GL, I think that’s somewhat a short-term versus long-term issue: we need the economy to grow now to add jobs, we need productivity to grow so we can grow the GDP over the long term without unacceptable inflation.
To get the economy growing now we need to change the environment so people want to spend money. The O’s have been trying to get that to happen by spending government money, but since everything else they do is simply scaring the bejeezus out of people with money, it does no good at all.
That means, basically, reassuring people that it’s safe. Killing off a lot of the stupid things that have been done in the last eighteen months would help.
Long-term, make investment in R&D cheap; encourage people to invest by eliminating dividend taxation and capital gain taxes; make the tax code simple (how much productivity would be gained simply by eliminating all the time spend on taxes?)
