's time to design a regulatory system that fosters jobs and growth while protecting citizens.
Let's start with the easy target: the Food and Drug Administration. The United States is the wellspring of biotechnological research, yet more and more of our original research is being taken overseas for further development, producing jobs outside the US
A bipartisan commission can design a new agency with a new regulatory regime and bring it to the floor of Congress for a vote. Instead of a system that makes drug-creation prohibitively expensive, favors Big Pharma and exports jobs, let's harness the power of US entrepreneurs.
Streamline the process so healthcare can keep up with research, thereby lowering healthcare costs and providing healthier outcomes for everyone. Then start with the next regulatory agency until all have been updated.
6. Drill for America's domestic energy and use the royalties on federal lands to retire the debt and/or fund needed infrastructure repair instead of raising taxes. An estimated $2 trillion of royalties and other fees could be raised by drilling on non-environmentally sensitive lands, and this would reduce US reliance on foreign oil while breaking the financial back of many terrorist networks.
Growth is the solution to nearly every social, economic, and financial problem in America, and we aren't getting enough of it. This is a plan that puts US competitiveness first and brings middle-class jobs back to America. We are eager to see which candidates – in either party – embrace this prosperity agenda.
Cleaning Out the Attic
Let’s be clear: in a society as complex as ours, we need regulations. We need regulations that protect consumers and level the playing field for all businesses. But everybody knows the regulatory code has gone berserk. There are rules on the books that were there before World War II and make no sense today, but they’re still there. There are whole departments whose only purpose is to accumulate paper that provides no real societal benefit.
Our purpose here is not to get rid of regulations but to make us think about how many and what kinds of regulations we actually need. Right now, regulations never go away; we just add new ones. Every time a regulation is added, somebody ends up paying more money. Further, a lot of regulation is there just to protect current business incumbents and to create barriers to entry for new competition. If you think the republic is going to crumble because we have 20% fewer regulations, there’s not much we can talk about.
There again, the president should have some flexibility. Maybe the number of regulations each agency is required to reduce should be not 20% but 15%, or maybe it should be 23%. But let’s at least make an attempt to rationalize the regulations we have and create a process for rationalizing the number of regulations on an ongoing basis.
This will not create a business nirvana, but it will help increase productivity and profits, which are the engines of growth.
Restructuring the Tax Code
I get that our proposals with regard to taxes are a tad more controversial. Our goal here is to change the incentive structure, actually increase income for the bottom half of the country, and at the same time make the tax structure more fair.
Note that we removed all deductions for everything. There is something wrong with a world in which you and I pay more taxes than General Electric does. A 15% corporate tax will actually collect more taxes, when coupled with a 5 to 10% tax on offshore income, than we are currently collecting.
Larry Lindsay will tell anyone who will listen that we could get rid of all other taxes if we went to a 21% value-added tax, and we would produce the same amount of tax revenue. Think about that for a moment. No income taxes, no corporate taxes, no Medicare taxes, no Social Security taxes. No tariffs. Nothing.
In a perfect economic world, I would adopt that plan. Consumption taxes are far more economically efficient than income taxes.
But in our discussion with a variety of players, we found that the appetite for getting rid of all income taxes is just not there. So we opted for a flat tax. The higher you make the business transfer tax, the lower you can make the income tax. There are some differences between a BTT and a VAT, but they are cousins.
But what our proposal does is allow for the elimination of Social Security taxes on both the part of the employee and the employer. This would essentially give a 6.2% raise on the first $118,000 of income to every worker in America. The amounts businesses don’t pay for their portion of Social Security taxes will help offset the BTT they will pay.
Stephen and I toyed around with making the tax on income from $50,000-$100,000 a flat 10%, rising to 20% above $100,000. I could live with that or just not have taxes start until you make $100,000.
The point of setting corporate and income taxes at such a low rate is that it eliminates the rationale for deductions. You don’t need a mortgage deduction if you’re making over $100,000 and only paying 20%. Getting a 20% deduction is not going to make you donate money to a charity for the tax break. There are some 3200+ tax loopholes for corporations. Some of those loopholes apply only to one specific corporation. How wrong is that? We need to get the government out of micromanaging the economy. Shut down all the loopholes. Period.
The average Republican, myself included, will rebel against the idea of creating a new tax (the business transfer tax) that would be easy for Democrats to increase when they get the opportunity, which they inevitably will.
So, if Republicans give Democrats something like a BTT, the Democrats can give us, as a part of the deal, a constitutional amendment that limits the ability to raise taxes and requires a balanced budget. If one side or the other can get 60% of the voters to agree to raising taxes, then maybe we should do that. And if we require a balanced budget (taking into account that the government will run a deficit during recessions, so that adjustments have to be made), then Congress will be forced to construct a budget based on our actual income.
By John Mauldin
A Six-Point Plan to Restore Economic Growth and Prosperity
Cleaning Out the Attic
Restructuring the Tax Code
Designing a 21st Century Government
More Than Just Drill Baby Drill
There’s a Lot More
New York, Maine, and Boston
Three weeks ago I co-authored an op-ed (http://email.mauldineconomics.com/wf/click?upn=MziU0lVea2-2Bh4ovRnBlbLLwJsoE2g4QliJ-2F9w0e73sXa6Rlb5p5ZCgSvVIUp33W4hG6A-2FqXeF3P1fkeC6sLsRi2krNJWYKW3am1sOmLC-2Fc3BmVbD7fd8Yx282Xs5VsZEjdVhto0qaNlpTehTuR7av1fhE NHdQ9K4RrMdIg01o2wCba-2BphQlPQ4jmGgHngFCxxWnK-2F-2FedaCOGr5qf-2Fdcc6w-3D-3D_aWDIlLU8GHIzAwNDuKucrFpH6M-2BVM9EzFKiheiTOrrETMEe05cF7Mr-2FfVOa16tPw-2BI5FTIU2eUgM-2F7QvznzPQEaUqUPz3XNDWI54vNQ-2Bz2-2BLzPlUlt8jwDlh6SfUOvj46HYWcuWed0CXQd0VPPRSewlaWKm 9C5P9Q9M-2F5pmF-2BNanZgnfKoO1gI6vTb7ulwdLbhQdJMNWxOcgZisNZxB0rqn8H lJ0d9Zq8heS3DwVcfxX9ciuqQAzhn3-2FefZcDVJ-2BcnlH2AW3sfmh2PIbO3W6RN9AsUeLBU1y8jDDMDBL3qY-3D) for the Investor’s Business Daily with Stephen Moore, founder of the Club for Growth and former Wall Street Journal editorial board member, currently working with the Heritage Foundation. Our goal was to present a simple outline of the policies we need to pursue as a country in order to get us back to 3–4% annual GDP growth. As we note in the op-ed, Stephen and I have been engaging with a number of presidential candidates and with other economists around the topic of growth.
We spent a great deal of time going back and forth on a variety of topics, trying to get down to a few ideas that we think make the most sense. I should note that few people will read the piece below without being upset by at least one of our suggestions. The goal was to not just list the standard Republican “fixes” but to actually come up with a plan that might garner support across the political spectrum on ways to address the critical problem of how to get the country back to acceptable growth.
Part of the challenge was reducing what could have been a book to just 800 words. Today’s letter will start with the actual op-ed, and then I will expand on some of the points. Readers and friends have been pressing me to offer some ideas as to what policies I think we should pursue, so here they are. I hope the op-ed will create some thoughtful response. It would be nice if we could get a few candidates to embrace some or all of what we are suggesting, even (or maybe especially) some of the more radical parts.
(I have made a few very minor edits to the op-ed.)
A Six-Point Plan to Restore Economic Growth and Prosperity
By John Mauldin and Stephen Moore
The dismal news of 0.2% GDP growth for the first quarter only confirmed that the US is in the midst of its slowest recovery in half a century from an economic crisis.
Could it be that at least some of the rage we've seen in the streets of Baltimore is a result of a paltry recovery that hasn't benefited low-income inner-city areas?
We are at least $1.5 trillion a year behind where we would be with even an average post-World War II recovery.
While many blame a lack of sufficient demand and even insufficient government spending, our view is that the primary factors behind the growth slowdown are an increasingly intrusive regulatory environment, a confusing and punitive tax scheme, and lack of certainty over healthcare costs.
Each of these factors has contributed to a climate where growth is slow and incomes are stagnant. These are problems that cannot be solved by monetary and fiscal policy alone.
To get real growth and increased productivity, we need to deal with the real source of economic progress: the incentive structure.
The coming presidential race offers an opportunity for candidates to put forth concrete and comprehensive ideas about what can be done to create higher economic growth – as opposed to platitudes and piecemeal ideas that don't address the entire problem.
The two of us have met with several candidates and discussed tax reform and other economic growth issues. We offer here some solutions of our own for them to consider.
1. Streamline the federal bureaucracy. Government has become much like the neighbor who has hoarded every magazine and odd knick-knack for 50 years. The attic and every room are stuffed with items no one would miss. The size of the US code has multiplied by over 18 times in 65 years. There are more than 1 million restrictive regulations.
Enough already. It's time to clean out the attic. The president, with some flexibility, should require each agency to reduce the number of regulations under its purview by 20%, at the rate of 5% a year. And then Congress should pass a sunset law for the remaining regulations, requiring them to be reviewed at some point in order to be maintained.
Further, if new rules are needed, then remove some old ones. Stop the growth of the federal regulatory code. We have enough rules today; let's just make sure they're the right ones.
2. Simplify and flatten the income tax. Make the individual income rate 20% (at most) for all income over $50,000, with no deductions for anything. Reduce the corporate tax to 15%, again eliminating all deductions other than what is allowed by standard accounting practice. No perks, no special benefits.
Further, tax foreign corporate income at 5%–10%, and let companies bring it back home to invest here. This strategy will actually increase tax revenues.
3. Replace the payroll tax with a business transfer tax of 15%, which will give lower-income workers a big raise. Companies would pay tax on their gross receipts, minus allowable expenses in the conduct of producing goods and services.
Nearly every economist agrees that consumption taxes are better than income taxes. Further, this tax can be rebated at the border, so it should encourage domestic production and be popular with union workers since it makes US products more competitive internationally.
4. Provide certainty by keeping tax rates low through a tax-limitation constitutional amendment that would require future tax increases to be passed by 60% of the Congress, in combination with a balanced-budget amendment.
We realize that implementation of these measures could be somewhat jarring, so we'd suggest phasing them in over four to five years – more than enough time for everyone to adjust.
5. Roll back the regulatory state. Recognize that many federal agencies are still mired in the mid-20th century if not the 19th. It's time to design a regulatory system that fosters jobs and growth while protecting citizens.
Let's start with the easy target: the Food and Drug Administration. The United States is the wellspring of biotechnological research, yet more and more of our original research is being taken overseas for further development, producing jobs outside the US
A bipartisan commission can design a new agency with a new regulatory regime and bring it to the floor of Congress for a vote. Instead of a system that makes drug-creation prohibitively expensive, favors Big Pharma and exports jobs, let's harness the power of US entrepreneurs.
Streamline the process so healthcare can keep up with research, thereby lowering healthcare costs and providing healthier outcomes for everyone. Then start with the next regulatory agency until all have been updated.
6. Drill for America's domestic energy and use the royalties on federal lands to retire the debt and/or fund needed infrastructure repair instead of raising taxes. An estimated $2 trillion of royalties and other fees could be raised by drilling on non-environmentally sensitive lands, and this would reduce US reliance on foreign oil while breaking the financial back of many terrorist networks.
Growth is the solution to nearly every social, economic, and financial problem in America, and we aren't getting enough of it. This is a plan that puts US competitiveness first and brings middle-class jobs back to America. We are eager to see which candidates – in either party – embrace this prosperity agenda.
Cleaning Out the Attic
Let’s be clear: in a society as complex as ours, we need regulations. We need regulations that protect consumers and level the playing field for all businesses. But everybody knows the regulatory code has gone berserk. There are rules on the books that were there before World War II and make no sense today, but they’re still there. There are whole departments whose only purpose is to accumulate paper that provides no real societal benefit.
Our purpose here is not to get rid of regulations but to make us think about how many and what kinds of regulations we actually need. Right now, regulations never go away; we just add new ones. Every time a regulation is added, somebody ends up paying more money. Further, a lot of regulation is there just to protect current business incumbents and to create barriers to entry for new competition. If you think the republic is going to crumble because we have 20% fewer regulations, there’s not much we can talk about.
There again, the president should have some flexibility. Maybe the number of regulations each agency is required to reduce should be not 20% but 15%, or maybe it should be 23%. But let’s at least make an attempt to rationalize the regulations we have and create a process for rationalizing the number of regulations on an ongoing basis.
This will not create a business nirvana, but it will help increase productivity and profits, which are the engines of growth.
Restructuring the Tax Code
I get that our proposals with regard to taxes are a tad more controversial. Our goal here is to change the incentive structure, actually increase income for the bottom half of the country, and at the same time make the tax structure more fair.
Note that we removed all deductions for everything. There is something wrong with a world in which you and I pay more taxes than General Electric does. A 15% corporate tax will actually collect more taxes, when coupled with a 5 to 10% tax on offshore income, than we are currently collecting.
Larry Lindsay will tell anyone who will listen that we could get rid of all other taxes if we went to a 21% value-added tax, and we would produce the same amount of tax revenue. Think about that for a moment. No income taxes, no corporate taxes, no Medicare taxes, no Social Security taxes. No tariffs. Nothing.
In a perfect economic world, I would adopt that plan. Consumption taxes are far more economically efficient than income taxes.
But in our discussion with a variety of players, we found that the appetite for getting rid of all income taxes is just not there. So we opted for a flat tax. The higher you make the business transfer tax, the lower you can make the income tax. There are some differences between a BTT and a VAT, but they are cousins.
But what our proposal does is allow for the elimination of Social Security taxes on both the part of the employee and the employer. This would essentially give a 6.2% raise on the first $118,000 of income to every worker in America. The amounts businesses don’t pay for their portion of Social Security taxes will help offset the BTT they will pay.
Stephen and I toyed around with making the tax on income from $50,000-$100,000 a flat 10%, rising to 20% above $100,000. I could live with that or just not have taxes start until you make $100,000.
The point of setting corporate and income taxes at such a low rate is that it eliminates the rationale for deductions. You don’t need a mortgage deduction if you’re making over $100,000 and only paying 20%. Getting a 20% deduction is not going to make you donate money to a charity for the tax break. There are some 3200+ tax loopholes for corporations. Some of those loopholes apply only to one specific corporation. How wrong is that? We need to get the government out of micromanaging the economy. Shut down all the loopholes. Period.
The average Republican, myself included, will rebel against the idea of creating a new tax (the business transfer tax) that would be easy for Democrats to increase when they get the opportunity, which they inevitably will.
So, if Republicans give Democrats something like a BTT, the Democrats can give us, as a part of the deal, a constitutional amendment that limits the ability to raise taxes and requires a balanced budget. If one side or the other can get 60% of the voters to agree to raising taxes, then maybe we should do that. And if we require a balanced budget (taking into account that the government will run a deficit during recessions, so that adjustments have to be made), then Congress will be forced to construct a budget based on our actual income.