Sleepy visit to Planet Hillary

Larry Kudlow wrote in Kansas City Star On the one hand, Clinton acknowledged a growing economy, a stock market at historic highs, strong productivity and profits, and low unemployment,

So George Bush has done a good job

while on the other she called for big-government investment in infrastructure and heavy spending on health care and education.

We are already spending too much government money, and she wants more.

The senator argued that “tax cuts are not the cure-all for everything that ails the American economy,”

But they sure as hell beat tax increases.

and that instead we need the “right tax system (and) the right investment, including infrastructure … decisions and policies that only all of us acting together through our government can make to set the stage for future prosperity.”

In other words tax the Republicans, and give money to the Democratic base.

So what we have is a plea for a government-directed economy. This used to be called industrial planning, until the dismal economic performances of France, Germany and Japan totally discredited those terms. But for Clinton, government planning is back.

The only question is, will she stop with Socialism, or go all the way to Communism?

Clinton is calling for a “national investment authority” to rebuild the nation. This, in her view, will solve all our problems related to airports, highways, bridges, hurricanes and lord knows what else. She speaks as if Congress didn’t already spend a fortune on the recent highway bill, replete with corrupt budget earmarks that totaled a cool $30 billion in 2005.

No matter how much we spend, Dems want to spend more.

While Clinton wants to revive big-government spending, some analysts are writing about making public highways private. These private ventures would pay for themselves and would substitute market decisions for government planning.

Sounds like Oklahoma with its toll roads.

The Reason Foundation is full of similar ideas, including private-sector road and highway plans in California, where voters just rejected a $68 billion infrastructure package because of a political history of pilfered taxpayer funds.

Clinton also engaged in class warfare, telling the assembled businesspeople: “America did not build the greatest economy in the world because we have rich people.

No, we built it because we let people invest their own money and efforts, and did not attempt to control everything from the government.

Nearly any society has some of those.” She implied tax increases on the rich and a redistribution program worthy of any centrally planned economy.

Which would destroy our economy and our country.

Hasn’t Clinton noticed the spread of free-market capitalism that has become such an enormous wealth creator across the globe? The growth principles of higher after-tax returns for work and investment, deregulation to limit government’s reach, and the privatization of government-run companies have become almost commonplace.

Clinton would have us turn the clock. She defines her goals in terms of “a middle-class life, education, health care, transportation and retirement.” But all this is nothing more than a dose of government spending and regulating — a sure prescription for more taxes and a declining economy.

Why not employ the tax code to reward success rather than punish it? What about investor-owned savings accounts for health care, retirement and education? Why not put pro-market consumer choice, rather than government, at the center of the 21st century economy? How about helping the nonrich get rich?

Two weeks ago I was in the Oval Office with President Bush and a handful of journalists. The president spoke to us about making tax relief permanent, keeping the tax rate on dividends and capital gains low, maintaining lean budgets and expanding free trade.

This vision is in deep contrast to Hillary Clinton’s. The president places the entrepreneur at the center of economic growth. Clinton sees government as the driving force of the economy.

The booming American economy is still the greatest story never told. But the reality is that low-tax, free-market policies are triumphing here and around the world. What planet is Hillary Clinton living on?

Betsy Newmark blogged When will these people understand that it is the possibility of getting rich that serves as the incentive for people to invest and build? When will people who love these ideas take an honest look at what such policies of having the government direct the economy, while taking from the wealthy to redistribute to those in the lower and middle classes have done to other countries. Can't they learn anything from examples abroad?