Growth or Trust
This morning I had the great pleasure of joining Maria Bartiromo in studio for the last hour of her show on Fox Business. We discussed a wide range of issues from the Federal Reserve to removing the restrictions on oil exports, but given where we are in the election cycle, the subject of Hillary and her emails naturally came up. The question is, should voters focus on growth or trust? We spoke with Don Baer, former President Bill Clinton Communications Director, about what he thinks are the key issues for voters.
Spoiler alert – I disagreed! Shocking I know, me, having an opinion…
The economy is facing some enormous challenges with the number of job openings continuing to be at record highs, while at the same time more and more people are giving up and leaving the workforce, thanks to a deeply structural skills mismatch. We have a tax code that is so insanely complex that more people are employed in the tax preparation industry than in the auto industry – not exactly a recipe for a productive economy! We have a regulatory regime that has become so burdensome that many small business owners simply give up or never even get their idea off the ground.
All that being said, I cannot evaluate a political candidate based solely on what they say. Hillary Clinton put our nation’s security at risk based on her claim that it was more convenient for her. For the love of Pete! You carry a purse! Cell phones aren’t that big and you have an entourage that could carry them both for you should you choose. Many of the rest of us manage to survive the horrors of carrying two mobile phones. Her excuse sounds pretty weak to me, which leaves me wondering what the real reason was and calls into question my ability to trust what she says. So even if she did have compelling ideas for improving the economy, how could I know she’d follow through. The rest of the nation already views those in D.C. with well place suspicion, we don’t need more reasons to doubt the legitimacy of those we elect to govern.
