Lawmakers are too focused on returning to the days when manufacturing ruled while the goal should be reducing the barriers to entrepreneurship.
Promising a return to a Norman Rockwell-esque past where everyone had great jobs, financial stability and a shot at the American dream makes for great politics, but terrible economic policies. The current and last US presidents, perhaps recalling an economy from their glory years, are both guilty of this. Donald Trump ran on the explicit promise to “Make America Great Again” by reducing dependence on international trade and re-shoring manufacturing. Joe Biden also lets nostalgia guide his economic policies, which attempt to bring back the glory days of unions while restoring an economy based in manufacturing.
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Allison Schrager is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.
This piece originally appeared in Bloomberg Opinion