Conservative Economists: Why is Restoring Economic Growth ‘Controversial?’

Several conservative economic thinkers recently formed the Committee to Unleash American Prosperity in an effort to persuade aspiring presidents to focus on “the paramount challenge facing our country: slow growth and stagnant incomes.”

CNBC senior contributor and economist Larry Kudlow, former Reagan adviser and supply-side economist Arthur Laffer and Heritage Foundation chief economist Stephen Moore joined forces in the pages of Investor’s Business Daily [1] to explain their mission. Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media Steve Forbes [2] is also on the committee according to Kudlow.

The committee recently sponsored an event with GOP contenders that included Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

“Faster growth isn’t just needed to raise the living standards of Americans. It also would make America stronger abroad in an increasingly turbulent world,” Kudlow, Laffer and Moore wrote in the op-ed.

Kudlow, Laffer and Moore pointed out that their goals were criticized by some people on the right, the left and by media figures like Paul Krugman of The New York Times.

The three economists asked why their desire for a prosperous America with GDP higher than two percent a year was “controversial.”

“Our sin is that we want to get back to the growth rates of the 1980s and ‘90s -- an era of low tax rates, budget restraint, a stable dollar, free trade, welfare reform, light regulation and rising incomes for all classes of Americans,” they said.

They continued, “We are seeking policy solutions that create a broad-based prosperity that benefits not just the rich (as has happened under Obamanomics) but all classes of Americans.”

They pointed out that the current recovery “is still roughly $2 trillion below where it would be” if the economy had recovered the same way it did in the 1980s. They say the bulk of the current economic problems “debt and deficit, poverty, a record fall in the labor force participation rate” and more can be partially connected to the “anemic growth.”