Economics

consumers better off.

These basic economic insights are too often missing in Biden’s decisions in his first 100 days.

For example, the president’s recent memo on how agencies are to conduct cost-benefit analyses encourages them to place a long list of social agendas ahead of consumers. His aspirations to improve the environment, combat racism and pursue justice are laudable and should impact costbenefit analyses.

But giving them pre-eminence misses the larger point that a singular focus on these pursuits fails to build the economic foundation needed for progress. In a sense the president appears to fail to understand that economic resources are created by a vibrant free economy — not a heavily taxed and regulated one — and that regulation more often favors the politically powerful than the people who are struggling to improve their lives.

If Smith were alive today, he would likely encourage Biden to shrink rather than grow the government’s role in people’s lives.

With federal spending now around one-fourth of GDP, government has become the primary determinant of income and wealth for a large share of the population. And regulation is on the rise, giving people less say in their own lives. As Smith concluded, this ends badly.

A contributor to the

American Enterprise Institute’s Techpolicydaily.com, Mark Jamison is the Director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida.