Thanks to his fiscal conservatism, Coolidge was able to reduce tax rates and still reduce the national debt by almost a third, from $24 billion to $16.9 billion. Much of this work was accomplished by the Bureau of the Budget, which imposed extensive cost savings in government. The Bureau’s director would check employees’ desks for excessive use of stationery, paper clips, and other supplies, and one official report proposed that government employees be given “only one pencil at a time and not receive a new one until the unused stub was returned.” Quite a far cry from the management of federal agencies today.
Given these accomplishments, it is surprising that Coolidge has been neglected by historians. Compared to many of the more highly-ranked presidents in historians’ rankings, Coolidge’s administration was far more peaceful and consequential. Coolidge’s policy achievements on taxes and federal spending were predicated upon, not a substitute for, his core political principles. In other words, to learn from Coolidge, we have to revise our understanding of what politics is about. We cannot define conservatism by the policies we think are best in this particular moment. Rather, we must define the policies we think are best as those which flow from the principles of conservatism. Policies follow from principles, not vice versa. To understand what Coolidge has to teach us, we must understand the principles that served as the foundation for his actions.
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