I'm Pete du Pont with the National Center for Policy Analysis. We recently marked the 20th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's address to the congress setting out his economic policy.
Reagan's greatest strength was his understanding of the lessons of democratic capitalism … the combination of individual liberty, political democracy and a market economy. As he said in his first inaugural address, we've prospered as no one else has because we unleashed the energy and genius of man as no other country has.
So how do we maintain that standard? One way is to refute its critics.
There's the malthusian theory that we're running out of everything, from food to oil. We're too ingenioius and resourceful to let that happen.
Another is Lester Thurow's "zero-sum society.". But your gain is not my loss; your success does not diminish my opportunity.
Finally, there's the Soviet command-and-control model so popular in the '30s and '60s. But prosperity without liberty, freedom without markets is a fraud.
As long as we work for policies that encourage economic growth, we'll live up to the Reagan legacy.
Those are my ideas, and at the NCPA we know ideas can change the world. I'm Pete du Pont. Next time, the spenders.