THE RIGHT COULD NEVER FORGIVE HIM...:

Paving the Way for Reagan: Jack Kemp's enduring influence. (Kenneth Tomlinson, 02/16/2009, Weekly Standard)

Without Jack Kemp, there would have been no Reagan Revolution. He was John the Baptist to "the Oldest and Wisest"--and in doing so became one of the most influential political figures of our time.

Had it not been for the radical 30 percent across-the-board tax rate cut that Kemp sold to candidate Reagan, America never would have realized the prosperity of the Reagan era and beyond. (Looking back, can you imagine a society that had accepted the legitimacy of 70 percent tax rates on our best producers?) By the sheer force of his evangelistic personality, he brought supply-side economic theories to influential journalists and politicians--and also to Ronald Reagan--legitimizing the concept that tax rate cuts were essential to unleash the creativity and innovation of the American dream.

Considering the crushing egos of the brilliant band of volatile individuals who constituted the supply-side movement, it is hard to imagine how anyone kept them in the same room long enough to influence mainstream political thought. But Kemp was, after all, the old quarterback who knew the importance of molding all sorts of individuals into a team.

The economic and political establishment mocked him. Alice Rivlin predicted Kemp's tax cuts would produce economic disaster. Howard Baker called his policies a "riverboat gamble." George H.W. Bush derided Kemp's plan as "voodoo economics."

Yet it was Kemp's tax-cut economics that prevailed, revitalizing the American work ethic, putting paid to the stagflation of the 1970s. Even today--unlike at critical times in the 20th century--there are few leaders ready to turn to tariffs and tax increases to battle economic stagnation.

But Kemp brought more to the table than supply-side tax cuts. During the Carter administration, it was Kemp's congressional operation that constituted a virtual shadow cabinet for the Defense Department, with Bill Schneider pushing defense concepts that were the seed corn of the Strategic Defense Initiative that helped force an end to the Evil Empire.

Kemp also was obsessed with making sure minorities were important to the Republican party. Wherever he traveled (including throughout the South), he constantly recruited blacks to his party.

...his passion for appealing to minorities. So he became passe, to our loss. The Party could desperately use a Jack Kemp as Chairman right now.

MORE:
Immigration Reform Will Help Keep This Nation Strong (Jack Kemp, 07/18/2006, Townhall)

In many respects, the way Republicans position themselves on immigration will determine whether the party retains the mantle of majority leadership. Will we remain a party that governs - that offers practical solutions to the problems facing the country? Or will we revert to the harsh rhetoric of criminalizing illegals and even those who provide services, albeit unwittingly? Immigration - including the robust annual flow required to keep our economy growing and the 12 million illegal immigrants already in the country -- is a fact of life in the United States today. And the only practical way to deal with these stubborn realities is with a comprehensive solution, one that includes border security, interior enforcement, a guest-worker program and status for the illegal immigrants already here.

Some counsel that Congress should start with tougher enforcement and border security but wait to create a guest-worker program or address the illegal population. Only in that way, it is said, can we avoid the mistakes of the failed 1986 immigration reform.

In fact, the lesson of 1986 is that only a comprehensive solution will fix our broken immigration system. The 1986 legislation combined amnesty for 3 million illegal immigrants with a promise of tougher enforcement, particularly in the workplace. But the law did not recognize the need for future immigration to meet the demands of a growing economy, and the new enforcement never materialized. Twenty years later, illegal immigration is unabated. While immigrants continue to be drawn to the jobs created by our economy, they have no legal way to enter the country.

As a native son of Southern California, my past knowledge with guest-worker programs bears this out. Illegal immigration reached a peak in the mid-'50s, and more than a million people were apprehended trying to cross the border in 1954. Then Congress expanded the Bracero work-visa program, creating a way for 300,000 immigrants to enter the United States legally each year.

This new legal flow replaced the old illegal influx, and by 1964, Immigrantion and Naturalization Service apprehensions had dropped to fewer than 100,000. As the Congressional Research Service noted in 1980, "Without question, the Bracero program was ... instrumental in ending the illegal alien problem of the mid-1940s and 1950s." The Bracero program and the 1986 failure point in the same direction: A comprehensive solution is the only real and lasting way to address immigration.

The American people understand this, which is why in poll after poll they choose a comprehensive approach over one that relies on enforcement alone. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that Americans prefer a comprehensive plan to an enforcement-only proposal by 50 percent to 33 percent.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 9, 2009 5:31 PM