We admit we thought it a long shot, and it was not the outcome we had desired (it rarely is). But reluctant hats off to our President Elect for apparently reading the mood of the nation perfectly. Contrary to many of his detractors, we never thought him the ignoramus they portrayed him as. Uncivilized and rude certainly; banana republic crony tendencies no doubt; unprincipled on principle more than likely; but a fool no.
With a Republican congress to support him, he will be a force for good or bad for at least two years. Which will it be? Your guess is as good as ours, but we’ll strike an optimistic tone and tilt towards good until the facts prove us wrong.
As an incentive, we’re offering SEPARATE! as a bargain one-stop-shopping experience of principled (indeed) advice that will facilitate setting an agenda that “Makes America Great Again.” Mind you, not “great again” as a nationalistic end in itself, but as a secondary consequence and affirmation of implementing policies that restore the protection of individual rights; policies that unshackle We The People from the yoke of government taxation, spending and regulation, empowering individuals to do great things. This is how nations become truly great.
Let’s start with Mr. Trump’s promise to create jobs where jobs have been lost. The by far most important insight is that “creating jobs” is not a job for the president. This task belongs to individual resourceful enterprising Americans. But the administration may, with the help of a supportive legislature, facilitate and offer encouragement by getting the government out of the way. With this in mind, here are our top five job creation suggestions for The Donald administration.
- Eliminate the corporate income tax.
The United States currently has the third highest corporate income tax rate in the world at around 39%. Elimination will both bring home profits that American companies have stashed away in more business-friendly locales around the globe and attract fresh foreign capital, fueling job creation around the country. Complete elimination is the only solution consistent with protecting individual rights. But a plan that initially slashes the rate to let’s say 10%, followed by gradual elimination, would have immediate positive impacts.
At the top of our list is repealing the “Red Decade” era National Labor Relations Act of 1935 forcing unions and collective bargaining on many industries (yes, employees have the right to voluntarily associate but employers have an equal right to refuse such attempts). States with “right-to-work” laws in place have proved that job creation increases dramatically when the rights of employers are protected, allowing them to manage their workforce in the best interest of their business with less regulatory interference.
And if the administration would like to get things going in earnest, the Department of Labor could be made redundant by repealing the long list of alphabet soup acts under its wings. This includes the Fair Minimum Wage Act which violates the individual rights of the most vulnerable in our society: those whose skills are limited and therefore desperately need entry-level jobs to get a foothold in the labor market, jobs that have been eliminated by minimum wage restrictions.
The above will be tough to stomach for many of Mr. Trump’s constituents, but having proven a master of connecting with them, he if anyone may be able to pull it off.
This should be an easy win; the pick of Myron Ebell to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is a promising start. Repealing environmental regulations violating the rights of the participants in the coal, oil and gas industries will fuel (pun intended) job creation in many parts of the country where our President Elect has strong support. And most other industries are victims of the EPA’s injustices in one way or another, creating an opportunity for economic liberation and job creation across the board through regulatory repeal (unless you’re the beneficiary of crony environmental handouts and regulations in which case we say good riddance).
If repealing environmental regulation is an easy win, this one may be a tougher nut to crack if Mr. Trump’s rhetoric is to be believed. We agree that NAFTA and TPP have their shortcomings but probably not for the same reasons as Mr. Trump; we’d argue that they don’t go far enough in liberalizing trade. A plan for unilaterally eliminating trade subsidies and tariffs would restore the rights of individuals and enterprises, domestic and foreign, to trade without government interference (with limited exceptions for countries that possess a military threat to the US). This alone would create more new jobs than there are unemployed. Initially not necessarily in the places where jobs are lacking. But with employees hard to come by, companies will soon start looking where they previously were not, including in areas of the country having fallen on hard times the past few decades.
(If other countries choose to subsidize exports with their tax dollars for the benefit of American businesses and consumers, or punish their own people with higher prices due to import tariffs, they are all the poorer for it.)
- Reform immigration
Your eyes are not deceiving you. No, we’re not naïve enough to expect Mr. Trump to do what our president would do on immigration (with limited foreign policy related exceptions). But we’re suggesting that legal immigration reform is one of the best sources for job creation, immigrants being well above average enterprising individuals.
One of the biggest challenges for the areas having been in slow decline for years is brain drain. Individuals with job creating abilities move away and create the jobs elsewhere. And most of them never come back. But outside our country, millions of such individuals dream of the opportunity to settle in these areas, to start a small business, to blow life into a declining property market, to reinvigorate Main Street America. Let’s give them that chance, Mr. President Elect.
There you have it—our five-point action plan for job creation through initiatives strengthening the respect for individual rights. We are proud of our educated readers, many with connections in high places. Feel free to send a line and a link to The Donald transition team and the odds of Mr. Trump being a force for good will improve dramatically.
In future installments, we’ll cover healthcare including Medicare, supporting our veterans, education, Wall Street, foreign policy, infrastructure and more. Stay tuned and keep the comments coming!
