RUTHFULLY YOURS

Which candidate has the best economic plan to get America growing again? This is the most important question of the 2016 presidential campaign, yet think tanks and journalists keep getting the answer wrong.

Donald Trump will cut taxes, reduce regulation, unleash our abundant energy and eliminate our trade deficit through muscular trade negotiations that increase exports, reduce imports and eliminate cheating. These policies will double our economic growth rate, create 25 million new jobs, boost labor and capital incomes, generate trillions of additional tax revenues and reduce debt as a percentage of GDP.

Hillary Clinton’s plan points in the opposite direction. Her tax hikes on businesses and “the rich” reduce incentives to work and invest. She will increase the already staggering $2 trillion annual regulatory burden on the U.S. economy. She vows to put coal miners out of work and oil and natural gas on the back burner—raising energy prices and reducing America’s competitive advantage. After giving us three of the worst trade deals in U.S. history—Nafta in 1993, China’s 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization, the 2012 South Korea fiasco—the Clinton team is primed to pass the worst deal yet—the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would decimate the American manufacturing base.

How this adds up to a better economic plan than Mr. Trump’s is as mysterious as it is counterintuitive. Yet economic pundits keep popping up like bad pennies to make the claim.

One reason is that most think tanks only consider the competing tax plans, not the overall economic plans. This has an inherent Democratic bias because Republican tax cuts viewed in isolation almost always reduce revenues. However, by failing to calculate the substantial positive revenue offsets of growth from the Trump plan’s other reforms, these tunnel-vision “experts” are missing the bigger picture.

Consider the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. It dynamically scored a revenue reduction under the Trump plan of $2.6 trillion and a modest $663 billion surplus for the Clinton plan over the next decade. These numbers suggest the Clinton plan is more fiscally responsible. CONTINUE AT SITE

Hillary Clinton may win the election in two weeks, but the manner of her victory will bedevil her in the White House. Specifically, evidence keeps turning up suggesting that the FBI probe into her emails was influenced by political favoritism and double standards.

The latest news is the Journal’s report Monday that Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime friend of Hillary and Bill, steered money to the campaign of the wife of a top FBI official. Political organizations under Mr. McAuliffe’s control gave more than $675,000 to the 2015 Virginia state Senate campaign of Jill McCabe, the wife of FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe. Mr. McCabe, director James Comey’s right-hand man, helped oversee the probe into whether Mrs. Clinton mishandled classified information on her server.

Some $467,500 of the money came directly from Mr. McAuliffe’s political action committee, Common Good VA, while $207,788 came from the Virginia Democratic Party, which the Governor essentially controls. The funds amounted to more than one-third of all the money Mrs. McCabe raised.

Mrs. McCabe announced her candidacy the same month (March 2015) as the news broke about Mrs. Clinton’s private email server. Mr. McCabe was running the FBI’s Washington field office at the time, and he was promoted to the No. 3 FBI slot not long after the formal FBI investigation began in July 2015.

The FBI said in a statement that none of this is an issue because Mr. McCabe wasn’t promoted to the No. 2 position until February 2016, months after his wife lost her race, and only then did he assume “for the first time, an oversight role in the investigation into Secretary Clinton’s emails.”

There is a sizeable faction in this country that is disgusted with the choices we have going into the 2016 General Election. While the choices are far from the quality a great nation like the United States deserves, they are what they are. No amount of complaining, abdication of responsibility or indignation will change this reality.

But, like it or not, the outcome of this election will affect each and every one of us, and in ways that can never be rectified in our lifetimes, if at all. It is for that reason this election is a referendum on the issues, not on the candidates. It is also for this reason that it needs to be reiterated – in no uncertain terms – that General Elections are not for electing your favorite candidate. They are for protecting the country from the worst candidate.

Right now we have two candidates – arguably not the best the country can offer, who possess two extremely different visions for the country. It is about these differences – exclusively – that we must base our choices come Election Day. Put bluntly, this election isn’t about personalities, capabilities, soundbites or even criminality; it is about issues, and on these issues, we do have choices to make.

Yes, the names on the ballot give us pause. I will cede that point but offer this rebuttal for your consideration.

On the one hand, we have a politically untested, braggadocios businessman in Donald Trump who routinely makes statements before he thinks about the consequences of his words. But while many may have their principles insulted by the prospect of casting a vote for such an overt braggart, there is no question that he loves and appreciates the country that has allowed him to be so successful.