"If Trump follows through with his free-market-oriented policy direction the American economy will take off like a rocket."

The U.S. has the highest corporate tax system in the world, companies and their cash are fleeing overseas, welfare rolls are skyrocketing, employment participation rates are falling, and interest-rate markets have come under the spell of the Fed's misallocation of credit.



And in response to all that, the general electorate — and the middle class in particular — is angry and suffering high anxiety about the future.

As American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks argues, people who earn their own income are happy campers, while people who live on government assistance are unhappy. So, at the margin, if you count more people living off government-welfare assistance, and even those working who are earning less in real inflation-adjusted terms, it's a very unhappy country.

Putting aside the growing threat from Islamic jihadist terrorism, most of America's problems are home grown. So when I say overthrow the establishment to fix the economy, and the brilliant businessman Wilbur Ross says we need radical new approaches to government, we're talking two sides of the same coin.

In the 1980s and 1990s, radical change in economic policies fostered by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher put the brakes on government planning and ushered in a new free-market supply-side era and a two-decade boom. That model has been abandoned in the new century. This must be reversed.

Who, exactly, do I mean by the establishment that needs overthrowing? Much of the blame must be placed on the high-pedigreed economists in and out of government who advise politicians, policy makers, the Fed, big corporate CEOs, and interest-group trade associations to pursue a cronyist corporate-welfare system that both creates and then relies on a government-driven economy. Not all economists — there still are a few free-marketeers out there.

And while Democratic policy planners are the vanguard of the new Bernie Sanders democratic socialism, with Hillary Clinton right in the pack, many Republican advisors are also to blame.

Now, Donald Trump may be an imperfect candidate in his rookie political season, but he gets the basic economic story right: Lower taxes, especially slashing large- and small-business taxes. Roll back regulations. Unleash all forms of energy. Take a market-oriented and consumer-choice approach to health care and education. A friendly attitude toward entrepreneurs.

If Trump follows through with his free-market-oriented policy direction the American economy will take off like a rocket.



Growth is the key, not inequality. Growth creates new businesses, new jobs, higher wages, and a stronger middle class. Growth eases the burdens of poverty. Growth makes everyone happier.

