How do we get the economy to grow more quickly?

Here are some ideas from Jeffrey Miron, senior lecturer and director of undergraduate studies in the economics department at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, who advises:

• Cancel all the tax increases scheduled to take effect at the end of 2012 and provide tax stability going forward. Make (all) the Bush tax cuts permanent. Repeal the alternative minimum tax. Eliminate the health care law's increases in the hospital insurance tax. All this will stimulate in the short term and set the stage for long-term growth. 

• Reform the tax code by eliminating the misguided deductions, exemptions, credits and loopholes that distort incentives and reward special interests. These features include big-ticket items like the deductibility of mortgage interest and employer-paid health insurance premiums, plus myriad small but senseless other provisions. 

• Lower the corporate income tax rate. The U.S. corporate tax environment is one of the least business-friendly in the world. Driving investment overseas cannot be good policy. 

• Slow the growth of entitlements. The U.S. can afford a social safety net, but our current programs are not sustainable, even in a robustly growing economy. Everyone should agree, at a minimum, to cuts that are sufficient to prevent these programs -- Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security -- from bankrupting the country. 

• Embrace immigration. Despite recent difficulties, the United States is still an attractive destination for those seeking a better life. By expanding immigration for low-skill workers, we restrain labor costs and reduce out-migration of manufacturing and other business. By easing immigration for high-skill workers -- many of them trained in the United States at taxpayer expense -- we get a return on our investment and retain industrious and innovative people. 

• Scale back military involvements around the world. A strong national defense makes sense, but it must focus on protecting the United States, not paying for Europe's defense or trying to force democracy down the throats of countries that are not receptive. 

• Cease the campaign against carbon-based fuels. Green energy may have its day, but only when coal, oil and gas become truly scarce. In the foreseeable future, traditional energy is much cheaper, and subsidies for alternative energy are a waste. 

• Stop scapegoating the rich and pretending that tax-hikes on the 1% can balance the budget. Everyone knows the numbers do not add up. 

• Respect capitalism. Anti-business rhetoric, which casts all success as undeserved, and which fails to recognize the improvements in material well-being that result from entrepreneurial success, just drive away talented people and guarantee our economic demise.

I think that most of his ideas have some merit as long as we limit immigration to people from white European nations.