Holding his hand over his heart and identifying himself as one of the last true-believers in supply-side economics, an audience member at the April 15 Chubb Fellowship Lecture asked Jack Kemp, one of the chief architects and champions of that cause: What went wrong? Why did supply-side economics fail in the 1980s?
"That's a good question," mused Mr. Kemp. Supply-side economics -- once dubbed "voodoo economics" by its critics -- is "muchly maligned," he contended. "It is nothing more than a classical theory of economics: Supply creates its own demand."
"Our mistake," he said, referring to himself and other members of the Reagan administration, "was not doing something in urban America," which he described as a rich potential source of future entrepreneurs. Calling himself "the only Republican who can quote Jesse Jackson," Mr. Kemp echoed the Reverend's maxim: "Capitalism without capital is just an 'ism.'" In fact, the longtime conservative Republican maintained, "We should as a party put our arms around urban America."
This was the second time that Mr. Kemp has come to Yale as a guest of the Chubb Fellowship at Timothy Dwight College. His last visit was in 1979, during his term in the U.S. House of Representatives. Now codirector of Empower America, an organization that seeks to advance social issues "by empowering people, not bureaucracies," Mr. Kemp came to campus to speak on the topic "America on the Eve of the 21st Century."
As befits a former full-time politician -- particularly one who has campaigned for the vice presidency of the United States, as he did in 1996 -- Mr. Kemp is a far-from-subdued speaker. He paces back and forth, hopping from topic to topic, making his points with broad gestures and an almost-evangelical zeal. Halfway through his speech, he asked those gathered in the Law School's Levinson Auditorium if they would mind if he removed his jacket. Later, clad in white shirt and tie, he roamed between the aisles of the auditorium taking questions from audience members, assuring at least three different people that they were "the second-to-the-last questioner."
Among the topics Mr. Kemp touched upon in his talk were:
Education. "Education should be open to every man and woman in America without regard to income," said Mr. Kemp. In a world in which "information is doubling every six months and computer power is doubling every 18 months," he noted, the big question is: "Will education be able to keep up?"
The tax code. "It stinks," he said bluntly, noting that the date of his lecture coincided with the last day for filing federal income tax returns. "The tax code should be entirely thrown out," he added. Mr. Kemp would prefer a system wherein the government "would tax income once, at about 25 percent" in order to eliminate the current "double- and triple-taxation of income." He argued that "the answer to debt and deficits is to expand the wealth of our nation" and that the United States government should "separate the capital budget from the service budget" and "use the tax code to expand the nation's wealth and use spending to help the poor."
Welfare. "Welfare is a national disgrace," declared Mr. Kemp. "Here's a system that says: 'You can't work. You can't save. You can't own. And you can't get married.' Can you think of anything ... more designed to perpetuate poverty?" During his tenure as secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the Bush administration, Mr. Kemp was a stout advocate of the "benefits of ownership" in devising housing programs. He continues to believe in that principle today, he said, arguing, "We should take all the public housing that people would want to own, and allow people to own their own homes." He announced that next month, he will join former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in supporting a national Rebuilding Our Communities campaign. "This issue isn't 'left' or 'right," he said. "It's 'forward' or 'backward.' It's 'up' or 'down.'"
Global democracy. Mr. Kemp spoke at length about his belief in the power of democratic ideals -- "with a small 'd,'" he quipped. "It is inevitable that the world be free," he said. "Democracy is the most inevitable force in the course of human history." He expressed his belief that democracy will continue to spread throughout the globe, which he says will lead to "a more peaceful world" because "democracies don't wage war on one another."
Politics. A former quarterback for the San Diego Chargers and the Buffalo Bills, Mr. Kemp noted that, during his days in professional football, there was only "one 300-pounder in the league ... and he fell on my right knee." This injury, combined with his multiple other sprains and breaks as well as "14 concussions," led him to conclude, "There was nothing else to do but run for Congress." Speaking of the Republicans' loss in the last presidential election, Mr. Kemp said the first time it really "hit home" that he and Bob Dole had lost the race was the day after the election, when he went out to his car "and sat in the back seat for several minutes before I realized I didn't have a driver."
Great expectations. Noting that "in Chinese, there is no word for crisis ... but everything in America is a crisis," Mr. Kemp argued for a more optimistic approach to the "opportunities" facing the nation. "We get what we expect," he said. "If we expect mediocrity, we get mediocrity. If we expect great performance, we'll get it. We've got to expect more out of ourselves, our country and our schools."
-- LuAnn Bishop