We’re here at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California for the inaugural meeting of the Reagan National Economic Forum. But first up, I believe it’s necessary to celebrate the memory and the achievements of Ronald Reagan, who I believe was by far the most consequential president in the second half of the 20th century.
And indeed, he will go down as one of the greatest presidents in U.S. history. Reagan completely changed economic policy.
By the way, full disclosure, I was assistant Budget Director during Reagan’s first term, but I digress. He buried the FDR ‘New Deal’ and big government, socialist dogma that governed both Democrats and Republicans for nearly 50 years.
Reagan slashed tax rates from 70% to 28% and worked with central banker Paul Volcker to make the dollar as good as gold, thereby vanquishing inflation. Reagan once asked, “why is it inflationary if the people keep their own money and spend it the way they want to, and it’s not inflationary, if the government takes it and spends it the way it wants to?” And the economy boomed.
Nearly a 5% growth rate as inflation plunged and the stock market rose 12-fold under the Gipper. This remarkable economic recovery enabled Reagan to bring down the curtain on Soviet communism. In meetings with Gorbachev, the Russians wanted Reagan to give up the Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars, but Reagan bluntly refused and told the Russians that the American economy was producing the resources not only for the strategic defense initiative, but also for a vast American military power and might.
And the Russian communist economy was collapsing into the dustbin of history. Of course, Reagan prevailed, Gorbachev folded, and then Soviet communism evaporated. The Iron Curtain came down. Reagan was a world leader at the G7 meetings. Even though the liberal press mocked him, the other leaders followed his policies of lower taxes and deregulation in order to reignite their own economies. And Reagan’s appearance on the world stage and his policies in the US basically launched a three-decade long era of prosperity and peace.
Now, there’s always much more to be said about the Gipper’s greatness and his patriotism. He was the quintessential optimist and of course believed America to be the shining city upon a hill. He believed in American exceptionalism, and he had enormous faith in the wisdom of the American voters and the American people rather than the government. So many times, he asserted that government was the problem, not the solution. He memorably put it, “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”
The more people saw him, the more they saw the results of his policies, the more they loved him. He scored two landslide presidential election victories. And even today, his polls still run in the 60% region. But he did warn toward the end of his time how important it was to work hard to keep us free and strong, saying “freedom is a fragile thing, and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction”. That is a very important thing to always remember.
So we are here at the Reagan Library for the next two days to celebrate the life, the works, the legacy of the great Ronald Reagan.
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