On the economy, Tom Friedman doesn’t get it.

New York Times sage Thomas Friedman is unhappy, warning us June 22:

There is no way that America can remain a great country if the opportunities for meaningful reform are reduced to either market- or and climate-induced crises and 100 working days every four years. We need a full-time government.

Frustrated that Obama has accomplished so little since his first 100 days, Friedman recommends forming a third party for next year’s election. But look at Friedman’s proposed party platform: 1) pass a short-term stimulus, 2) enact the Simpson-Bowles agenda of balancing the budget by raising $1 in new taxes for every $3 of budget cuts, 3) shrink our presence in Afghanistan, 4) raise automobile mileage standards, and 5) impose a gasoline tax to pay for a massive increase in government-supported scientific research, and a carbon tax to pay for new infrastructure and stimulate clean-power innovation.

Let’s see. That’s 1) spend, 2) raise taxes to cover one-third the cost of cuts, 3) cut Afghanistan war costs (cutting part of a $100 billion a year total, peanuts next to our $14 trillion debt), 4) increase government regulation, and 5) tax and spend and tax and spend. It’s a tax-and-spend Democratic Party agenda that would take votes from Obama should such a third party emerge, which it won’t. Friedman in his head knows government's got to shrink, but his heart still loves big government.

I’m sorry to see this Friedman tax-and-spend column, because ten days earlier, Friedman wrote suggesting he understood what Republicans believe—job creation is a job for business not government, so we should just help business. According to Friedman:

The [McKinsey Report, An Economy That Works: Job Creation and America’s Future,] concludes, “Progress on dimensions is needed: . . . finding ways for U.S. workers to win ‘share’ in the global economy” [—] encouraging more foreign investment in the U.S.[—] “encouraging innovation, new company creation, and scaling up of industries in the United States, and removing unnecessary impediments that slow business investment and job creation.” [emphasis added]

Friedman continued:

[D]o not underestimate uncertainty as a silent jobs killer. . . Investors and companies who have to make hiring decisions have no clue. “The economy is paying a high uncertainty premium right now,” says Mohamed El-Erian, the C.E.O. of the world’s largest bond fund, Pimco. “With such uncertainty, people delay as many decisions as possible.”

To help business, remove the uncertainty of threatened new taxes, of increasing government spending and debt, of expanding regulation, and reduce big government so business has room to grow and create jobs. I thought Friedman had gotten it.

But no.