Tyler Cowen for President!

Tyler Cowen has a number of policy suggestions for Bush here. I highly doubt Bush will follow Cowen's plan, which is unfortunate because they're all good ideas. It's good to see that he put the elimination of trade barriers first, I agree that should be a major priority. The second idea is good as well, Europe free-rides on our huge defense budget. He doesn't give any specifics about how to end the free-rider problem, but I would say withdrawing bases from a number of countries (such as Germany) would do the trick. Regarding idea number three, means-testing would be good, but he misses something. I'm surprised he didn't mention anything about privatizing Medicare. Something I would like to see are Health Savings Accounts (sometimes referred to as HSAs). Cowen mentions two departments he wants to see abolished, namely the departments of Education and Energy. That's a good start, but we should also consider abolishing the departments of HUD, Labor, Commerce, and Agriculture. Regarding idea number eleven, I think he's just scratching the surface when he advocates getting rid of corporate taxation and the AMT. I would like to see a move towards a flat tax or national retail sales tax to replace our current system. Still, his ideas are a good start. Maybe Cowen can consider running as a write-in candidate?

Update: Tyler added a thirteenth proposal, dealing with excess regulation via cutting the number of pages in the Federal Register.