Voices
said. “We are not going to get that
first number down fast enough.”
It’s a view diametrically opposed to
the one his friend and former boss
espouses, at least these days. We’ll
see what happens if and when he
becomes president.
Conard is not a Ron Paul-style
no-government man. He favors
temporary limits on immigration
to protect American jobs as we
transition further into a “service
economy.” He thinks that banks
should be taxed for the privilege of
being backstopped by the federal
government, as they were in 2008.
But he and Romney do share a
profound faith in what they see
as a hardheaded, realistic and—to
them, inspiring—view of how the
world works.
By Conard’s calculations every
dollar of successful risk-bearing
investment produces at least five
dollars in new wealth. “I used
that number in the book because
that is the generally accepted
minimum,” he said, “but I the real
number is closer to 20 dollars.”
Our superior culture of risk,
he says, is fostered by comparatively low personal taxes and light
government regulation. And that,
in turn, has yielded growth rates
way above those of Europe and
HOWARD
FINEMAN
HUFFINGTON
07.22.12
Japan. “The Internet is the key
and they have produced NOTHING—no Facebook, Google, Amazon, YouTube, Apple, Microsoft—
NOTHING.” Bottom line: leave the
market alone.
Romney has given the book a
cautious endorsement. “Ed has
some interesting ideas,” he said. “I
don’t agree with all of them, but
give him a listen. He is a very capable thinker.”
It is easy to deride
Conard’s thoughts as
In search
nothing more than a
of gold, we’ve
redrawing of the Laffer
bitterly divided
curve from the dawn
ourselves into
of the Reagan Adminred and blue.”
istration in 1981. In
the intervening years
we have had growth, but also are
leaving our posterity with crushing debt. And we have shredded
our sense of common purpose as
a country. In search of gold, we’ve
bitterly divided ourselves into red
and blue. The 2012 campaign is and
will highlight that chasm.
But it would be a mistake for
Democrats to underestimate the appeal of the Book of Ed, and of Romney’s preaching its core message at a
time of economic stagnation. Greed
may not be good, but
sometimes it sells.