Metrics of National Decline

Since 1982, the United States has run $5.7 trillion in trade deficits in manufactured goods, and $2.1 trillion in trade deficits in auto parts, trucks and automobiles. In the Bush years alone, the United States ran more than $1 trillion in trade deficits in auto parts, trucks and cars.

These statistics, these realities -- factories closing in the United States, manufacturing jobs being outsourced in the millions to China and Asia, enormous, endless trade deficits in goods -- testify to a painful truth: America is a receding and declining world power.

And in dealing with this systemic crisis, Obama's stimulus package is as irrelevant as were the Bush tax cuts.

Any suggestions for returning America to a productive nation? Maybe we should quit stimulating and, instead, remove taxes and harmful regulations on American businesses, both small and large. Maybe we should incentivize American companies instead of foreign companies. Maybe we should let Americans keep more of what they earn. And maybe we should drastically reduce government spending at home and overseas.