Private Opportunity is Better than Public Subsidy

January 2, 2020 By E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

President Donald J. Trump applauds the crowd as he is introduced on stage at the Summit on Transforming Mental Health Treatment on Thursday, Dec. 19, 2019, at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building South Court Auditorium at the White House. (Official White House Photos by Tia Dufour)

You wouldn’t know it by listening to the arguments in any of the recent Democratic primary debates, but tax cuts, and smaller government in general, have been good for the American economy every time they’ve been tried. Daniel Henninger, writing at The Wall Street Journal, explains that like his forbears, Reagan and Coolidge, President Trump understands “that private opportunity is better than public subsidy.” He writes (abridged):

As he starts his re-election campaign, Mr. Trump is putting Hoover behind him, preferring instead to run on Coolidge’s record of an expanding economy whose job and wage turbines are humming. And by the way, Pete Buttigieg isn’t the second coming of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Depression and FDR transformed the Democratic Party. It adopted as an article of faith, held to this day by every Democratic presidential candidate, that any tear in the social fabric should be mended with permanent entitlements or subsidies. The competing idea is that subsidies are a poor substitute for finding and holding a job in a vibrant private economy.

That’s what President Coolidge believed in the 1920s, and the belief that private opportunity is better than public subsidy has been kept alive the past century by such public figures as Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp, Paul Ryan and Donald Trump. Mr. Trump’s gut-level belief in the power of the private economy is an attribute that gets overwhelmed by the daily drama.

E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. His focus at all times is on preparing clients and readers for “Times Like These.” E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zildjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart (RIP) of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West (RIP JB) and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com To sign up for my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter, click here.

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