Reclaiming Prosperity: Less Government, More Liberty (Commentary)

We are in a time of real uncertainty. The economy looks strong on the surface, but beneath the top-line numbers, cracks are forming.

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Reclaiming Prosperity: Less Government, More Liberty

Real GDP shrank by 0.3% in Q1 2025. That’s a contraction, even as inflation remains persistent. The PCE price index jumped 3.6%, and core PCE rose 3.5%. That’s a textbook case of stagflation—shrinking output and rising prices.

We’re told this is temporary, but the trends suggest something deeper. The government continues to crowd out private activity, distort incentives, and erode long-term confidence in markets and money.

The labor market is weakening, too. April’s report showed 177,000 new jobs, but most were part-time or government-funded. Labor force participation is stuck at 62.6%, and long-term unemployment rose to 1.7 million people. Real wage gains are flat. More and more Americans are working harder just to maintain the same standard of living.

That’s why consumer sentiment is collapsing. The University of Michigan’s sentiment index fell to 50.8 in May—the second-lowest on record. Inflation expectations jumped to 7.3% for the year ahead, and three-quarters of consumers cite tariffs and trade policy as a top concern.

So, where is all of this coming from?

Part of it is misguided economic policy. Congress continues to spend far beyond its means. From 2015 to 2024, federal outlays grew 88%, while population and inflation combined rose 27.6%. If lawmakers had held spending to that sustainable rate, we could’ve saved $2.2 trillion in 2024 alone—and avoided piling on over $14 trillion in new debt over the last decade.

But here’s the deeper issue: we’ve strayed from our founding economic philosophy.

Instead of trusting markets and individual liberty, Washington increasingly turns to industrial policy, central planning, and populist redistribution schemes.

Just look at the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill.” It rightly proposes to extend the Trump tax cuts, especially full expensing, which I support because it drives long-term investment and productivity. But the bill lacks the spending discipline needed to make the tax relief permanent. And without real fiscal reform, the benefits of pro-growth tax policy will be overwhelmed by mounting debt and inflation.

Worse, there’s a bipartisan trend toward national industrial policy—a top-down economic model that claims to fix market failures by directing capital, picking favored sectors, and subsidizing politically popular industries. That’s not conservatism. That’s not capitalism. It’s 21st-century mercantilism dressed in red, white, and blue.

As I recently argued in response to American Compass's Techno-Industrial Policy Playbook, this vision of the economy requires massive government coordination and the suppression of market signals. It replaces competition with cronyism and freedom with favoritism.

We must resist this drift, whether from the left or national populists on the right.

The answer isn’t technocratic planning or populist backlash. The answer is classical liberalism: free enterprise, voluntary exchange, sound money, property rights, and constitutionally limited government. This is the tradition of Hayek, Friedman, Sowell, and Buchanan. It’s what built American prosperity, and it’s what will save it.

I call my roadmap the Let Americans Prosper Framework. It’s grounded in two simple ideas:

1. Cap government spending growth at the rate of population plus inflation.

2. Grow the economy by removing barriers to investment, work, and trade.

If we do those two things—if we increase real GDP growth by one percentage point and hold spending to 1% annually—we could balance the federal budget by 2031. There would be no tax hikes, no tricks, just common sense and accountability.

The states show it’s possible. States like Florida, Iowa, and North Dakota are practicing sustainable budgeting. They’re attracting new residents and businesses. Meanwhile, states that pursue bigger budgets, higher taxes, and corporate favoritism are watching people leave.

Even in Texas, where I live and work, we see warning signs. Despite a massive $24 billion surplus, the legislature passed a bloated $336 billion budget for 2026–27. Funds like the Texas Future Fund and other constitutionally dedicated accounts sidestep spending caps and create long-term liabilities. That’s not the Texas model I signed up for.

We need to get back to first principles. Less spending. More freedom. Real growth.

That means:

• Making the Trump tax cuts permanent—and pairing them with real spending caps.

• Rejecting tariffs and returning to free, open trade.

• Reforming entitlements, not expanding them.

• Limiting federal power and empowering families, workers, and entrepreneurs.

Milton Friedman said it best: “The real problem is not how to get new taxes. The real problem is how to stop the government from spending more than it collects.” That’s as true now as it’s ever been.