Special Report
The Importance of Jack Kemp
A bout with cancer hits a man who changed the world.
"When you tax something you get less of it, and when you reward something you get more of it."
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.
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.
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.
THOUSANDS OF MEN and women have served as members of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate since the dawn of the Republic in 1789, with more still added to those numbers from state governors and Cabinet officials or military leaders. Most have transited across the national stage in anonymity, their impact as a footprint in a windblown desert. In every period of American history there have emerged powerful elected or appointed leaders, presidents of the United States included, whose influence derived solely from their position and vanished the instant they left it. There is a medium-sized list of those who emerged from the House, the Senate, the governors' offices to run for president, falling back into the status of historical asterisks when defeated.
Yet there is another category, a much rarer group of Americans who, whether they tried for the presidency and failed (as did Kemp) or never tried at all, have left a lasting mark on America and sometimes the world as well. This group includes that famous trio of United States Senators from the early 19th century, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. Webster and Clay fought ferociously to preserve the Union, Calhoun with equal fervor to make the claim for states' rights. Added to that list would be Webster's successor as Senator from Massachusetts, Charles Sumner, famous for his successful fights as a leader of the anti-slavery forces and his role in insisting on the civil rights of black Americans. Later in the 19th century Congressman William Jennings Bryan burst on the scene as a father of populism. Losing the presidency three times, he nevertheless championed causes like the graduated income tax and the popular election of senators, ideas now fact for decades. Bryan's fellow Nebraskan George Norris fathered the Tennessee Valley Authority as a key figure in the early-20th century progressive movement, while Arizona's Barry Goldwater would lose the presidency in a landslide even as he fathered the modern conservative movement, a movement whose early pioneers included Senator Robert Taft. This is not to exclude Americans holding appointive office like presidential loser William Seward, whose decision as Secretary of State to purchase Alaska was mocked by his contemporaries yet is the source of much satisfaction to latter-day Americans, whether they be enthusiasts for the environment, oil drilling -- or, lately, Sarah Palin! So too is George C. Marshall an American icon, not just for his role as Army Chief of Staff in winning World War II but his creation of the Marshall Plan that came to the rescue of post-war Europe while laying the foundation for the democratic Western Europe of the last sixty-plus years.
Jack Kemp long ago earned his role in this American pantheon. He did not invent "supply-side" economics. Yet in a day and age when many members of Congress use their office for nothing grander than prying grandma's Social Security check out of the federal morass and issuing a press release telling the world, Kemp, elected in 1970, set about an entirely different task. He began schooling himself, and eventually his party, about the difference between bread slicing and bread baking economics. As Bartley would later recount in his book The Seven Fat Years: And How To Do It Again, Kemp became the focus of a Washington group (paralleling Bartley's in New York) that focused on the economic woes of the 1970s. What they were, how they got there, and, strikingly, what to actually do about them. Bartley says that Kemp "did bizarre things like sit down and read The General Theory." This would be John Maynard Keynes' less than scintillating tome The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, a basic economics text then and now if one wishes to call oneself a Keynesian. It is not to be confused with a romance novel.
With what Washington would eventually realize was the typical Kemp passion, Kemp took an idea about tax cuts and made of it a gospel. In legislative form it became what was called Kemp-Roth, named respectively after Kemp the House sponsor and Delaware GOP Senator William Roth, its Senate champion. At its core, the idea proposed to slash personal income tax rates -- and cut them big time by 30 percent over three years. It was 1978, the middle of the Carter malaise years, and after what Bartley calls a "stormy debate" the bill failed in a conference committee. Kemp kept going. By 1980 he had convinced candidate Ronald Reagan, and the concept was written into the 1980 Republican platform. By August of 1981 President Ronald Reagan was signing Kemp's cause into law. By 1983, the American economy had begun to shake off recession and, in a startling reversal, roared to life. The results were so powerful that Reagan later said France's Socialist President François Mitterrand, Reagan's guest at the 1983 Williamsburg G-7 Summit, wanted to know just exactly what went into America's blossoming and quite vivid economic growth.
For Kemp, this was more than simply passing a piece of legislation. Supply-side represented a real threat to the core beliefs of an entire intellectual class, a class that then -- as now -- considers itself "enlightened." Passing Congressman Kemp one day as he bounded (Kemp bounds, he doesn't walk) up an escalator to a House office building from the Capitol subway, I watched him overtake a moderate Republican Congressman who clearly considered himself a member of this enlightened class, an affliction that, sad to say, is all too bipartisan. After a brief conversation that required Kemp to stand still, he clapped the moderate on the back and -- with a smile, always with a smile -- said: "You know what your problem is? You're an elitist!" And bounded away as his target visibly fumed that someone would mistake his addiction to me-too liberalism as something other than being a champion of the average man.
LIKE A BRYAN or Webster or Goldwater, Kemp never did make that trip to the White House as the occupant of the presidency, although he was the second- half of the 1996 Dole ticket. But his lost presidential run in 1988 did land him in the unlikely spot of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. It was there that Reaganites huddled in what was generally viewed as one of the least important backwaters of the federal government, a place touched by scandal at that. Ignored by the powers of the Bush 41 administration, Kemp blew into this concrete box with the force of a category five hurricane. If you worked for him you were quickly a part of an ongoing tutorial -- done under the guise of a "brown bag lunch" -- that featured everything from Heritage Foundation policy wonks to Sir Martin Gilbert, the biographer of Winston Churchill, to Alex Kotlowitz, the author of There Are No Children Here. The last was a gripping tale of two boys growing up amid the abysmal failure of liberal urban policy, in this case Chicago's Henry Horner Homes. Also up for discussion was Assets and the Poor, a book about the failures of the welfare system.
It wasn't always tutorials, either. Kemp himself was not only out there in America's inner cities inspecting the failures of urban liberalism, he made damn sure his staff got out there too. I remember one particular tour of the Ellen Wilson project in Washington -- a serious disgrace surrounded in broad daylight by drug dealers that is, I believe, now gone. The entire department rocked, at times shell shocked, to Kemp's preaching of the gospel of capitalism and tax cuts. It didn't stop there, either. He was, he liked to crack, the only Housing Secretary with his own foreign policy, a small detail that used to drive the real State Department crazy.
And all the while, the gospel according to Reagan and Kemp, the gospel preached with equal fervor by Britain's Margaret Thatcher, began to roll across the planet. The Berlin Wall fell, and the principles Kemp had preached so tirelessly began flooding Eastern Europe. Last November, French President Sarkozy, whose country just held the presidency of the European Union, announced his intention to seek tax cuts. Just days ago German Chancellor Angela Merkel was reported to be pushing for tax cuts. In Poland, Leszek Balcerowicz, a former Polish minister of finance and president of the National Bank of Poland, said his countrymen had come to realize that "the more reforms you make away from socialism the better your economic growth is." In Israel, the Jewish state supported by Kemp with the same passion he devoted to free market economics, free-marketer and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is positioning himself to continue bringing his free market principles back for another round as head of the Israeli government.
About the Author
Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author. He writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com.
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Jason| 1.9.09 @ 6:19AM
Good luck to Jack Kemp
Angelo Z| 1.9.09 @ 10:01AM
Mr Kemp might just be the best President, that America never had.
William R| 1.9.09 @ 11:49AM
Hope the best for Kemp, he has always been a big government Republican. Cut taxes and don't worry about spending. Well deficits do matter!
Deborah| 1.9.09 @ 12:16PM
Thanks so much for this, Mr. Lord. God bless Jack Kemp, and thank you, Mr. Kemp, for being a strong American who wanted to do things for the country and not for power's sake. That's a true rarity in these hyper partisan days. Let's hope that everyday Americans will wake up to what the Democrats are trying to do to their beloved country for the sake of their own power before it's too late.
Alan Brooks| 1.9.09 @ 7:42PM
exactly, you tax something you get less of it-- so tax vice to the very max and get less of it.
and to hell with libertopians.
Dick Torrey| 1.9.09 @ 10:34PM
Jack.. ." Elected as a Congressman from the unlikely world-changing precincts of Buffalo, New York"..and how well I remember those days when you met Jack Terry (Syracuse) at my home and you both went on to victory in your respective districts...and how we worked together on the labor-management program for Buffalo.. until I went on to Syracuse (circa 1976).. you've compiled an amazing record since our last visit about 30 years ago...
More to the point... I've been wrestling with cancer (prostate) for more than 22 years through one protocol after another -- radical surgery (Johns Hopkins '86), radiation (39 shots).. various hormone deprivation treatments and I'm still around.. It can be done, Jack, and I'm sure you have the toughness to do it.
May God be with you as you face this latest challenge..
Dick Torrey
Alan Brooks| 1.10.09 @ 11:41AM
God probably wont let Jack Kemp leave us soon-- and if it IS the Lord's plan to have Jack pass on relatively soon then Jack goes straight to that after-game champagne party in the sky.
David Govett| 1.10.09 @ 11:57AM
The matter is settled. Everyone knows you tax, borrow, and spend your way out of debt. If it exacerbates the problem, you're not taxing, borrowing, and spending enough.
Alan Brooks| 1.10.09 @ 12:47PM
alrighty, dont borrow and spend much but tax vice lords 'til they squeak.
Bankrupt 'em and seize their assets.
Chris Keith| 1.10.09 @ 7:01PM
I've met Jack. Tremendous individual. I actually had a picture taken with him years ago, with the thought that I was standing next to a future President of the United States. I'm still dismayed that vision never came to fruition. Many, many prayers your way, Jack.
OpChaos| 1.11.09 @ 12:30PM
I loved his response to Algore's "Jack is not a racist like the other members of his party" remark during the VP debate in 1996.
"Thanks you, Mr Vice-President"
What a leader!
Alan Brooks| 1.11.09 @ 1:01PM
but George Will was correct, Jack did a "narcisstic dance" in ninety six.
some of us are conservative, not Republican.
so sorry.
A. Brooks| 1.11.09 @ 2:13PM
narcissistic.
Alan Brooks| 1.11.09 @ 8:20PM
one must hasten to add Reagan had his faults however he was steadfast, as Kemp still is. Solid.
you can choose solid or expansive-- but not both.
carolinem| 1.12.09 @ 8:03PM
Jack Kemp strongly advocated illegal immigration and refused to endorse Republicans opposed to Bush's illegal alien amnesty plan. Like Bush, he denigrated and insulted those opposed to the illegal alien invasion as xenophobic. According to a press release issued June 24, 2003, he is quoted as praising the Supreme Court decision that upheld race-based admissions for colleges: "I was pleased with the Supreme Court landmark opinion yesterday in Grutter v. Bollinger that higher education institutions may use race as a factor in admission decisions to achieve diversity." Incredibly, in the same press release, he states: "As recently as 1992, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston published a landmark study showing why black mortgage applicants were rejected more often than white applicants were. Without access to capital it is near impossible to accumulate wealth. Within this context I applaud the Supreme Court’s decision and, as an American, I know that factoring diversity into these decisions can make our country stronger while continuing our progress in remedying past unequal treatment of African-Americans as well as other people of color." (www.freedomworks.org/newsroom/press_template.php?press_id=900)
Despite the fawning and slobbering article, Kemp turned out to be yet another Republican who fled the base to side with Party elites.
Justin Kawabori| 3.2.09 @ 3:43AM
Jack Kemp has shaped my political thought and inspired me with his ideas (and occasional conversation) more than any other politician of our time, including Ronald Reagan.
At a time when I was most in need of great influences, and was thirsting to learn but not be indoctrinated by my liberal professors at Occidental College (where Kemp and Obama also went to school), Jack Kemp inspired me with his ideas, proposed legislation, and world view. He winsomely offered a powerful combination of Judeo-Christian values and free-market principles of entrepreneurial capitalism to create both economic growth and dynamic community. And he did it telling great stories!
Though I was studying philosophers such as John Locke and Adam Smith at the time, little did I truly understand as a 20-year-old that our small "r" republican form of government is based on Judeo-Christian thought and values, and that our big "R" Republican tenants are literally the expression of said values, whether you are religious or not. Jack Kemp understood this perfectly and articulated it over a brilliant career in public life. The ongoing legacy he lives today has had a profound impact not only on people like me, but on our entire political system and process, not to mention his own family.
As for my inspiration, Jack Kemp has long-described himself as a man with a conservative head and liberal heart -- the original "compassionate conservative." He has not only led the fight for sustained economic growth through tax cuts and capital formation that continues to capture the attention of world leaders today (see article), but he has lived with sincerity the axiom that "a rising tide lifts all boats" and proved it by championing policy ideas such as urban enterprise zone legislation in depressed inner city neighborhoods and the privatizing of public housing so everyone can realize the American dream. He has also been a pillar in the GOP for racial reconciliation and civil rights from a conservative point of view, which has been a critically important part of that dialogue and process.
His son, and my dear friend, Jeff Kemp, asked me to pray shortly after he was diagnosed. I ask you to please read the article, and to get on your knees in prayer as well -- to offer both a word of thanks for this unique individual who has had such an amazing impact on our nation and our culture, and to ask God for a miracle of healing so that we can continue to benefit from his insight, wisdom, character and leadership for yet another quarter. As one of his longtime friends noted in an article covering this news ... it may be 3rd and 25 deep in the fourth quarter, but everyone expects that Jack Kemp will throw a 95-yard touchdown pass to win the game.
There is no question that Jack Kemp will finish strong. Personally, I'd take a few more first downs ... he has already won big for America.
Godspeed Jack Kemp!
Your friend, brother in Christ, fellow Republican and ATO, and political protege,
Justin Kawabori
Redmond, WA
Michael O'C| 4.17.09 @ 1:00PM
Keep up "the good fight" Jack ... and family!
Saul Anuzis| 4.17.09 @ 1:56PM
I've always described myself as a Kemp/Gingrich Republican. He inspired young conservatives to get involved and preached from the gospel of the "Opportunity Society"...which we need now, more than ever!
Saul Anuzis
Michigan
Vicki Holland Tiahrt| 4.17.09 @ 3:07PM
Jack Kemp is known for his supply side economics but for those of us active in human rights, Jack Kemp is an icon. His heart for the marginalized whether by poverty, health, gender, race or age, led him to march, pass legislation, lead, and befriend. We have a hard time keeping up with your pace Mr. Kemp, but we are following. Sadly, Pres Obama is overturning many of Kemp's victories, but we shall overcome!
Paul Welday| 4.18.09 @ 12:17AM
My work for Jack Kemp as a young intern in the congressional office is were this journey began for me. Jack preached. Jack inspired. Jack led. Jack is one of the most genuine people I know whether in politics or not. He is true to his beliefs. And we found that out again and again on the campaign trail during the presidential campaign in '87-'88.
Jack Kemp has set the stage for the next political transformation in America. His legion stands strong committed to the fundamental core principles he articulated so forcefully and so well. While it may seem that we have deviated from "Kempian Economics" in the US, I believe it is temporary and we will return to a policy that buit on the premise of entreprenuership, opportunity, individual liberty and freedom.
Thank you Jack Kemp for all that you have done for me personally, but more importantly for what you have done to make the world a better place. God bless you and keep you.
Pingback| 5.2.09 @ 10:22PM
Webloggin » Jack Kemp Has Succumbed to Cancer links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 5.2.09 @ 10:32PM
R.I.P. Jack Kemp | Crystal Clear Conservative links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 5.2.09 @ 11:07PM
Hot Air » Blog Archive » Breaking: Jack Kemp, RIP links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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Jack Kemp has Died « Mother of All Conservatives links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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Jack Kemp, RIP « The Forum links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 5.3.09 @ 12:06AM
T&A: Tunesmith & Anthony » R.I.P. Jack Kemp links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
mitch vidovich| 5.3.09 @ 1:51AM
God Bless Jack Kemp-the president america never had.
Pingback| 5.3.09 @ 2:14AM
Jack Kemp Dead at 73 « The Constitution Club links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 5.3.09 @ 7:03AM
Jack Kemp Dies Of Cancer | LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 5.3.09 @ 7:43AM
R.I.P., Jack Kemp… « Frugal Café Blog Zone links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Squireofglenhall| 5.3.09 @ 9:35AM
sadness....dejection....I can't believe that it is a coincidence that this great man is gone from us at a time when the socialist leanings of the country have never been so dramatic, so accepted, and so dangerous.
Pingback| 5.3.09 @ 10:29AM
Godspeed Jack | Jeffrey A. Setaro links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
demillicent| 5.3.09 @ 2:56PM
I'm sorry to hear that Jack Kemp has died. He came across my mind for some reason on Friday. I was thinking of how well he did when he was over the HUD program. Being director of that program gave him some insight into how futile it was to keep tossing money into a broken system.
Jack came to realize that the government cannot buy people out of poverty. It's important for people to understand that it's not how many hand outs the government gives to those who live in poverty: but how many opportunities that they are given to work their way out of poverty. No one has ever been paid out of poverty. Everyone who rose above poverty honestly did it by working to get out of it.
I remember him speaking of how broken the welfare system was. He noted that once a person entered into that turnstile, they seemed to never be able to exit it. That is so true. It was designed to keep people in poverty and waiting on that pittance of a check once a month. If people had been given a hand up instead of so many handouts, there would be much less poverty here. A hand up helps people to pull themselves out of the gutter; and a handout on the other hand, gives them substance and leaves them in the gutter. We need another Jack Kemp who was in his own way, a champion of the common man. He simply wanted the common man to exhibit uncommon drive and tenacity. Instead of giving people money, show them how to make it themselves via employment.
Jack Kemp will be missed greatly. God bless those who are left to mourn his passing.
tom st george| 5.3.09 @ 10:07PM
"Let him cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees"
It was good to know you Jack. Tom St G
personal trainers austin tx| 5.3.09 @ 10:19PM
Great article about a great man.
The man does deserve his due. Men in the arena fall longer and seemingly more important like McCain and even Kemp's running mate Dole had a small fraction of the impact as Kemp had. Kemp should have been Reagan's running mate.
Pingback| 5.4.09 @ 12:38AM
Jack Kemp’s Philosophy links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 5.4.09 @ 1:16PM
Wacky Spin Doctoring: Specter Says He Saved an Entire Generation of Scientists & Coul links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
david| 5.4.09 @ 1:17PM
" Socialists spend until they run out of OUR MONEY !
Margare Thatcher .
John M. Farant| 5.6.09 @ 6:05PM
I miss him and I never knew him. I feel like I will be missing him for quite some time. He would not have liked the elitist defeatist idea that he was indispensable. But, for our movement and the World, he comes as close to being irreplaceable as anyone.
Deepest condolences from a Canadian fan,
JF, Yarker, Ontario
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