Judd Gregg: The silver lining

There is a way to find a silver lining in the entire disturbance that now seems to surround us.

First is the economy: It is growing. When compared to other developed and developing nations, we are actually doing rather well.

But the economy needs to grow faster, and it can. This will happen if we make America the best place in the world to put capital to work. It is capital investment that, to a large degree, pumps up an economy.

{mosads}We already are viewed as the best place in the world to protect capital. Numerous foreign investors and entities continue to move large sums of their currencies into dollars or dollar assets, and even buy United States assets in order to have a safe haven — an insurance policy, if you will — for their wealth. This is one of the reasons why housing prices in places such as New York, Miami and San Francisco are so high.

We need to take the next step, however. It is all well and good for America to be the best place for foreign investors to protect their assets. But we ought to also make it the best place to invest in order to get a return on assets.

This is not a difficult lift. Two primary things need to occur.

First, we need to change our corporate tax laws to make investment in America competitive with other developed countries. 

In fact, we should change the laws so we are the best place to do business from a tax standpoint. This would cause foreign capital to rush into our economy and give us a dramatic economic boost. The infusion would create jobs, increase prosperity and add lots of new tax revenue.

We should in fact emulate the Irish tax rate, which at 12.5 percent is the lowest in Europe. The Irish have drawn massive investment into their nation by this means.

Such a tax policy would also have the ancillary effect of ending the impetus for American companies to move overseas through inversion and other means. It would cause the massive amount of cash held overseas by U.S. companies to be repatriated and invested here.

Second, we need to improve our labor supply. 

To say that we need to have people who can do the jobs that are being created sounds like a statement of the obvious. But in fact our schools and colleges are not currently meeting this need.

This means we need to reorient our education system.

This also is reasonably easy to do. We simply need to take advantage of the great disruptive forces that are occurring in education due to the use of the Internet. 

It is vital to end the monopoly that bricks and mortar have on education, and instead turn to a system where people who wish to improve their skills can do so by educating themselves over the Internet. 

This approach is coming. Americans are turning to the Internet for everything, including education. We should adopt policies that accelerate this activity. 

Why, for example, should elementary and secondary school students be held hostage by teachers unions that insist that they be taught to the lowest common denominator in order to protect their teaching jobs? 

Why not let students learn in alternative settings, at home or in charter schools, where they can advance their knowledge in large part by interaction over the Internet in ways that involve academic excellence and the teaching of wanted and useful knowledge?

More importantly — and again, easily done — would be the aggressive expansion of Internet-based programs that are properly accredited and that would enable people already in the workforce to add to their skills.

In this way, people who wish to improve their ability to participate in our technology-led world could do so. Rather than having to go to a place to learn, they could have learning come to them. 

This is already happening, which is why accelerating this activity is so likely to succeed in giving us a labor force that is ready to energize an expanding economy.

If we combine these two clear and do-able initiatives on tax and education, America will see a massive infusion of capital. 

This capital will cause expansive growth and that growth will generate jobs and prosperity, as well as even helping the government to reduce its debt. 

The result will be a much more livable future for Americans — especially the next generation.

Judd Gregg (R) is a former governor and three-term senator from New Hampshire who served as chairman and ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, and as ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Foreign Operations subcommittee.