Regulations. Another boogyman.

Please be specific. Name any regulation that in fact does more to strangle investment than to prevent unbridled greed. There are two sides to the regulation coin. It is widely accepted even by conservative economists that the single greatest cause of the financial crisis was the absence of effective regulations on mortgages and other investment scams. The reason why the 'Wall Street crooks' (my convenient global term for all of the big finance thieves), can't be effectively prosecuted today, is that most of their actions were not strictly prohibited by law. The very least we should do is to take a healthy cut of their colossal ripoffs!

Oh, and another gross generalization - far more businesses have left the country because of high labor and materials costs than because of taxes. I wish I could recall where I saw the precise study, but in a survey of executives of large corporations which relocated manufacturing out of the country, taxes and government regulation were well down on the list of reasons for those moves. I will agree that a number of corporations have opened up 'front' offices overseas to escape some corporate profits taxes, but this has had a fraction of the economic impact that the loss of jobs and production has had.

You can't have a strong country with a strong economy without a strong, flexible, smart government. I'm not suggesting our government is very smart, especially at the moment with the absurdities of the obstructionist Republican bloc in Congress. But regardless of the current nonsense, I cannot see how you can support government "out of the way". Do you honestly prefer an oligarchy of enormously wealthy CEOs running the country exactly as they wish?