New Release! Growth Commission 2024-25 Growth Presidency Memo
A Report of the Growth Commission for the Incoming US Presidential Administration
Greetings Competition Corner Subscribers,
In addition to yesterday’s roundup from Postgraduate Fellow Satya Marar, we would like to publicize a newly released report from the Growth Commission, on which Mercatus Senior Fellow Alden Abbott serves as a Commissioner.
The Commission, founded by former UK Trade Minister Shanker Singham and former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, has released a new report outlining how the incoming US administration can unleash economic growth through specific, targeted reforms.
The Commission presented the report at the US Capitol Building on Wednesday, November 13. The report focuses on the areas of tax, fiscal, trade, and regulatory policy.
The policy proposals in the Growth Presidency Report include:
Reintroducing major portions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 that were enacted on a temporary basis and are currently scheduled to be phased out, including:
Restoring full immediate expensing for machinery and other short-lived assets
Extending the benefits of full expensing to structures, including commercial real estate, plants, residential buildings, farm structures, and transport infrastructure
Restoring the expensing of R&D
Reducing the corporate tax rate to 15%
Delivering a comprehensive program of regulatory reform including:
Reissuing the Executive Order that made executive branch agencies eliminate two regulations for each new one adopted
Evaluating Biden-era executive orders that imposed excessive burdens on the private sector and fail a cost-benefit test for possible redrafting or total rescission
Requiring “independent agencies” within the executive branch to consider cost-benefit analysis in promulgating any rules, regulations, or other decisions from a competition standpoint
Pursuing a trade policy which:
Introduces forensic and targeted tariffs on products produced by countries like China where practices such as intellectual property theft, state subsidies and other market distortions for key industries have artificially reduced the cost of production and directly caused damage to U.S. firms
Embraces a foreign-market-opening trade agenda, including deals with key allies such as the UK or having such allies accede to or “dock on” to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement
Avoiding the energy policy mistakes of the UK and much of Western Europe whose attachment to Net Zero policies has resulted in soaring energy costs for consumers and businesses alike
Adopting an undistorted, innovation-enhancing, pro-competitive industrial policy that creates a good entrepreneurial ecosystem that allows all firms to compete on an equal footing and exploit new technologies and business models
Using targeted economic tools – rather than economically counterproductive national security tools – to deal with economic problems
The full report can be read and downloaded here.
Wishing you all a Happy Thursday,
Giorgio Castiglia