Our nation's 39th president, Jimmy Carter, is currently in hospice care. This writer voted for Carter in 1976.
Thereafter, I was so dismayed by his presidency that I betrayed my natal Democratic Party and voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980. Then I became upstate New York chairman of Democrats for Reagan in 1984. Shortly thereafter, I defected to the Reagan GOP.
I, along with many others, was appalled by Carter's apparent cluelessness leading to virulent inflation. That said, he belatedly appointed inflation-hawk Paul Volcker to chair the Fed. Volcker brutally tightened, crushing inflation, which subsided under Reagan.
This column isn't about relitigating Carter's failures. It is actually about celebrating one of his widely forgotten successes … as the greatest deregulator of my lifetime. But, friends, Americans and Countrymen, the real point is not to praise Carter, nor to bury him.
It's to wake us up to some forgotten facts.
I'm here to remind us — especially our inveterate enemies, the Democrats — that in a long lost Golden Age the Democrats were even more aggressively supply-side than the Republicans (who lean toward Big Business rather than free markets). Jimmy Carter's deregulation success is forgotten because it is contrary to the myth that Democrats are Big Government addicts (and Republicans, small-government champions).
Neither is quite true.
Now, with the GOP regularly listing toward JoshHawleyesque anti-free-market imbecilities, don't be surprised if the Democrats end up once again taking the lead on enacting pro-market, pro-prosperity policies.
So, in the (assuredly vain) hope of waking up a few of our members of Congress, I hereby make bold to violate that wonderful journalistic axiom: "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story."
The facts? Per econoblogger, techno-optimist and former Bloomberg economic columnist Noah Smith:
"Reagan campaigned on promises of deregulation, and he appointed people to regulatory agencies who tended to use a light touch. But when it comes to actual deregulatory policies implemented, Carter did substantially more than Reagan. He deregulated airlines, energy, trucking, railways, telecommunications, finance, and more.
"Don't take my word for it — take it from the libertarian Foundation for Economic Education!
"Carter gets a very bad rap, particularly from libertarians and conservatives, but it's not entirely clear why ... Carter's most lasting legacy is as the Great Deregulator. Carter deregulated oil, trucking, railroads, airlines, and beer.
"The libertarian magazine Reason, another inveterate opponent of regulation, concurs:
"Reason has never been shy about praising Jimmy Carter for his role in deregulating airline ticket pricing and interstate trucking (and beer!)."
American politics has become rather like professional wrestling, a performative art consisting of choreographed superficial fake mayhem. Or, to quote Shakespeare, "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Pity! While all good fun it doesn't end well.
Notwithstanding Jimmy Carter's very real faults on tax policy, and mixed record on monetary policy, his deregulation was superb. It benefited a lot of working people ... like me.
Deregulation dramatically dropped the costs of the transportation of goods and people. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, take note!
Most picturesquely, Carter broke the hegemony of the three dominant beer makers who dominated the market with boring brewskies. The Carter legacy led some (including me) to credit him with the magnificent craft beer renaissance we now enjoy.
I pointed out here, yet it bears repeating, that The Kinks were right. It is a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world.
The prevailing political narrative holds that the Republicans are the champions of economic growth, the Democrats the champions of economic fairness. The facts don't consistently square with that.
Like ... currently the most vital voices for policies of free-market based equitable prosperity are now coming from the left, such as Ezra Klein, whose blog compilation is named Confessions of a Supply-Side Liberal. Right on, Ezra!
To those of us, like me, who fought in the original Supply-Side revolution, the fact that free-market prosperity policy might be emerging from the left comes as little surprise. Jack Kemp's Svengali, Jude Wanniski, who channeled the genius of Bob Mundell and Arthur Laffer, was a self-avowed "Marxian."
Both the Donks and the Pachyderms are mesmerized by a false consciousness that free-market policies, designed to grow the pie, belong to the right and sharing out the pie fairly, the left.
No! Such policies are, well, ambidextrous! Adopting field-tested policies that promote equitable prosperity would be a small step for the politicians .. and a giant leap for the flourishing of humankind.
While Jimmy Carter's legacy was not perfect, his pioneering efforts on deregulation should not be forgotten. They should be an inspiration to all, especially his fellow Democrats!
Ralph Benko, co-author of "The Capitalist Manifesto" and chairman and co-founder of "The Capitalist League," is the founder of The Prosperity Caucus and is an original Kemp-era member of the Supply-Side revolution that propelled the Dow from 814 to its current heights and world GDP from $11T to $94T. Read Ralph Benko's reports — More Here.
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