The Transition to Greatness needs some muscular policy proposals behind it, a clear vision people can get excited to vote for in November. The Left is drooling over the chance to use the pandemic to transform society. Counter-proposals must be equally transformative.
The Left wants to use the pandemic to transform American society. What really needs transforming is THE GOVERNMENT. The coronavirus was a searing hot spotlight illuminating the problem of bureaucratic bloat. The private sector needs less government burden on it to recover.
There was already a crisis of confidence in authority. The coronavirus exacerbated it. The solution is NOT to launch some trillion-dollar scheme to restore confidence in government. We were RIGHT to be suspicious of it. We need to restore confidence in ourselves, not the State.
For jobs to come back after the lockdown - for capital to flow, investments to be made, and entrepreneurial risks to be taken - billions of dollars must be reclaimed from government by the private sector. The private sector must grow larger, faster than it ever has before.
Giving the private sector the confidence it needs to grow so dramatically will absolutely require cutting down the size and power of corrupt, incompetent government. The State must once again become a fair and vigilant referee, not a player in the economic and social game.
Why take big risks when you know politicians will seize your profits to enrich themselves and further their ideology? Why work hard to pursue your ambitions when not working is almost equally well-compensated? Why should you compete hard when the State picks winners and losers?
Most of the big policy initiatives of the post-Reagan era have been based on the idea that the people cannot be trusted. Their choices must be curtailed and their money controlled for their own good. Freedom is a dangerous drug that must be dispensed carefully by the wise elite.
THAT is the notion we must now overturn, with the boldest proposals for growth and liberty ever put on the table. The coronavirus didn't cause Big Government to flop. It illuminated flaws that were already there, that should have been obvious to everyone long ago.
The Transition to Greatness agenda must be powerful, with ideas to reform the State and expand the private sector that would have been dismissed as unthinkable a few years ago. EVERYTHING must be thinkable now. We must aim higher than "return to February."
We need incredibly rapid growth to repair the virus-ravaged job market. Doing anything less would be heartless and cruel to people in desperate need. Statists should be asked relentlessly: "Why are you trying to line your pockets when the American people need jobs and growth?"
We need bold proposals to counter the Left's bold demands. "Get back to February" just isn't exciting enough to stand tall in the public imagination against the Left's demands to fundamentally transform society. We won't score points for capitalism and liberty by playing defense.
And we have to move fast because the great game for the future of mankind is well under way. The new Cold War has begun. The enemy thinks it can use the pandemic it unleashed as an opportunity to expand its influence, like America rebuilding the world after WW2.
We can't oppose that strategy without rebuilding our economic muscle FAST and showing the world absolute confidence in our ideals of political and economic freedom. We must once again become what the enemies of freedom fear. We must stand as giants and speak as titans.
Do you want the world to say no when fascist tyrants come knocking with offers to invest money harvested from their captive citizens, offers of discount prices on products built with slave labor and technology stolen from better nations? Then you must GIVE THEM AN ALTERNATIVE.
We won't be a real alternative if we try to govern ourselves with a sloppy half-hearted version of the enemy's ideology: authoritarianism with a smiley face, totalitarianism for "social justice," elections but you never get to vote against the permanent bureaucratic ruling class.
We can't instantly transform America into what it must become to move past the coronavirus and win the new Cold War, but we can take some big steps in the right direction and make the rest of the path clear. That is the challenge facing President Trump and his party. /end
