Happy Reagan Day, 2012!

Ronald Wilson Reagan, America’s 40th president, was born on Feb. 6, 1911. His presidency left America prouder and stronger and better. And his economic policies ushered in a Long Boom, as this chart from the Joint Economic Committee (via the Heritage Foundation) shows:

And if anything, those numbers tend to understate the Reagan record given the complete and total economic mess he inherited. As former U.S. senator from Texas Phil Gramm recently noted in a Wall Street Journal op-ed:

But, in fact, the 1981-82 recession was deeper and unemployment was higher. Moreover, the 1982 recovery was constrained by a contractionary monetary policy that pushed interest rates above 21%, a tough but necessary step to break inflation. It was also a recovery that required a painful restructuring of American businesses to become more competitive in the increasingly globalized economy. By way of comparison, our current recovery has benefited from the most expansionary monetary policy in U.S. history and a rapid return to profitability by corporate America.

Former WSJ editor Robert Bartley nicely sets the scene in his book The Seven Fat Years:

In the years before 1982, democratic capitalism was in retreat. Its economic order seem unhinged, wracked by bewildering inflation, stagnant productivity, and finally a deep recession. The diplomatic and military initiative lay with Communist totalitarianism, which proclaimed inevitable ideological victory and could send crowds into the European streets to protest efforts to offset its own shiny new missiles and tanks. Economic confusion and a sense of futility sapped the morale of the Western people’ leaders talked of a “malaise” in America and “Europessimism” across the Atlantic.

I love that line about “economic confusion and a sense of futility.” Reagan brought economic enlightenment and hope. Even many of his critics have been forced to admit this. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Samuelson said,”The latter half of the 1980s, historians will recognize, has been an economic success story.” And this from Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, “It is undeniable that the sharp reduction in taxes in the early 1980s was a strong impetus to economic growth.”

Read More at The American By James Pethokoukis, The American