Why I Can Make a Difference

Many of the terribly pressing problems facing our country are economic ones. I'm a trained economist, who has focused for decades on the problems we face. I've specialized in public finance, which includes taxes and Social Security, but I've also done work in macroeconomics, finance, banking, personal finance, labor economics, health economics, and other subfields in economics. I've had experience advising governments, international agencies, and working for our own government. I've also consulted for large corporations and learned first hand about the challenges facing small business through running my own small company.

I have no party affiliation. I worked at the Council of Economic Advisors as a Senior Economist in President Reagan's first term, but I voted for President Carter. It was an honor to serve President Reagan and the country, and I ended up writing a large part of the President Reagan's first Economic Report of the President (the 1982 Report). But anyone reading that report will find my sections were both highly supportive of some of President Reagan's policies and highly critical of others.

Good economics is not partisan, and no economist can provide impartial policy advice if he is beholden to a political party. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have been served by economists with excellent academic credentials. But when these economists go to Washington, their economics training invariably takes a back seat to their goal of pleasing the politician for whom they work. Rather than initially propose the best policies, they offer policies to their political masters that they judge to be politically feasible. As a result politicians too often fail to learn what really should be done. Any heart surgeon who failed to operate to save a patient's life would lose his license. But for economists turned politicians, there is no such penalty for continuing to advocate doing too little too late.

Today, our economy is in cardiac arrest. It needs open heart surgery, not more band aides. Massive unemployment and underemployment, astronomical fiscal obligations, and a financial system that could collapse again in short order are our economy's symptoms. Its cure is not maintaining the status quo -- the putative cautious, conservative approach. In fact, maintaining current policy is both extremely dangerous and radical. The reforms I propose would change many things very quickly and fundamentally, but they are the safe bets for our economy, ourselves, and our children.

The policies (see www.thepurpleplans.org) I'm proposing will restore jobs, increase national saving, raise investment, foster growth, fix healthcare, reform the tax system, modernize Social Security, preserve our environment, and treat all Americans, whether young or old and whether rich and poor, fairly.