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Mitch Daniels Wants To “Break All Ties” In Favor of Growth?

The Washington Post recently asked four Republican non-candidates to present what they would campaign on if they were in the race. Mitch Daniels’ contribution is mostly sensible, but there was one bizarre line that stood out: All ties must be broken in favor of private growth. There are many ways to respond to this, but […]

The Washington Post recently asked four Republican non-candidates to present what they would campaign on if they were in the race. Mitch Daniels’ contribution is mostly sensible, but there was one bizarre line that stood out:

All ties must be broken in favor of private growth.

There are many ways to respond to this, but perhaps the most obvious is that this is in no way a conservative argument by any meaningful definition of the word. I’m not entirely sure what Daniels means when he says “all ties must be broken,” but it sounds like little more than an appeal to the wonder-working powers of “creative destruction.” If the “ties” Daniels has in mind are regulatory restrictions, that would mean one thing, but he could have said something very different to convey that message. At best, it is a very confusing phrase that distracts from the policy recommendations Daniels wants to make.

Daniels also refers in the next sentence to “[t]oday’s blind, anti-growth zealotry,” and I have to admit that I have no idea what he’s talking about. After all, the enormous amount of private debt that Americans have racked up in the last decade was assumed in part to fuel the last consumption-driven expansion, and this private debt has been a major drag on economic recovery. When Daniels speaks about the evils of debt, he usually has public debt in mind, but the over-consumption of the last decade also has a lot to do with the slow, halting economic recovery we’re experiencing now, and Daniels doesn’t seem to have anything to say about that.

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