The Nation' s Pulse / A New Conservatism
Lehrman, Lewis
be both premature and wrong. This time the shoe was on the other foot: The press suspected the students weren't endangered, the students said just the opposite--gotcha. The press was left...
...In the process they have destroyed our monetary standard and wrecked our capital markets, once the eighth wonder of the Western world...
...This has been the guiding doctrine behind my proposals...
...Nor do I underestimate the skeptics to be persuaded...
...If there is anything I have learned as a rookie politician, it is that to establish a goal without the appropriate means to reach that goal is to court political disaster...
...28 media...
...A NEW CONSERVATISM by Lewis Lehrman I n 1982, as many readers of The American Spectator know, I ran for governor of New York...
...But deeper still in the nature of the Republic is the assumption of the traditional family values of the American people--faith, work, duty, hope--without which no society can endure...
...For this reason, judicial recall at the state level and limited judicial terms at the federal level are absolutely necessary...
...I do not underrate the number or power of the obstacles to be overcome...
...My answer was forthright: "I wear them to keep my pants up...
...That's the job of Waiter Mondaie, Alan Cranston & Co., not the press...
...But it is also a more equitable system...
...On this issue, there is a split today between conservatives that hobbles us...
...For a generation, Keynesians have believed that we could fine-tune monetary policy through seven members of the Federal Reserve Board who would try to determine the quantity of money in circulation...
...There was in fact a secret anti-red suspender campaign against me...
...The public wants eyes and ears, but probably not ones that are poisonously adversariai and self-righteous about it...
...Regulatory agencies have tied up at great cost not only citizens and businesses but local and state governments as well...
...All this has happened as federal courts, assuming for themselves the power of the legislative and executive branches of government, usurp the community's authority to set neighborhood standards and values by which they freely consent to live...
...Consider for a moment the dismal record of such intervention over the past ten years...
...In a recent book called Low Tax, Simple Tax, Flat Tax,* two economists from Stanford, Robert E. Hall and Alvin Rabushka, have developed an impressive case for a flat tax...
...But if the American people were not ready to consider major change, they never would have elected Ronald Reagan in the first place...
...There are those who will say that these solutions are simplistic...
...Under our managed paper currency and flexible exchange rates during the 1970s we witnessed the highest inflation rate in our history, two of the worst recessions, one of the slowest growth decades, up to 11 percent unemployment, and some of the highest real interest rates in 2,000 years of Western history...
...a double payroll tax on the selfemployed...
...Accordingly, it is time we establish a federalism amendment that would allow local communities, consistent with the intent of our Constitution, to set and uphold neighborhood values, free of the interference of all-powerful federal courts...
...Abstract, legalistic court standards have uprooted and replaced organic community standards...
...In his farewell address, George Washington gave us a good doctrine: It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government . . . . Of all the habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports...
...This has happened because the federal government has strayed from its constitutional purposes...
...The word coin is explicit, and in the context of this document means the coinage of gold and silver money: The constitutional debates at Philadelphia unconditionally ruled out the power of the federal government to "emit bills of credit" or, as we call it today, inconvertible paper money...
...Wherever I went journalists would ask, "Lehrman, why do you wear red suspenders...
...It is a division between those who sincerely believe in a slow, gradual reform and those who favor more activist measures...
...But in 1971 we abandoned this most fundamental American economic yardstick, by which commercial values since 1792 were to be objectively and democratically determined...
...Budgets were modestly irabalanced and unemployment rates averaged about 4-5 percent...
...History has shown, however, that states and nations with high rates of taxes tend to have high rates of tax evasion...
...More taxes: a tax on gasoline...
...Despite playing the fool in the spat over restraints on cove-age, the press did ~v~r~trkably well in actually reporting the Grenada gory...
...a tax on Social Security benefits...
...It should not be necessary (as it currently is) for states and communities to appeal every sweeping decision of unaccountable judges by means of a Constitutional Amendment...
...AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1984 that a simple tax system with a single rate of no more than 19 percent--and I believe it could be 10 percent-would produce the same revenue as our present system...
...The new tax form would be simple enough to fit on a postcard...
...Indeed, it was the only anti-red campaign ever supported by the New York City Lewis Lehrman is founder of The Lehrman Institute, a public policy forum for the study of economics and foreign policy and state and local government problems...
...Now, unfortunately, there is drift concerning how best to attain the goals of the Reagan mandate...
...But the New Federalism has been shanghaied by an incremental, across-theboard, bit-by-bit budget strategy which treats programs more or less alike...
...Thirteen years ago, Frank Meyers made the following observation: There is a real contradiction between the deep piety of the conservative spirit towards tradition, the preservation of the fibre of society, and the more reasoned, consciously principled, militant conservatism which becomes necessary when the fibres of society have been rudely torn apart, w h e n . . , revolutionary principles ride high, and restoration, not preservation, is the order of the day...
...Several papers recounted the initial reaction of the rescued students, then returned to them a few days later to make certain the students' accounts had not been revised by coolerheaded hindsight...
...The gold dollar was for two centuries the standard that made our money the unimpeachable currency of world commerce...
...It would exempt the first $10,000 or more of family income from any taxation at all...
...The press was left thunderstruck...
...I take pride in that comparison, but the real reason for my defeat, I believe, goes much deeper...
...The nation as a whole has witnessed a stunning rise in violent crime and vicious public immorality, celebrated in the media and with the seeming support of our government...
...A gold monetary standard, or currency, legally convertible to gold, is in fact the only authentic money of our Constitution...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR ,IANUARY 1984 29...
...The whole federal union, indeed, has been undermined by decades of digging up and discarding local and state powers...
...Others claim my call for a 40 percent tax-rate reduction was out of touch with the inevitable economic fate of socialism in one state, as in New York...
...or that, however correct, they will generate too much opposition to carry through...
...Right now we may have the most conservative President we are likely to see in our lifetimes, a President dedicated to thorough-going reform of our nation's institutions in order to uphold the everlasting and constitutional values that made our country prosperous and free...
...citizens...
...But no effort to secure public safety for honest citizens can work as long as judges are insulated from the outrage of their peers, namely, U.S...
...Judges must be accountable directly to the American people, from whom the Constitution derives its just authority...
...Its report of the students' return was better than any other publication's, with reporter Ward Sinclair writing that the students "painted a tableau of fear, bloodshed and chaos...
...American citizens would thus regain the direction of their families, schools, and neighborhoods that has in the past few years been taken away from them...
...It is true that economic reforms are necessary...
...For the second year in a row, we are facing a budget deficit of colossal proportions...
...on expenditures...
...a tax on petroleum production...
...He is coauthor of The Case for Gold, and has written for Harper's, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications...
...No public official-executive, legislative, or judicial-ought to be able to pervert the intention of the Constitution and to hold the public will in contempt...
...But if the federal tax system shows how much Washington is dipping into the taxpayers' pockets, a glance at the federal judiciary reveals its incessant encroachment into the most minute areas of everyday living...
...Nearly three years ago, in his State of the Union Message, President Reagan boldly called for a New Federalism for our nation...
...What we ought to be doing is moving in the exact opposite direction, toward lower taxes and control...
...Though promised comprehensive decentralization of the federal government's role in our lives, we have gotten nowhere...
...Following established procedure, they will be used merely as an invitation to more spending...
...Yet what has been the response...
...A fair tax such as the fiat tax would do much to end such evasion, because it is simple and it is fair...
...that is to say, plain people--American citizens--could understand it without the aid of a corps of overpaid advisers...
...It was a life-anddeath situation, one in which the press's proper role was to do more than provide "one side of the debate...
...In a free society, the first purpose of government is to protect its citizens--their lives, their liberty, and their property...
...In New York, for example, which has some of the highest taxes in the U.S., it has been estimated by the State Assembly that $3,5 billion is lost annually to the underground economy due to income-tax evasion...
...THE In this spirit, I would argue that the times demand activist measures if we are to restore the liberties and values that have been systematically subverted for over a generation...
...Newsweek recovered flashily from a year or more of being trounced by 7"trne...
...Still others argue that my unapologetic defense of traditional family values was pass~ in a world of singles bars and palimony lawsuits...
...A just and equitable tax system, a responsible federal government, and a just and honest monetary standard--reflections of the traditional national standards which guided Americans for two centuries...
...In barring reporters from accompanying the invading forces and then from circulating freely around Grenada, the AdministratiOn wanted to make sure the public reached the "fight conclusion," wrote Richard Cohen of the Washington Post...
...Yet the record speaks otherwise: Under the Bretton Woods gold exchange standard of the 1950s and 1960s, we had interest rates of 3 to 4 percent, and rapid economic growth...
...Amazingly, a reporter and photographer for Newsweek flouted the Admires" tration's rules and slipped into Grenada on their own, interviewing Grenadians and American soldiers, taking pictures and returning to tell about it...
...This tax increase does not invoke the shape of a more limited government...
...The trouble with the press is that it wants to play two roles at once, the relentless adversary of the government and the eyes and ears of the public...
...It is not a new problem...
...Only twice does the Constitution speak of money: first, it prohibits the states from making anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender...
...Strange are the ways of secrecy and censorship...
...My opponent, Mario Cuomo, said after the election that I sounded too much like Ronald Reagan...
...The real economic Cains would be astonishing...
...My reply is that the fundamental answers to our current problems are simple because the values for which we stand are everlasting...
...As ever, the press admits to no conflict between the two...
...In their wildest dreams, Reagan and his aides couldn't have imagined students kissing the ground at Charleston Air Force Base or a self-confessed dove saying he was now the champion of the military or a woman saying that Reagan had saved her life " l i t e r a l l y . " The Washington Post more than made up for its misguided gotcha story...
...a tax on health benefits...
...The way to achieve this, he said, "is to silence one side of the debate...
...Their evidence suggests *McGraw-Hill, $9.95 pbk...
...Moreover, this estimate is modest: It does not even consider the dynamic incentives for growth a freer market would produce...
...Under such a simple fiat-tax regime, tax shelters for the rich will yield to increased incentives for greater production and income for all...
...a contingency surtax on personal and corporate income...
...A federalism amendment would get at the root of popular discontent, not by enacting individual issues as amendments--very difficult to do--but by limiting the scope and power of the federal judiciary itself...
...In the months that have passed since the election, there has been no shortage of experts to explain my loss...
...Now, that's a nice way of putting it, except that this was not some congressional fight over curbing the Freedom of Information Act...
...Above all, if there is any symbol of our national disorder, we need look no further than our own degraded paper currency, once the enduring hallmark of American world leadership...
...It makes no assumption about how much revenue would be drawn from our underground economy...
...No one can seriously believe that Congress will really use these taxes to balance the budget...
...second, it grants to Congress the power to " c o i n " money...
...In truth, you didn't have to be a knee-jerk cynic or Reaganophobe to he surprised that the students backed Reagan's claim as dramatically as they did...
...But the two don't always fit well together...
...Finally, it is populist in the best sense of the word...
...Reporters, however, are trendy, and some press gurus saw my poor red suspenders as another great conservative issue, like the Panama Canal...
...Some say I put too much emphasis on public order, a crackdown on crime, and the restoration of the death penalty...
...Consider, for example, three pressing areas in need of reform: the tax system, the federal judiciary, and our monetary system...
...Its extensive coverage of the war was strikingly superior, especially its piece on Fidel Castro's thwarted intentions in the Caribbean...
...I bought them, I paid for them, and I'm going to keep them...
...Mortgage deductions could be preserved...
...In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert [religion and morality,] these great pillars of human happiness...
...Initiative, referendum, and recall are fundamental elements of our democratic conservative tradition...
...To some extent, it was a result of academics who taught that the gold standard brought about harsh and cyclical swings in the economy...
...On this one, I shall not yield...
Vol. 17 • January 1984 • No. 1
