Andy Kessler:

Facing stubbornly high unemployment and slow growth, swelling deficits and a divided Congress, President Obama is surely scrambling for an economic elixir. He has often cited the economy of the 1990s during the administration of his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, as his ideal. President Clinton managed to keep the economy moving ahead briskly despite repeated foreign currency crises—and despite raising taxes, which should have been an economic drag.

That seems to be Mr. Obama’s plan. As he has said repeatedly, he wants to increase tax rates on “millionaires and billionaires” to “the same rate we had when Bill Clinton was president”—39.6%—”the same rate we had when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs.”

Dream on. Given increases in state, local, payroll and other taxes since the 1990s, the effective rate is considerably higher. In California—the home of venture capital and of many job creators—the top marginal income-tax rate would exceed 50% thanks to the state’s new 13.3% rate. The top capital gains rate in the Golden State, if Mr. Obama gets his way, would rise past 37%—the scheduled increase on Jan. 1 to 20% plus 3.8% in ObamaCare plus the 13.3%, since the state taxes capital gains as ordinary income. …

Robert Rubin, who took over as Treasury Secretary in January 1995 after 26 years at Goldman Sachs,GS +2.22% understood a thing or two about markets. In particular, he knew that during the inflationary 1970s, weak dollars flowed into commodities instead of stocks and ventures that were vulnerable to shifts in the value of the currency. During the Reagan era, Mr. Rubin and Goldman Sachs thrived by learning that a strong dollar attracts productive investment that drives a growing economy. …

Under President Clinton, Treasury Secretary Rubin told everyone who asked that “the U.S. supports a strong dollar.” And he put the country’s money where his mouth was, pushing a strong-dollar policy that included working with central banks to keep the dollar’s value up by buying and selling currencies and advocating free trade. During Mr. Rubin’s nearly five-year tenure at Treasury, the dollar price of oil and gold dropped; the unemployment rate declined to 4.3% from 5.6%; and the stock market more than doubled. The Clinton economic legacy exists primarily because Robert Rubin acted on what he learned during the 1980s. …

It is no wonder that dollars have fled to fixed assets like gold, bidding the price up to $1700 an ounce from $900 during the Obama administration. Meanwhile, investible cash sits on the sidelines or offshore, waiting for better dollar-based returns.

Mr. Obama doesn’t need Congress to kick-start investment in the U.S. It takes a strong dollar and a new Treasury secretary with credibility as a start. That person will need to persuade Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke or his eventual replacement to end what has come to be called “QE Infinity”—investors’ belief that the Fed will just keep printing dollars and debasing their value by quantitative easing. …

But the real kicker in 2013 will be fracking-induced lower energy costs in the U.S. This is not about heating homes or cheaper driving, though that will help. It is about bringing back aluminum and chemical factories that, seeking lower natural-gas costs, were driven to build factories in Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing countries. A rising dollar—versus other currencies but especially against the price of oil and natural gas—will make a decision to build in the U.S. an easy one. Without support for the dollar, foreign capital will stay offshore until investing in the U.S. feels safe.

A strong dollar has already proven under Presidents Reagan and Clinton to increase investment and then jobs and then profits and then more investment. A weak dollar will delay an investment boom and continue the country’s current plodding path. Inquiring minds and investors wonder which it will be.