equally true, if we go another trillion in debt as milton freedman taught us decades ago and you just create a jobs program, people dig a ditch with teaspoons and fill in the ditch, that would also create gdp growth. >> it would in the short term, that's right. >> that would also create growth in the short term. i am trying to show the context of smart economic growth versus anything that causes economic growth. the second remark the ranking member made was immigration increases would increase gdp growth, that's also a true statement. but what most economists use as a more helpful measure is gdp per capita. would you say that's accurate as a measure of our welfare, gdp per capita is more important to the average person than just growth and gdp? >> absolutely that's what's behind household income. >> good. is it your understanding in terms of federal scoring immigration federal programs come into play, but if an average person with a 9th grade education i am grates into the country, makes $20,000, pays little in federal income tax, but if they have two kids in school, the cost of that

equally true, if we go another trillion in debt as milton freedman taught us decades ago and you just create a jobs program, people dig a ditch with teaspoons and fill in the ditch, that would also create gdp growth. >> it would in the short term, that's right. >> that would also create growth dig a ditch with teaspoons and then fill in the ditch that would create gdp growth? hrchlt it would >> it would in the short term. >> and i'm just trying to show the context of smart economic growth versus anything that causes economic growth. second remark the ranking member made is that immigration increases would increase gdp growth. that's also a true statement but what most economists use as the more helpful measure is gdp per capita, and would you say that's accurate as a measure of our welfare? that gdp per capita is more important to the average person than just growth in gdp? >> absolutely. that's what's behind household income. >> good. and is it your understanding that in terms of federal scoring, immigration federal programs come into play, but if an average person with a ninth grade

conservative economist milton freedman wrote that government exists in part to reduce such harms. when the costs of those externalities don't get factored into the price of a product conservative economic doctrine, indeed all economic doctrine classifies that as a subsidy a market failure. right now for fossil fuel producers, that subsidy is immense, giving them artificial advantage over cleaner energy sources. the international monetary fund just postulated that the annual subsidy just in america to the fossil fuel industry is $700 billion. we tend to talk around here in budget cycles of ten years. that means it's $7 trillion in a budget cycle. that's a subsidy all right. a carbon fee can repair that market failure by incorporating unpriced damage into the cost of fossil fuels. then the free market, not industry not government, can drive the best energy mix for the country with everyone competeing on level ground. that's how nixon treasury secretary and reagan secretary of state george shultz sees it. he and the late nobel laureate gary s. becker made the case for a carbon fee in