No quick fixes for all that's broken / BY PETER MORICI | Monday, Nov. 14, 2016, 9:00 p.m.
America emerges from a bizarre presidential election facing serious challenges abroad and at home that were not adequately discussed. Voters were too distracted by the misdeeds and character flaws of the major party nominees.
ISIS may be dislodged from territory, but state entropy in the Middle East will continue to incubate Islamic radicalism and terrorist attacks in Europe and America.
China is girding its loins ? beefing up air and naval power and extending its tentacles through private investment and its regional infrastructure bank ? to challenge American leadership in Asia and beyond.
Too few Americans can find decent-paying jobs or embrace optimism for their children's future.
Underneath all of this is a sclerosis that limits economic growth and, in turn, the resources available to government ? whether led by liberals or conservatives ? to sufficiently address these problems.
Both the Bush and Obama economic recoveries managed annual growth hardly better than 2 percent ? decidedly less than the prosperous Reagan-Clinton era.
Nearly a decade of easy monetary policy has failed to jump-start business investment and job creation.
Huge budget deficits have similarly failed. Uncle Sam is still borrowing $660 billion a year to finance spending and entitlements.
The growth problem is more structural than rooted in poor macroeconomic policies. It is deeply embedded in the unrealistic expectations of voters to whom politicians gladly pander.
Americans have been unwilling to accept that we still live in a market economy. The failed history of socialism teaches we cannot accomplish prosperity without corporate wealth to build factories and invest in research and development and without some inequality and adequate rewards for individuals who work hard and innovate.
Individually, that requires each of us to be accountable and cultivate self-discipline. If we want secure and prosperous lives, we must invest in skills so that we have something to offer our neighbors in exchange for the things we need and value.
We have chosen to be gullible to the easy promises of politicians, who by their essential nature place vanity and personal status above the public purpose.
Our universities are better at delivering Saturday gridiron pageantry than skilled graduates who are agile with emerging technologies and well-grounded in rudimentary problem-solving. Nevertheless, politicians celebrate these decadent institutions and burden students with huge debt and empty futures to pay for the folly.
Big-city mayors deceive voters that adequate housing and job opportunities can be accomplished amid high taxes and rampant crime ? read Chicago ? and moribund and collapsing mass-transit systems ? read New York and Washington.
Fixing these problems by taking on entrenched interests is much tougher than promising palliatives like plowing more money into health care and education. It takes little courage for politicians to deceive voters by saying everything can be financed by taxing the richest 1 percent or miraculously by gutting the federal income tax.
The one thing we didn't see much of during the recent presidential campaign is evidence that either candidate had the will and ideas to fix what's broken or the courage to promise Americans hard work and the opportunity to pay for the things they want.
Peter Morici is an economist and business professor at the University of Maryland.
America emerges from a bizarre presidential election facing serious challenges abroad and at home that were not adequately discussed. Voters were too distracted by the misdeeds and character flaws of the major party nominees.
ISIS may be dislodged from territory, but state entropy in the Middle East will continue to incubate Islamic radicalism and terrorist attacks in Europe and America.
China is girding its loins ? beefing up air and naval power and extending its tentacles through private investment and its regional infrastructure bank ? to challenge American leadership in Asia and beyond.
Too few Americans can find decent-paying jobs or embrace optimism for their children's future.
Underneath all of this is a sclerosis that limits economic growth and, in turn, the resources available to government ? whether led by liberals or conservatives ? to sufficiently address these problems.
Both the Bush and Obama economic recoveries managed annual growth hardly better than 2 percent ? decidedly less than the prosperous Reagan-Clinton era.
Nearly a decade of easy monetary policy has failed to jump-start business investment and job creation.
Huge budget deficits have similarly failed. Uncle Sam is still borrowing $660 billion a year to finance spending and entitlements.
The growth problem is more structural than rooted in poor macroeconomic policies. It is deeply embedded in the unrealistic expectations of voters to whom politicians gladly pander.
Americans have been unwilling to accept that we still live in a market economy. The failed history of socialism teaches we cannot accomplish prosperity without corporate wealth to build factories and invest in research and development and without some inequality and adequate rewards for individuals who work hard and innovate.
Individually, that requires each of us to be accountable and cultivate self-discipline. If we want secure and prosperous lives, we must invest in skills so that we have something to offer our neighbors in exchange for the things we need and value.
We have chosen to be gullible to the easy promises of politicians, who by their essential nature place vanity and personal status above the public purpose.
Our universities are better at delivering Saturday gridiron pageantry than skilled graduates who are agile with emerging technologies and well-grounded in rudimentary problem-solving. Nevertheless, politicians celebrate these decadent institutions and burden students with huge debt and empty futures to pay for the folly.
Big-city mayors deceive voters that adequate housing and job opportunities can be accomplished amid high taxes and rampant crime ? read Chicago ? and moribund and collapsing mass-transit systems ? read New York and Washington.
Fixing these problems by taking on entrenched interests is much tougher than promising palliatives like plowing more money into health care and education. It takes little courage for politicians to deceive voters by saying everything can be financed by taxing the richest 1 percent or miraculously by gutting the federal income tax.
The one thing we didn't see much of during the recent presidential campaign is evidence that either candidate had the will and ideas to fix what's broken or the courage to promise Americans hard work and the opportunity to pay for the things they want.
Peter Morici is an economist and business professor at the University of Maryland.
