Wall Street Journal likes T-Paw's growth marker

The Wall Street Journal is enthusiastic about Tim Pawlenty's vision to jump start the economy.

Among GOP Presidential contenders, Tim Pawlenty is offering the most ambitious reform agenda so far, and his economic address yesterday continued the trend. While details remain to be filled in, the former Minnesota Governor is rightly focusing on a growth revival that ought to define the 2012 campaign.

Most notable in symbolic political terms, Mr. Pawlenty proposed what he called the "big, positive goal" of growing the U.S. economy by 5% a year over the next decade. His policy mix is centered on building a durable expansion and boosting middle-class incomes, and his speech was notable for its optimism, avoiding the austerity temptation that traps many Republicans.

A Pawlenty spokesman told us the 5% target is realistic and achievable, and it's true that the economy grew 4.9% on average between 1983 and 1987, and nearly 4.7% between 1996 and 1999. Yet such long booms are rare in developed economies and we can't recall one that lasted 10 years.

The goal is still worthy as an aspiration, especially amid the current recovery that should be far stronger after a long and deep recession. The recovery has reached 5% only in the last quarter in 2009, and that was mostly the result of businesses rebuilding inventories that had been cut to the bone. Growth has since slowed to 2% or below, failing to reach cruising speed despite (or in our view because of) the entire liberal playbook of government spending, temporary and targeted tax incentives, new entitlements and regulation, and monetary reflation.

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