Get the Economic Growth Choice Right

"Get the growth choice right, and we'll be ok," argues Daniel Henninger at the Wall Street Journal. "Get it wrong and your kids will be talking Australia emigration."

Right now, with growth stuck below 2%, we're toast. With strong growth at 3% or better, there will be jobs. With long-term growth, Medicare, debt and the rest of the horribles that keep worrywarts awake at night are solvable. With strong growth, the U.S. will not have to cede world leadership prematurely to whichever Chinese functionary slugs his way to the top of their heap. With strong growth, your college graduate can move out of the house. With normal American growth, Europe may be irrelevant but it won't die, and a U.S. president won't look oddly small talking to the Vladimir Putins of the world.

Mr. Obama was exactly right in Cleveland when he said economic growth "is the defining issue of our time," that his and his opponents' views on growth are fundamentally different and "this election is your chance to break that stalemate." This he gets. Only the most obtuse "pragmatists" persist in believing the solution lies in a mystical center somehow combining elements from this ideological oil and water. ... Voters have to pick [between] two competing growth models, which means paying attention to what the candidates are saying about economic growth.