White House- Anyone at home?

White House- Anyone at home? I’ve got a book- Good thing I cannot even find it- the builders are here and things have gotten lost. It is by wantabe a Republican President Candidate Lee Iacocca and he is expressing much the same opinion about Ronald Regan as I am going to finally have Alan Greenspan share. The opinion being that the Do Nothing Approach to running the American and World Economy in the 80s and 90s- (Sure lots of disastrous things were done- horrible immoral things done in the name of ‘Free Market’ and ‘Business can run things better than governments’)- Milton Friedman Libertarianism Ideology: The selfish Meism of the End of a Booming American Century… but the opinion is that despite the pretense that the world could be or would be run directly out of the White House or more realistically out of the New York Federal Reserve and Wall St- What Iacocca is saying and what I believe Alan is saying is that the Do Nothing- No body home- Off to California for a holiday Regan style of government appears to work well… Why? Well ask a Jew, or if it is Levi Priest- Maybe Moses can tell us a prophecy. (Duet 32) - ‘What attracted me to Regan was the clarity of his conservatism. There was another line he used on the stump. ‘Government exists to protect us from each other. When government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves’. A man who could talk in such terms is clear on what he believes. Very rarely in those days would you find conservatives who didn’t fudge on social issues. But Regan’s kind of conservatism, was to say that tough love for the individual was good for society. That proposition starts with a judgment about human nature. If it is accurate it implies much less government support for the downtrodden. Yet mainstream Republicans were conflicted about thinking or talking in such terms, because they seemed to be contrary to Judeo-Christian values. Not Regan. Like Milton Friedman and other early libertarians he never gave the impression he was trying to be on both sides of the issue. Its not that there wasn’t sympathy for people who through no fault of their own find themselves in dire straights; nor would you find any less personal willingness than among liberals personally to assist the downtrodden. But that wasn’t government’s role according to Regan. Tough love, in the long run is love. On a cross country flight I was given a specific task. The presidential debates were approaching and Regan’s top aides were concerned about the criticism that he seemed oblivious to the facts. Martin asked me it I would use the cross country flight to brief the candidate thoroughly- not just on the economy but on all the significant domestic issues…. I studied the material and later that day when we got on the flight, Regan staffers sat me at a table facing the governor with Marty by his side. But Regan was in an expansive mood, and by the time the plane took off, he was asking friendly questions about Milton Friedman and other people we knew in common. The conversation blossomed from here. I think UI heard more clever stories during the flight than in any other five hour period in my life. Marty kept shooting me glances but I couldn’t get Regan to open the briefing book. After we landed I said ‘thank you Governor that was a very enjoyable trip’ And Regan said ‘Oh I know Marty doesn’t like the fact that I didn’t crack a book’ p87-88 ‘The Age of Turbulence’ Alan Greenspan New York 2007.