Before he brings out the party hats, Trump should keep in mind that there is plenty of time between now and the election for the economy to tick upward. Moreover, running on the bad economy in 2012 (which was a lot worse than it is now) did not get Mitt Romney elected. In failing to give voters a vision of shared prosperity and upward mobility, Romney gave them insufficient reason to vote out President Obama.

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Trump’s “idea” for stimulating the economy is nonsensical: a tax cut disproportionately benefiting the rich that loses $10 trillion over a decade, refuse to address the driver of debt (entitlement reform), kick out 11 million to 12 million workers and consumers, and start a trade war with China. So, forget that.

Hillary Clinton said Thursday she wanted to “invest” (liberals’ favorite word for “spend”) heavily in our “infrastructure, education and innovation.” In code for a tax hike for the rich, she said, “We need to reduce income inequality, because our country can’t lead effectively when so many are struggling to provide the basics for their families.” Let’s see if there is something Republicans can work with.

Infrastructure spending is popular, but even Larry Summers recognizes the difficulty in spending that money wisely. (“I’m a progressive, but it seems plausible to wonder if government can build a nation abroad, fight social decay, run schools, mandate the design of cars, run health insurance exchanges, or set proper sexual harassment policies on college campuses, if it can’t even fix a 232-foot bridge competently,” he argued. “Waiting in traffic over the Anderson Bridge, I’ve empathized with the two-thirds of Americans who distrust government.”) This does not mean infrastructure spending isn’t needed, but beware of Son of Stimulus.

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Education is also a feel-good item. Clinton used to be in favor of charter schools before she tossed a bone to the teachers unions. Let’s hope she reverts to that stance, which helps primarily inner-city, poor children. Instead of propping up the existing college financial aid system and insisting everyone should go to a four-year school, lawmakers should be expanding the range of options for post-high-school students and encouraging programs that allow repayment as a percentage of income for a fixed time period.

Then there is “innovation.” We could spend more on “pure science” (although the link to innovation is tenuous) and favorites like the National Institutes of Health, but more discretionary spending should be paired with entitlement reform so as not exacerbate our long-term debt problem. Innovation is also accelerated by a modernized immigration system (“three out of every four patents at the top 10 patent-producing U.S. universities, or 76 percent, had at least one foreign-born inventor“) and corporate tax reform (to lure back overseas income, keep jobs here and remove the destructive Obamacare tax on medical devices).

As for income inequality, rather than soak-the-rich schemes, Republicans might actually agree with items like payroll tax relief (benefiting disproportionately working- and middle-class taxpayers), expansion of the earned-income tax credit and an array of bipartisan anti-poverty reforms.