"When you tax something you get less of it, and when you reward something you get more of it."He had some help, of course. Ronald Reagan, notably. Robert Bartley and the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. The late Jude Wanniski, one-time member of the WSJ board and author of The Way the World Works. Arthur Laffer, he of the famous Laffer Curve. Others. A number of distinguished others.
With that simple exhortation -- and this is a man born to exhort -- Jack Kemp changed his party, changed his country and, ultimately, changed the world.
Yet for an idea to revolutionize the way the world thinks and works, in the American system it helps if one holds elective or appointed office. Elected as a Congressman from the unlikely world-changing precincts of Buffalo, New York, where he had come to fame as the quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, Kemp evolved into the enthusiastic godfather of what became known as "Reaganomics." or, in its other, equally familiar designation, "supply-side" economics.
The announcement that Kemp is facing a fight with an as-yet undescribed cancer means only that cancer is in for a hell of a fight. The Kemp family has understandably and appropriately asked for its privacy to be respected. Also, the usual disclaimer here that, like a lot of fortunate young conservatives, I worked for Kemp, in my case as an aide in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. But cancer or no cancer, it is past time to give Kemp his due for what can only be described as an extraordinary political career. One can only await a really good Robert Caro-size biography that sets down the particulars for history.
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