On Ronald Reagan and His Legacy
Feb. 5, 2011
Ronald Reagan was born on February 6, 1911. There will be lots of articles on him this weekend. Here are my thoughts.
When I was ten years old, I saw The Winning Team (1952), on Grover Cleveland Alexander, the great pitcher. I went back to see it again. It influenced me: the story of a great pitcher, his decline into alcoholism, and his return to greatness. I did not see that Reagan was too old to play the role. I did not recognize the painted stands in the background indicated a low-budget movie. I did not know that it was late in his career, that Doris Day was really being used in a supporting role to boost attendance. I just loved the movie. It was the only Reagan film that ever impressed me.
Two months later, I was on the Super Chief, heading to Chicago with my parents, and from there to Ohio. I was walking up a the aisle of a car, and I looked back. There he was, at the other end of the car. The next day, it happened again. This time, I held the door open for him. He said, "Thanks." I should have told him how much I liked the movie. Even big shots love to hear they are appreciated by kids.
He got fewer movie roles. I saw him later on General Electric Theater. He introduced the weekly dramas.
He had been hired as a public relations spokesman by Lemuel Boulware. Lem was a free market man. He dealt successfully with the union. He pioneered the practice of having a slip in every worker's paycheck envelope that showed all the taxes withheld. I met him in 1972 when I worked for the Foundation for Economic Education.
Boulware taught Reagan about the free market. Reagan went around to GE plants to give what were cheerleading speeches. Over time, Reagan changed his mind. He had been an anti-Communist New Dealer. He had led the Screen Actors Guild. But began to see the truth of Boulware's position. It took years.
We all know the story of his 1964 campaign speech for Goldwater, given late in the campaign. It launched him as a national political figure. He began with a warning on the Federal government's debt. It was a legitimate warning. Two decades later, he ignored this warning as no peacetime President ever had.
As the governor of California, he immediately signed a law imposing withholding taxes. He had made a campaign promise that he would not do this. This raised revenues. He articulated the conservative line, but state spending grew. This was later to mark his Presidency.
He ran against Ford in the 1976 Republican primary. But he announced that, if nominated, he would run with Schweiker as his VP. Schweiker was a liberal. He repeated this in 1980, when he accepted Bush on the ticket, which he had publicly promised not to do.
As President, he left a conflicting legacy.
1. He got Congress to lower marginal tax rates (1981).
2. He accepted hikes in Social Security taxation (1983)
3. He put Bush on the ticket, launching that dynasty.
4. He staffed his administration with Bush's people.
5. He ignored them on the USSR.
6. He bankrupted the Soviet Union: arms race.
7. He ran annual $200 billion deficits (1983-88)
8. He vetoed few spending bills.
9. He articulated the free market line.
10. He articulated optimism about America.
11. He left Carter's legacy as "malaise" (Carter never said it.)
12. He galvanized the New Christian Right.
13. He established a new standard for Presidential rhetoric.
A. He gave us this: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."
B. He was funny.
His deeds only rarely matched his stated agenda, but on income taxes and Communism, they did. On his stated goal of a balanced budget, he was a disaster. We are still living with that disaster.
Without Lem Boulware, Reagan would not have been Reagan. So, on this 100th anniversary of Reagan's birth, I celebrate the man who made Reagan what he was rhetorically: Lem Boulware.
On Boulware's legacy, I offer the assessment made by William H. Peterson, a colleague at NYU of Ludwig von Mises. Mises taught Hans Sennholz. Reagan once told Sennholz he had learned much from Sennholz's writings. Peterson is still alive -- the last of that generation of free market economists.https://fee.org/articles/boulwarism-ideas-have-consequences