This week, the new House majority leader, Rep. Steny Hoyer, released the House calendar for January. Mr. Hoyer trumpets the “First 100 Hours,” saying, “Next week, the clock will start ticking on the 100 hours agenda.”

Practically all Americans have clocks, which show that 100 hours ends after four days and four hours. But, according to Mr. Hoyer, it takes 14 days to reach 100 hours.

One place where this time warp occurs is Europe. With the exception of the British, Europeans aren’t allowed to work more than 48 hours a week. In France the limit is 35 hours. This may explain where Democrats get some of their European-style proposals.

As the new Congress begins work, it should peruse a recently published book, “The Future of Europe: Reform or Decline,” by two Italian economists, Harvard’s Alberto Alesina and Bocconi University’s Francesco Giavazzi. They explain what went wrong in Europe — in particular in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain — and how Europe can continue as a major economic power.

“The Future of Europe” shows how the economies of Europe and America diverged in the 1970s. Higher taxes, increased regulation, and special interests stifled European entrepreneurship, causing fewer opportunities, shorter work hours, and lower productivity. That’s why brilliant economics professors such as Mr. Alesina shiver in Boston rather than sit and enjoy the sunny cafes of Rome or Milan.

Unless Europe reduces taxes, government spending, regulation, and allegiance to special interests, and also restructures welfare payments, it is doomed to a continuing decline in living standards. An increasingly smaller percentage of workers will be left supporting a larger percentage of retirees, students, and unemployed.

Rather than learn from Europe’s mistakes, the House wants to repeat them. Let’s consider the House’s calendar as announced by Mr. Hoyer.

Yesterday: Swearing-in ceremonies. Please don’t begin the 100-hour clock when the festivities are just beginning. The first order of business is celebrations.

Friday, January 5: Congress will leave early. Europeans are also fond of sneaking out early on Friday. The biggest traffic jams in Germany are at 2 p.m. on Fridays.

Tuesday, January 9: After a very long weekend, Mr. Hoyer’s schedule calls for implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. But many of these recommendations have already been implemented.

Wednesday, January 10: Raise the minimum wage. High minimum wages condemn low-skilled and young workers in Europe to unemployment rates that are many times those of America. European businesses rationally respond to high minimum-wage laws and other inflexible labor regulations by changing their technology so as to hire fewer low-paying workers and buy more machines, as documented in another paper by Mr. Alesina. American firms will follow suit.

Thursday, January 11: Provide greater federal funding for stem cell research. American taxpayers, rather than private investors, will pay for this program. But no one necessarily will see any return. European governments, along with others, choose individual firms to subsidize, curtailing competition and driving out entrepreneurial activity. Both Concorde and Airbus, each propped up with an initial $4 billion in government subsidies and more thereafter, were once viewed as the epitome of European success. But failure in competition with privately managed companies was inevitable. If businesses cannot succeed without government subsidies, they likely never will succeed. Biomedical research is one of the great technological frontiers. Additional federal research funding is not necessarily the best approach.

Friday, January 12: Allow the federal government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to regulate prices. European governments engage in this form of price-setting regulation already, and this has forced innovative researchers to leave Europe. Now Congress wants to repeat the same misguided policy for America.

Wednesday, January 17: After another really long weekend, the House returns to cut interest rates on student loans. In Europe, governments pay for practically all higher education. Higher education in Europe is an expensive state industry supported by taxpayers. Many Italians stay in college until age 27. Also, European higher education distinctly lags behind American higher education.

Thursday, January 18: Raise taxes on the oil industry and shift American energy policy further away from market-based mechanisms and more toward renewable energy. This is another example of using government funds to try to create a winning industry, in this case renewable energy. If Congress wants to reduce Americans’ consumption of gasoline, it should raise gasoline taxes and get rid of alternative energy mandates and subsidies. This would let firms develop more efficient energy sources.

Two weeks from now, the House will have concluded 336 hours of ordinary time. Mr. Hoyer and the new leadership will count only 100 of those hours, and they will no doubt congratulate themselves on their legislative achievements.

Americans look to government to exercise good judgment rather than to pass as many laws as possible. Better to have Congress look before it has America leap off a cliff. To see the view from the bottom of the cliff, members of Congress might do well to look at the European experience.

Ms. Furchtgott-Roth is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of Hudson’s Center for Employment Policy. Between 2003 and 2005, she was chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor.