Unlike Bush 43, Reagan never entertained privatizing Social Security. While he slashed income-tax rates, his 1986 reform equalized tax rates for wages, dividends, and capital gains, disempowering Mitt Romney-type tax-shelter seekers. Nor was he a free trader: the Gipper granted more import relief to U.S. industry than any chief executive dating back to FDR. And he had no beef with private-sector trade unions, winning the Teamsters’ endorsement in 1980 and 1984.
Reagan is not the only president some conservatives misread. So committed to a sterile interpretation of “limited government” and the “founding principles,” the libertarian crowd now wants to chip Theodore Roosevelt off Mt. Rushmore. Never mind that TR laid the foundation of the glorious postwar years. Because the 26th president sought a federal role in promoting economic justice as well as economic growth, these Republicans dismiss TR as a proto-liberal who dislodged the country from the Constitution.
This historical amnesia does nothing to help the party. Instead of renouncing TR, party leaders should seek inspiration from the young president. Indeed, the party could mount his bully pulpit to negotiate another Fair Deal, a true “third way” between libertarianism and liberalism, or between the “malefactors of great wealth” and the radicalism of “socialism” and “anarchy,” in TR’s language. By challenging corporations to be stewards of nation-building, the GOP could recover the utility-styled capitalism that served as the cradle and keeper of the American Dream for the Greatest Generation.
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