Decision ‘08

Supply-Side Guru Passes Away

Jude Wanniski was a bit unhinged; my most recent exposures to him were through the editorial pages of Al Jazeera. His anti-Israel views and opposition to our Middle East policy were of a piece with his ridiculous flirtation with Louis Farrakhan.

Nevertheless, conservatives, especially those of us who came of age in the Reagan era, owe Wanniski a debt of gratitude, for it was he who laid down many of the intellectual underpinnings of supply-side economics:

By lowering taxes, government could get out of the way of people’s normal propensity to create, work hard, and produce — that is, boost the supply of goods and services. This idea is at the heart of classical economics, which Wanniski resurrected when he and economist Alan Reynolds coined the term “supply-side fiscalism” (later revised to supply-side economics) and popularized the notion as an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal.

Eventually, as Bloomberg.com noted in an obituary on Tuesday, Wanniski persuaded “then-California Gov. Reagan to make supply-side economics the centerpiece of his 1980 campaign for the presidency.” Today, classical or supply-side ideas are taken for granted, even by economists and politicians on the left.

It’s an idea that is crucial to the justification of making the Bush tax cuts permanent, an idea I strongly support. Too bad he lost his way; from all indications he was a briliant guy…

One Response to “Supply-Side Guru Passes Away”

1 megapotamus Says:
August 31st, 2005 at 4:26 pm
When I saw “Wanniski Dead” I thought it was a joke because I was certain that I would have heard about it before then, inhabitting as I do the Right-leaning blogs. I know he went good and wacky well before 911, rubbing elbows with turbanned anti-Zionists and NOI types but I remember him as you do, the Margin Man… paralyzingly convincing in the economics realm, one of many fathers to supply-side economics that has produced so much of today’s prosperity. Maybe with his later activities being forgotten is the best outcome but in his sphere he was quite brilliant and many of his ideas are in ascendency though nearly no one knows their origins. RIP Jude.