THE VOICE OF BUSINESS Art An alternative to By Richard L Lecher Lesher President Chamber of Commerce of the United States Put up up or shut up is the choice President Reagan recently offered his critics who attacked administration economic policies but suggested no alternatives of their own Now a group of 34 economistS 34 has risen to the Presidents President's challenge and proposed a radical departure from Too bad it is also a recipe for economic disaster on a grand scale The group whose membership reads like a Who of economic liberalism outlined their ideas recently in a lengthy statement billed as The Failure of and the Full Employment Alternative The paper is an unabashed celebration of the vir vir- vir virtues tues of increased government intervention tion in the economy They begin with a very peculiar picture pic- pic picture ture of our recent economic experience In their view the economy before Ronald Reagan got his hands on it was doing just fine In truth they write the US economy in 1980 was still very strong compared to the evidence suggests that we did not start 1981 with the greatest economic mess since the a federal government out of control or era a deteriorating quality of life No it was Ronald Reagan and his radically untested supply side pro pro- program gram that turned economic paradise of double digit inflation 20 percent interest rates skyrocketing energy prices and declining productivity ty into days day's disaster of six percent rc n inflation 13 percent interest rates stabilized energy prices and rising pro pro- productivity To combat these and other failures of the economists freely advocate the expansion of federal con con- control over the daily economic decisions of millions of Americans The idea that government produces little of value while fashionable these days is clearly wrong they submit The group is quick to claim that they are not proposing a simple rerun of past administrations policies The problem with the Great Society it is suggested was not t too much government but not enough Therefore they propose as the centerpiece of their Full Employment Alternative the creation of a National Economic Policy Board made up of labor business government and other experts to oversee the wage price and industrial policies of our 3 trillion economy Now no central economic committee could be complete without a lot of little committees under its jurisdiction These will be called industry commit commit- committees tees And that's not all In addition to industry commit commit- committees tees should be esta established These com com- committees must have some resources to control so therefore the work of the board and its industry committees should be augmented by an indu industrial trial development bank to channel inv invest invest- investment t ment into term long development Where will we get the money for such sucha a bank F For r starters we undo the Reagan tax t cut program simply fiscal irresponsibility and eliminate the automatic tax cuts for years after 1984 In other words dispose of index index- indexing ing which is designed to protect tax tax- taxpayers taxpayers payers from governments government's windfall in in- in inflation Dation profit There is more I haven't even discuss discuss- discussed discussed ed the broad array of new spending pro pro- programs grams that would be any anytime anytime time exceeds six per per- percent cent Without Without question the authors of this statement have proposed a distinct alternative to which slowly but surely is moving us back to the free market supply side principles upon which this country was founded The premise of this plan is that broad broad- based economic prosperity is simply not possible unless and until anointed panels of bureaucrats academicians and policy experts are set up to direct economic activity from Washington DC Never mind that several billion pea peo- pie around the globe are to varying degrees living miserable lives thanks to the edicts of hundreds of National Economic policy Boards industry com com- committees and regional committees This is a Full Employment Alter Alter- Alteri Alternative I native all ri right ht It would set us on the ther r road ad to incoming time full employees of bf the state Is this an acceptable alter alter- alternative native to I