Reagan, FDR, Health Care and Perceptions

[TGHusker]

This is a very interesting read. I consider Reagan and FDR to be the 2 greatest Presidents of the last century. The article is a review of the book “The Working Class Republican,” by Henry Olsen. The author claims that FDR and Reagan are both perceived incorrectly by their die hard fans. FDR is more conservative than he is often painted and Reagan is less conservative than normally painted - especially by today's conservatives who what to claim his mantle. I think many of today's stanch conservatives, who try to claim the Reagan robe for themselves are more in line wt Goldwater than Reagan. The article notes this as well.

 

Self disclosure: I believe during the GWB/Obama years, I too was drifting more and more towards the harshness of the Goldwater view of govt. I feel like I'm coming back home philosophically as I move more and more towards the moderate center. (This last election was an eye opener for me in many ways) Thank-you fellow HBers (esp you Knapp!) for being patient wt me as I regain my bearings. This book and article confirm the reasonableness of my movement back towards the moderate side & the real Reagan conservatism - projection of strength abroad, compassionate to the less fortunate here at home.

 

 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/was-reagan-an-fdr-democrat-in-gop-clothing/2017/07/14/9b7893c2-463e-11e7-bcde-624ad94170ab_story.html?utm_term=.97365fb9df3d

 

Some quotes - the bold below speaks to health care:

 

Sen. Barack Obama, campaigning in Nevada in early 2008, expressed his presidential ambitions in an eyebrow-raising way: by professing admiration for Ronald Reagan.

“Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and a way that Bill Clinton did not,” Obama said. “He put us on a fundamentally different path.” It gave Democrats the heebie-jeebies to think that their nominee might see the greatest conservative politician of the 20th century as his model.

But what if Obama — and everyone else — is wrong? What if Reagan, far from being a transformational political figure, was merely continuing the ideas and policies of the greatest progressive politician of the 20th century?

 

That’s the thesis of “The Working Class Republican,” by Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. “I grew up as a conservative Republican in Ronald Reagan’s California,” Olsen begins, a “die-hard” Reaganite who saw the Gipper as the nation’s right-wing standard-bearer. But in the Obama years, as Olsen began reviewing Reagan’s speeches and writings, “what I found shocked me. Everything I had been told about Reagan’s philosophy, by the Right and the Left, had been wrong.”

 

Reagan, in Olsen’s telling, was to his last breath an FDR Democrat in GOP clothing. Indeed, Olsen contends, Franklin Roosevelt and Reagan were both ardent anti-communists who supported a limited but significant role for the federal government to intervene on behalf of the common man.

 

The New Deal dramatically expanded the role of the federal government in the U.S. economy, but its reforms were often carefully calibrated to provide social insurance to the working poor, in ways that frustrated the left in the years between the New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.

In effect, while Olsen’s book focuses on the life of Reagan from the 1930s to the 1980s, it makes two revisionist arguments: first, that Reagan was much less conservative than previously understood; and second, that Roosevelt was much more conservative than previously understood.

Most provocatively, Olsen wants today’s GOP to embrace the legacy of FDR, to “reapply the cardinal principle enshrined in the New Deal, that government has a limited but strong role to play in helping the average person achieve his or her dreams.”

 

Olsen is at his most effective when he contrasts the anti-government absolutism of Barry Goldwater with the more nuanced rhetoric of Reagan. It was no accident, Olsen implies, that Goldwater won six states in the 1964 presidential election, while Reagan won 49 in 1984.

Take the example of health care. Most readers of Olsen’s book will be surprised to learn that Reagan embraced universal coverage. In “A Time for Choosing” — Reagan’s celebrated conservative manifesto delivered at Goldwater’s 1964 Republican National Convention — Reagan declared, “No one in this country should be denied medical care for lack of funds.” In a speech to the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce — in Goldwater’s backyard — Reagan said, “Any person in the United States who requires medical attention and cannot provide for himself should have it provided for him.”

While Reagan opposed “compulsory health insurance through a government bureau for people who don’t need it or who have . . . even a few million dollars tucked away,” he championed the Kerr-Mills Act of 1960, a law introduced by two Democrats that gave federal money to states with which to provide medical care for the elderly in need. Reagan said that he was “in favor of this bill — and if the money isn’t enough, I think we should put up more.”

 

TG Note: the article's author lists shortcomings of Olson's book and then ends wt this quote:

 

But he captures, in a way few Reagan biographers have, the Gipper’s eloquent calls for Washington to actively take the side of those who struggle in the modern economy. Today’s Republicans — the ones who pepper their speeches with the name “Reagan” — would be well-served to reflect on Olsen’s insights.

 

 

TG Note: I take exception to this quote below in that Trump bears no resemblance to Reagan as Trump's word/promises have been proven to be false, self serving and capsulizing on the gullibility of the voter. I understand that Trump's rhetoric was to convince the 'common man' that he was looking out for him (close the boarder, trade tariffs, stop companies from closing factories, etc), however, his promises were/are shallow without workable solutions of which he is capable of implementing.

 

President Trump’s appeal, Olsen says, is a direct result of the fact that “the core thrust of [Trump’s] argument regarding government’s ultimate purpose bears poignant similarities to Reagan’s New Deal conservatism.”

[knapplc]

Reagan was as guilty of double-talk as any other politician. While he may have publicly championed taking care of the poor, his policies often cut funding for programs that aided them, including Medicaid, Social Security & Food Stamp programs.

 

Reagan was a great president in the same way that Bill Clinton was a great president - he made people feel good about things. Policies that are negotiated in back-room sessions aren't how the common man judges a president. Instead, they focus on how that president made them feel inside, something Clinton & Reagan & Obama were good at. Trump is very much not good at that.

[zoogs]

Well, for some people; and for others, Trump is the one guy who can really make them feel good about anything.

[Danny Bateman]

Trump's zero-sumness means that the people he does make feel good largely believe it has to be at the expense of others. Clearly Trump believes this.

[TGHusker]

Knapp, I have to disagree with your conclusions. Policy makes a difference and it isn't all rhetoric. Reagan enacted policies that drove down inflation, reduced poverty as a % of population, and increased job opportunities. Yes, Reagan made us feel good but it was for good reason - Real things happened: Jobs were up, inflation was down, taxes were down, and the nuclear threat was removed from the back of our mind. Finding a job is the best welfare program there is and employment #s rose dramatically during his term. We have to remember the times - Reagan, like Obama, came into office with the worse economic conditions since the Great Depression (debates still can be had which one was worse- they were different in how they played out so not easily compared) plus he had to address the very aggressive Soviet threat which was overtaking the world after our collapse in Vietnam and subsequent withdrawal and military downsizing. Without addressing those 2 major crises, rhetoric and action to help the poor would be meaningless. Continued high inflation, unemployment, high interest rates would drive more and more people into poverty and devalue any financial aid & buying power they would receive from the govt assistance. Of course not addressing the Soviet threat would have meant years and years of continued conflicts and surrogate wars around the globe - drawing away resources that could be used for social programs. Reagan's high military spending in the 1980s eventually led to the 'peace dividend' of the 1990s - the closing of bases, military reduction and more money available for social programs that both Bush 1 and Clinton took advantage of.

 

Now Reagan, himself, admitted that he wish his admin had done more to recognize quicker, the dangers of and the solutions for the aids crisis which came to light in the early 1980s. Could there have been more he could have done on the social side - yes. One could always say more could be done if the resources were available. But when we look at cuts, those were cuts in the growth of those programs but as show below, the % of GDP spending on social/health programs went up under Reagan. However, the priority at the time had to be (1) Turn around the economic decline of the 1970s (2) Stop the Soviet threat Many on HB are too young to remember those days and easily fall prey to revisionist history of what we faced, but I lived it like many now live in the new world of the threat of terrorism.

 

This link below, compares the year Reagan took office to the year he left office and the % change in many categories. Sorry for the sloppy copy. The link has more info that isn't relevant to this portion of the discussion. It does compare Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush terms.

It is too old for Obama's #s.

 

 

 

http://reagan.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004090

 

1981 1989 %
change

 

 

Health Program Expenditures (% of GDP) 2.5 2.9 +16

 

Inflation (%) 8.9 4.6 -48

 

Population Below Poverty Threshold (% of US population) 14 13 -7

 

Unemployment Rate (%) 7.6 5.3 -30

[zoogs]

I see what knapp is saying. I was thinking about this yesterday, how the rise of television has transformed the Executive and ushered in the era of the Celebrity-President, with Trump being its exemplar. This change is almost imperceptible; at least, we talk about this TV thing, but fundamentally we still see the office as the same office once held by Washington and Lincoln and, hey, Martin Van Buren.

 

The time of JFK was Camelot; the time of LBJ, well, talk to a politnik.

 

(Bill) Clinton, Reagan, and Obama all had their flaws among their strengths; their most benevolent intentions among their fatal blind spots. What enabled and sustained them was not an evaluation of any of this, it was their prowess in branding. All Trump has shown is that good intentions and competency needs not even be attached to effective branding.

[RedDenver]

I think Reagan's biggest failure (which has been continued by every president since) was foregoing anti-trust laws and allowing giant corporations.

[TGHusker]

I think Reagan's biggest failure (which has been continued by every president since) was foregoing anti-trust laws and allowing giant corporations.

Yes and we see that today wt Amazon among others. The rise of globalism has the side affect of the rise of the mega corporation that are almost 'mini govts/countries' in themselves.

[TGHusker]

To the above post about the misconceptions on Reagan's policies on the poor I found this article

 

https://www.firstthings.com/article/1991/04/006-the-rich-the-poor-and-reaganomics

 

copied here

 

When we come to measure the success of a presidency, it matters a great deal whether the administration in question made life better or worse for the poor. A culture whose values spring from Judaism, Christianity, and a compassionate humanism cannot be satisfied unless the poor are well cared for. Those who are better off can pretty much take care of themselves. But most (not all) of the poor are too young or too old, too ill or too disabled, to care for themselves. In this regard, the two accusations most consistently directed against the administration of Ronald Reagan are: (1) that it hurt the poor (and the middle class) and (2) that it increased the gap between the rich and the poor. Getting at the validity of these propositions requires careful and disinterested analysis.

Such analysis is not easily come by. In the religious communities, as elsewhere, almost nobody was entirely nonpartisan about Reagan and his policies. Yet it is perhaps not too old-fashioned to think that religious thinkers should be devoted to telling the truth. Moreover, what happens to the poor among us is a matter of great moral moment, and our reflections about alternative policies should be informed by careful attention to the facts. Admittedly, it is not easy to get at the truth, especially since most journalism, on which we depend for our sense of what is going on, is both intellectually weakest and most partisan in reporting economic questions. It is best, therefore, to go directly to primary sources, in this case the neutral annual report of the Census Bureau, Money, Income and Poverty Status in the United States, 1988 (Series P-60, No. 166).

 

This record shows, in sum, that the Reagan administration did far better for the poor than did the Carter administration. In particular, the economic achievements of black Americans reached all-time highs. Yet this is not the record most people have heard of through the media.

For eight long years the nation’s cultural elites did everything in their power to persuade the general public to think as ill of Ronald Reagan as they did. They predicted eight recessions to the one that actually occurred. They spoke with derision of “Reaganomics,” until the so-called “misery index” invoked by Jimmy Carter—which stood as Carter left office at a postwar high—was brought down far more authoritatively (and quickly) than anyone had expected. At that point, as Reagan wryly noted, the media stopped speaking of “Reaganomics.” And when the media began perceiving good economic news—about the growing millions of employed persons and the longest peacetime expansion in American history—their reporting of it typically came surrounded with as many fragments of bad news as they could find. The Reagan era by no means brought economic Utopia, but in between the malaise of the Carter era and the malaise of the Bush era, it achieved a great deal for the poor.

 

Three years of double-digit inflation under Jimmy Carter had wreaked havoc on the poor. Those bad years cumulatively depleted nearly 40 percent of the value of all incomes. During Carter’s single term, the poverty level for a nonfarm family of four soared from $5,815 to $8,414, and thus some 4.3 million persons (those on fixed incomes) were pulled down into poverty.

The basic facts of the Reagan years are now a matter of historical record. The Harvard economist Lawrence Lindsey expected to show that the growth achieved by Reaganomics decreased the taxes of the rich and hurt the poor, but found that the facts were exactly the reverse, as he reports in The Growth Experiment (1988). And later figures than his, the figures for 1988, can now be matched against the figures for 1980, Carter’s last year. One can measure exactly how much Ronald Reagan achieved for the poor and what an enormous increase in taxes he exacted from the rich, even while lowering tax rates across the board.

 

Reagan exempted virtually all the poor from federal income taxes, in part by almost doubling personal exemptions.

Thus, a household earning less than $14,000 was by 1986 highly unlikely to be paying any federal income tax at all. (The effect of this was weakened by the steep increases in Social Security Taxes [FICA] mandated during the Carter years.) The Tax Reform Act of 1986 continued the reform process, expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit to the point where households with dependents in effect now pay no federal taxes up to nearly $10,000, and only a fraction of the combined employer/employee contribution to FICA up to nearly $20,000.

In 1976, Carter had attacked President Ford for a “misery index” much lower than his own policies were to cause by 1980. Carter ended up with interest rates at 19 percent, inflation at 13.5 percent, and unemployment at over 7 percent—a total of 40. By the end of his term, Reagan lowered this total to 17: interest rates 8 percent, unemployment 5.2 percent, inflation less than 4 percent. (In the narrow sense, the misery index counts only the inflation plus unemployment rates: a total of 20 for Carter, 9 for Reagan.)

 

All this was very good for the poor—not only the drop in inflation (which under Carter had driven so many people into poverty), but also the rise in employment and income. For example, the number of blacks employed when Carter left office was 9 million; during Reagan’s eight years, this number shot up to 11.4 million. A higher proportion of black adults was then employed than at any time in history.

Partly for this reason, the total income received by the 27 million American blacks, which in 1980 was $191 billion (in constant 1988 dollars), soared in 1988 to $25

9 billion. This sum is larger than the GNP of nearly all of black Africa and, indeed, of all but ten nations in the world.

By 1988, half of all married-couple black families had an income above $30,424, the highest median income ever achieved by black families. The number of black families earning more than $50,000 (in constant 1988 dollars) jumped from 392,000 to 936,000 during Reagan’s eight years.

 

All this good news for blacks has to be matched, however, against a continuing serious problem caused by cumulative personal choices. The number of single parent families among blacks, which had been rising with great rapidity since the 1960s, grew more slowly, but still significantly, from 1.9 million in 1980 to 2.2 million in 1988. More than half of all black children were by then the financial and psychological burden of one parent. Most of these single parents were female and the vast majority were not in the work force. Such families, therefore, were hardly able to benefit by economic growth, since they were disconnected from employment.

Indeed, the rapid growth in the number of female-headed households during the past thirty years dramatically altered the shape of poverty (not only in the U.S., but in virtually every welfare-state economy). Fifty years ago, a high proportion of the poor lived in married-couple families, so that higher employment levels and decent wages—economic growth—could eliminate most poverty. In that context, President John F. Kennedy could credibly say that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” The new shape of poverty has falsified this belief. Female heads of household who are neither employed nor in the work force—and who perhaps, with young children to care for, shouldn’t be expected to be—no longer rise with rising tides. They depend almost entirely on welfare. Such families, especially in urban areas and when the women are quite young, may also live in considerable isolation from the rest of society except for their children, their boy friends, and the television set. Such poverty is not easy to cure by government programs. Indeed, expanding government programs, if they do not cause this phenomenon, are at least coincident with its growth.

 

Because of the success of Reaganomics in generating an unprecedented number of months of uninterrupted economic growth, the media began to turn attention away from the absolute condition of the poor and towards a second issue: inequality. The Census Bureau divides the 92 million U.S. households into five equal segments (“quintiles”), ranked by annual reported income, and the media began to stress the fact that the proportion of income earned by the bottom 20 percent declined during Reagan’s two terms. Most journalists overlooked the more important reality that the total income of the bottom quintile (in constant dollars) rose substantially between 1980 and 1988, by nearly 15 percent.

Since noncash income from welfare benefits isn’t even counted in Census Bureau figures, the income of the bottom quintile cannot be raised by higher welfare benefits, except those in cash. And if all welfare were given in cash, the cost of bringing every single person above the poverty line would be a mere $35

billion, one-third of the present total federal expenditure for means-tested programs. Three times more money is now allotted in benefits than in cash.

The 18 million householders in the bottom 20 percent no longer have the same characteristics as those who were in the same quintile sixty years ago. In 1930, most householders in the bottom quintile presided over married-couple families. In 1988 more than half (52 percent) were single persons. One-third of all such householders in 1988 were widows and one-third were single mothers with small children. So it is not surprising that nearly two-thirds of the householders in the bottom quintile did not work at all, and that only 12 percent worked full-time for at least 48 weeks. After all, some 40 percent were older than sixty-five. Thus, most of these householders were either living in retirement or else were unemployed single females with small children. In 1988, only one-fifth of the whole quintile lived as married-couple families (often with grown children).

 

Nonetheless, nearly one-third of those in the bottom quintile were above the poverty line. The cutoff point defining the bottom fifth was 115,102 in 1988, well above the poverty line (|12,385) for a family of four. Over half of the householders at the bottom were living alone, and for such persons the poverty line was much lower. Indeed, it was possible for one person (or couple) to have an income nearly twice as high as the poverty line and still be in the bottom 20 percent.

In sum, the bottom fifth did better in 1988 than it had in 1980. And so did every other quintile. In fact, practically all brackets of Americans moved up the income ladder between 1980 and 1988.

In one of its measurements, the Census Bureau divides households by fixed (real) dollar amounts into nine brackets. According to this method, the percentage of American households reporting an income of 115,000 or less dropped between 1980 and 1988 from 28.8 to 27.3 percent. The percentage of households reporting in the next two brackets, between $15,000 and $49,999, decreased by more: from 55 percent to just under 52 percent. These figures indicate that households at the lower end were moving upwards. And indeed, the percentage of those earning from 150,000 to 174,999 jumped from 11.3 to 13.4, while the percentage of those in the next bracket, $75,000 to $99,999, also jumped (from 2.9 to 4.2) and the percentage of those earning more than $100,000 actually doubled, from 1.6 to 3.2. In sum, from 1980 to 1988, lower brackets were shrinking, upper ones expanding; Americans were moving up. Indeed, if you want a pocketbook reason for President Reagan’s popularity, recall that the number of American households reporting an income of $50,000 or more (in constant 1988 dollars) grew by 6.3 million between 1980 and 1988, and the percentage of working-age Americans holding jobs (63.4 in July 1988) reached an all-time high.

 

Since these achievements cannot be erased from the neutral Census Bureau reports, those who despised Reagan and what he stood for had two choices: either grudgingly to admit that he did far better than they had predicted, or to change the terms of measurement. As a result, critics stopped insisting that the poor fared worse under Reagan than under Carter. They began stressing instead the growing “gap” between the top quintile and the bottom quintile. Even here, if they were honest, they were obliged to notice as causes of the phenomenon profound social changes far beyond the reach of government.

 

For one thing, the Reagan tax cuts had little to do with the “gap”; the Census Bureau figures defining quintiles of income are pre-tax. More importantly, the demographic profiles of householders in the top and bottom quintiles have diverged increasingly in recent decades. Thus, only 22 percent of the householders in the bottom quintile are married, compared to 82 percent in the top quintile. At the bottom, 52 percent are single-person households, at the top only 5 percent. Put differently, at the bottom, 52 percent are living alone; at the top, 83 percent have at least two persons under one roof, and two-thirds have three or more. At the bottom, 40 percent are 65 or older, at the top 8 percent. At the bottom, only 12 percent worked full time, year round; at the top, 93 percent. Moreover, at the bottom, nearly two-thirds of households have no one working at all, whereas 83 percent of the households at the top have two to four persons bringing in income. Given these divergent characteristics (all of which affect income) is it any wonder that the top quintile has considerably more income than the bottom quintile? It could hardly be otherwise.

Then there is the factor of education. Two-thirds of the householders in the top quintile have some college education and nearly one-half have four years or more. By contrast, in that portion of the bottom quintile that falls below the poverty line, only 9 percent had completed high school and only 4 percent had as much as a year or more of college. In the top quintile, most spouses are also working full-time (this means, in most cases, at least two high incomes), but in the bottom quintile very few households have even one person working full-time. So long as the nation is committed to higher education for both sexes and to employment outside the home for both (if they so choose) high-income householders whose spouses are as educationally advantaged as themselves are bound to put ever more distance between themselves and the bottom quintile. The much-lamented “gap” is thus an inevitable product of the nation’s commitment to both higher education and employment for both sexes.

It is also sometimes alleged that the Reagan administration “cut” welfare benefits for the poor. The President claimed strenuously that he was cutting only the “rate of growth” of such expenditures. What is the truth? According to the Statistical Abstract: 1990, the actual expenditures in 1980 and 1987 (latest available) look like this:

U.S. Expenditures for Means-Tested Welfare Programs
(Current Dollars, in millions)

| | 1980

| 1987

| | Public Aid | $48,666 | $69,233 | | Medicaid | 14,550 | 27,613 | | Food Stamps | 9,083 | 12,362 | | Education | 13,452 | 16,054 | | Housing | 6,608 | 11,110 | |Other Social Welfare | 8,786 | 8,504 |

These numbers are given in current dollars for each year, in order to reflect the political realities of the time. If they were corrected for inflation during the eight Reagan years, most would still show greater cumulative real spending for welfare. It is true that some programs, such as “other social welfare” (including child nutrition, child welfare, ACTION, etc.) did decline.

 

Much has also been written—falsely—about the tax cuts by which Reagan supposedly favored the rich. It is true that Reagan championed tax cuts, much to the dismay of the policy elite, both Democratic and establishment Republican. (I have always thought of establishment Republicans as representing the GOP School of Dentistry—they don’t seem to think a policy is good for you unless it hurts. If Democrats are “tax and spend,” establishment Republicans are “tax and reduce the deficit.”) Given cuts in tax rates, Reagan promised economic growth and a higher tax intake from the rich. He said tax cuts would provide incentives that would stimulate economic activity, producing higher tax revenues. He was right. Late in 1990, the Swedish Parliament openly recognized this by lowering the top Swedish tax rate from 72 percent to 51 percent, and the Swedish minister for tax policy declared: “What was achieved in tax reform in the U.S. played a big part in our Swedish debate.”

In reporting on the Reagan tax cuts, however, most US. journalists failed to observe the simple distinction between tax rates and tax revenues. Reagan did cut tax rates, not solely for the rich but across the board. But he also extracted a great deal more revenue from the rich than anyone ever had, both absolutely and as a proportion of all taxes paid.

 

For example, in 1988, an income of just over $50,000 placed a household in the top 20 percent of taxpayers, and an income of almost $86,000 qualified a household for the top 5 percent. By these standards, many full professors, if their spouses also work, qualify as rich. In fact, so do most journalists and other activists who regularly attack the rich without recognizing in this a self-accusation. In any case, the top 5 percent of all taxpayers paid 35 percent of all federal income taxes in 1981, but 46 percent in 1988. By contrast, the share of federal income taxes paid by the rest of the top half of taxpayers (from 50-95 percent) declined from 57 percent to 49 percent. And the share paid by the entire bottom 50 percent of the taxpayers fell from 7.4 percent to 5.7 percent. In other words, Reagan shifted the tax burden significantly from the poor and the middle class to the rich. It bears repeating: He soaked the rich.

In comparing these facts to the more commonly heard accounts of the Reagan era, it may help to note that those who deride Reagan usually rely on two tricks. The most important of these is to report figures starting from 1979, instead of 1981. In this way, they bring into the picture the last two extremely damaging Carter years, with their withering inflation. They thus lay on Reagan blame for the devastation Carter wrought. The other trick is the usual one of not allowing conservatives to play on the same level playing field as liberals; when they lose on an issue, they change the subject and never admit defeat.

 

There is much in the Reagan years for a fair-minded observer both to celebrate and to fault. One should raise serious questions about the federal deficit, the deregulation of the Savings and Loans, and the restructuring of industry through buyouts and takeovers. On these issues, one should hear out both the prosecution and the defense and form a judgment. But on the issue whether the poor benefited more under Reagan or under Carter, and whether the rich paid a larger share of federal income taxes under Reagan or Carter, a fair-minded judgment is also called for, and this one is clearly in Reagan’s favor.

 

The American people may come to appreciate Reagan’s achievement even more than they did in the elections of 1984 and 1988, now that the establishment Republican leaders—George Bush, Richard Darman, and Nicholas Brady—have abandoned Reagan’s policies of growth through incentives. For all its faults, the dynamism of the Reagan era looks pretty good framed between two periods of malaise. Alas, the poor suffer most from the current administration’s turning away from that dynamism.

Michael Novak is the George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute.