Reagan Revolution Continues
by Dan Lips

Thanks to Hoover Institution scholars, the myth of Ronald Reagan as an "amiable dunce" can be tossed into history's dustbin.

The editors of Reagan In His Own Hand and Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters have now brought us Reagan's Path to Victory, a new collection of Ronald Reagan's own handwritten essays. Thanks to their scholarship, we now know that from 1975 to 1979, Reagan worked as a virtual one-man policy think tank, issuing daily radio and print commentaries on the most pressing foreign and domestic policy issues of the days. Reagan's own handwritten drafts have been found of at least 673 radio essays -- a rate of intellectual productivity that would make even the most industrious policy analyst envious.

But these essays reveal more than just Reagan's work ethic and intellectual capacity. They reveal a philosophical vision for America that remains relevant today. Flipping through the new 500-page volume, one is bound to quickly find an essay which reads like a column published in yesterday's Washington Times.

For instance, consider Reagan's trailblazing leadership in the national tax limitation movement. In 1973, then-Gov. Reagan backed Proposition 1 – the nation's first tax and spending limit initiative. Proposition 1 would lose at the polls by a slim margin in November of 1973, but days after its defeat, Reagan wrote in the pages of National Review that: "The people will find a way to bring big government under control, to put a reasonable limit on how much of their income government may take in taxes. This idea will become a reality."

Of course, Reagan was right. In California, five years after Proposition 1 – voters would approve Proposition 13 to limit property taxes. Other states would quickly follow. In total, over 28 states would pass some form of tax and spending limit in the following decades. Today, the nation's most prominent tax and spending limit is Colorado 's Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR) Amendment, which Milton Friedman recently dubbed "a Proposition 1 look alike."

This year, Reagan-inspired state-level tax and spending limits will be in play in more than a dozen states. In Wisconsin, a Republican Senate Majority Leader was defeated in a primary challenge because of her failure to support a Taxpayer's Bill of Rights amendment. Leading Republicans at the state capital have now pledged to make TABOR a central plank of their agenda in 2005. In Ohio, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is leading an effort to put a Proposition 1-like tax and spending limit on the ballot in 2005. Similar Taxpayer's Bill of Rights proposals will likely be in play in this year in: Alaska, California, Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and other states.

Grassroots organizations are pushing Conservative members of Congress to consider a federal TABOR. " A federal Taxpayers' Bill of Rights provides a simple, effective, proven model for spending reform," explained Heritage Foundation fellow Brian Riedl, "A TABOR would force lawmakers to live under spending restraints in the same manner that families, businesses, and state and local governments do."

Policymakers and grassroots activists currently fighting this battle should refer to Reagan's radio commentaries for inspiration and a primer on this battle. In an essay entitled "Tax Limitation," from September 27, 1977, Reagan considered the defeat of a tax limit in Michigan the prior fall and wrote: "There really is only one way to stop the ever increasing percentage of our earnings taken by government: determine what is the proper share, what we can afford to spend on government and then fix that percentage into law."

Of course, Reagan's wisdom extends beyond state fiscal policy. For example, explanations for two of President Bush's second-term domestic policy initiatives – Social Security and tax simplification – are outlined in Reagan's essays. On November 2, 1976, Reagan was lamenting a tax code "so complicated even the person of modest earnings must get legal or professional help to find out how much he or she owes on April 15th ." Two years later, Reagan was explaining the need to reform Social Security explaining that "fewer and fewer workers are supporting more and more recipients" leaving the program "trillions of dollars out of actuarial balance."

Much has been made of just how wrong the media and liberal establishment's assessment of President Ronald Reagan was. But even many conservatives who celebrate Reagan's triumph may underestimate how much of a visionary he was on policy issues. Conservatives considering the agenda for the next four years should look at more than just the next policy analysis soon-to-be released by one of the conservative think tanks. Leaf though Reagan's Path to Victory and you just might find the next big idea.

Dan Lips is policy analyst at Americans for Prosperity Foundation and the co-author of The Reagan Vision: How You Can Revive the Reagan Revolution (Goldwater Institute: 2004)

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