Former President George W. Bush Writes Preface to Book on Economic Policy Promoting 4% Growth

Apparently the Former President Has Determined that 4% Growth is Better Than 3% Growth

Like a houseguest who won’t leave, former Republican President George W. Bush will be emerging from the shadows this week.  He has sponsored a book of essays on economics, and has written the preface to it.  We all have to wait for the publication of the book, although its themes are not going to be a surprise to anyone.

“The 4% Solution: Unleashing the Economic Growth America Needs,” to be unveiled by the former president in Dallas on Tuesday and published by Crown Business, is neither campaign template nor partisan screed. It is a wonky paean to free enterprise. . . . . .

The ideas in the book include lowering corporate tax rates, shifting away from taxing income to taxing consumption and property, promoting innovation by letting professors keep gains from their research, expanding free-trade pacts with Japan and other countries, refocusing immigration policy to recruit more high-skill workers, and expanding the work force by lowering payroll taxes on employees with children.

As for the title of the book, it seems that everyone involved has just discovered that if the economy grew at 4% things would be better than if the economy grew at 3.2%, which is its long term average.

A goal of 4 percent growth would be ambitious for a country whose annual growth has averaged 3.2 percent since 1948 and is currently below 2 percent. But the difference would have a huge impact; had the country’s economy grown 4 percent a year since 1948, it would be 50 percent larger today. Higher growth would help reduce debt by producing more tax revenue.

This is heavy stuff indeed.  Other findings in the book are expected to the following.

            Being rich is better than being poor.

            A healthy person has a better life than a sick person.

            Dying young is not a good career move.

A baseball team that wins more games than it loses will have a wining percentage above 50%.

And that is just a taste of what one might find in the to be published tome.