For good reason “voters are “feeling horrible” about the economy under Biden. According to Fortune, a “big part” of the stock market is “unconvinced economy is going anywhere” because there is “weakness underneath the hood.” In its most recent report, the Conference Board said the leading economic indicators declined “again in October.” It forecasts “that real GDP will expand by just 0.8 percent in 2024.” The St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank expects “slower GDP growth” in 2024, and noted that “inflation remains above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target” even as its grip “appears to be breaking.”

The truth is we’ve always had an underperforming economy, even in the Kennedy and Reagan boom years. Prosperity invariably has been strangled by taxes far in excess of what’s been needed to generate revenues for the proper size of government. Regulation has curbed innovation, business growth and job creation. The constant expansion of government has crowded out private sector investment, which drives economic progress.

If we are to reach our economic potential, we need our own Javier Milei, a fearless and authentic public servant who will stand up to the real radicals and refuse to surrender an inch of ground. Deep tax cuts. A no-compromises deregulatory schedule. A disassembling of the ever-metastasizing bureaucracy. Greater individual freedom.

[Maybe we should wait to see how Milei performs over the long term before anointing him as a free-market savior. Argentina faces a severe crisis at the moment, and Milei may not have enough political room to impose the kind of harsh measures necessary to right the ship. If we are looking for a Milei model here, we’d first have to get a candidate both willing to dismantle the federal bureaucracy and competent enough to execute such a plan … and it would almost certainly require supermajorities in Congress to fully accomplish, too. Would voters really support such a candidate, whose first targets would necessarily be federal entitlement programs? — Ed]