reagan has found an admirer in e oval office. the current holder of the presidency said, quote, ronald reagan changed the trajectory of america in a way that richard nixon did not, and a way that bill clinton did not. president obama's desire to be like reagan is evident and has been much remarked upon. the last time i hosted a book for about ronald reagan was for john patrick begins's book on the former president. many of you may know he passed on, but i recall his central thought at that event, ronald reagan changed the world of foreign policy and international affairs, but he accomplishe very little at home in the way of liberalization of society, which as you may recall, reagan's first inaugural, central concern of his. today we deal with the question

in various ways about whether john patrick dragons was correct about that, his ultimate legacy, and we will startith our author,. steve is a fellow at aig, he has written biographs of presidets jimmy carter and a biography of winston churchill and also two volumes about ronald reagan. the first volume is the age of reagan, the fall of the old liberal order, which was on september 10th, 2001. despite that, it received much attention in the years since then. a couple of assessments of that book, one by one of president reagan's closest advisers, said, quote, steven hayward has given us a fascinating, extremely

readable book about a unique era in american politics. is metiulous research and perceptive insights provided an informative and entertaining account of ronald reagan's rise from hollywood to the presidey as well as an in-depth understanding of the times on which the us and occurred. a professor of political science at boston college said, quote, the first volume was brilliant work of political history and analysis, it is the first truly successful effort to treat the phenomenon of ronald reagan with a broader historical framework. steven hayward is a senior fellow at the pacific research institute. i would like to welcome him to talk about his new book. [applause] >> thank you very much, john, thank the cato institute for hosting us today. john mentioned, i first volume

came out right before the events that changed so much of american life. i thought surely things will be different this time. so i turned up in new york on tuesday on msn b.c. got to my hotel, they handed me my room key and it was room 9 11 one. that is a good sign that things would go differently, that i saw the news of senator kennedy's testing, the e-mail of my cancellation, i have been booked for next week, i urge all oyou in praying for the health of robert byrd. [laughter and applause] i should begin by offering a brief explanation, pretty ironica guy who uses the word reached in two opening statements, an explanation of why i should spend the better part of a decade doing something that is so unconventional,

according to the usual publishing norms of toy, writing a long, wide scale, sprawling negative about ronald reagan and his effect on american political life, about events that would seem to have been thoroughly covered and well understood by now. i have a l of reasons but the main point was that i was sure even as recently as ten years ago that reagan was going to end of not eulogize, but cruelogized by the media academic complex like another popular president, calvin coolidge, who was handled roughly by academia and so forth a. if it looks for a couple years after he left office that this would be the way it would unfold. but along the way over the last decade, something surprisg happened, and unexpected. reagan after the staon started to soar. agreed many liberals started to like him. and not all of them. that is an important point. at the same time, a lot of conservatives have come to

overly ranticize reagan and see him as superficial and gauzy, you need a bad history that is provisions. i you look at some of the liberal writers who write admiringly of reagan. richard reeves is one of the more interesting cases. why ronald reagan won't make it. his biography of reagan was the triumph of imagination, i commented on the review that you could have gone lloyd's of london in 1997 to imagine richard reeves puttin the words reagan and triumph in the same sentence. others conclude brinkley more recently, his esteemed val, dwight eisenwer, a decade after he left office, as has been suggested by john, this admiration tends to be limited to the cold war story, the foreign policy story and the

other part of it is the revelation srting ten years ago of reagan's extensive personal ratings in the 70s, letters in office which made us realize he did lot of thinking for himself, not merely speechwriters and staffers advisers. however, we tend either to ignore or get wrong his domestic policy story. to paraphrase reagan's famous movie line, we are left with the question of where is the rest of you, the conventional wisdom still nds to be set the rest of reagan's presidency was a fiasco like his domestic economic policy, every other column in the times seems to be about the disaster of the reagan era domestically, but other disasters people talk about are the iran-contra scandal, which was a genuineisaster. my argument is the junction between reagan's foreign statecraft and domestic statecraft is a major interpretive mistake. many of the treatment of reagan try to extract from his

ideology, which is to barley line from e k. chesterton, like trying to tell the story of the states without mentioning god. four or four revisions of reagan, the chief one is it tries to reestablish the fundamenl unity of reagan's craft in which foreign and domestic policy should be evaluated together. reagan's central idea can be summarized with the view of on limited government, and limited government is hostile to individual liberty, both in its vicious form like communism and in a supposedly benign form like bureaucracy. reagan stated more or less this view himself, most clearly, in his 1982 speech in london where he said, quote, there is a threat posed to the human freedom by the enormous power of the modern state. histor teaches the dangers of government that overreaches, political control taking precedence over free economic growth, secret police, mindless

bureaucracy, combining to stifle individual excellence and personal freedom. note the conflation of secret police and mindless bureaucracy. he regards the phenomenon of political life as a continuing, not merely communists being different from the roblems of western democracy. and that is not a coincidence he made clear in his next sentence. he is talking to the british parliament, the british political class divided over margaret thatcher, i am aware, reagan went on to say that among us here and throughout europe, there is legitimate disagreement over the extent to which the public sector should play a role in the nation's economy i life, and to add my commentary, reagan's way of saying you're not as free and loving as me and maggie, he concluded the sentence this way,n on point all of us are united, our abhorrence of dictatorship in all its forms. reagan's domestic policy is much

harder to tell the foreign policy stry because it is more diffuse and the results are more mixed. he won some, lost some of other things are, believe in today. and the human drama of the cold war, mchale gorbachev, reagan never stood in front of the federal trade commission and said mr. regulator, teardown this rule. but he did have that attitude as i explained in the book, and a lot of his appointees did too. there were some dramatic closed-door argumes he had especially with tip o'neill where he used language that would have done lyndon johnson proud. maybe later i will give you some samples. above all, we need to see if we can explain or understand his seeming contradictions. on foreign policy talked tough about the soviets but reached on control agreements with conservatives. that may have dismayed the 3

pridentialeagan himself. many conservatives wer apoplectic over this turne central focus of jim man's recent book. on the domestic scene, the early assessment of reanomics, he acquiesce to tax increases every year after the initial tax cut package of 1981 and in other areas, to pick one example, reagan agreed to impose, quote, voluntary auto import restraints on japanese automakers which cannot by any stretch of the agination be calculated as a defensible policy by any friend of open markets and free trade. those realists to reject the idea that the reagan years should be understood as revolutionary, at the end of th book he wrote in the end there was no reagan revolution. i have a lot of sympathy with that analysis and i wld be interested to see in what ways bill has revised his judgment 20 years after writing that. will miss some important aspects

of reagan's statecraft and maybe ms. judge the results if we lacings on an abstract scale. in the 1930s, an essay called consistency in politics to explain his own party switching, reagan was a party switcher too. churchill wrote this, a statesman in contact with the moving current of events and anxious to keep the ship of state on an even keel and steer a steady course may lean all of his weight on one side and now on the other. his arguments in each case when contrast can be shown to be not only very different in character but contradictory in spirit and opposite in direction. is object will throughout has remained the same. his resolve, his wishes may have an unchanged but his methods may be verbally irreconcilable. we cannot call it inconsistency, may be claimed to be the truest

consistency. the only way a man can remain home consistent amid the changing circumstances was to change, preserving the same dominating purpose. reagan's dominating purpose was to strengthen the size and influence of the federal government, and his nominating purpose was, to paraphrase lincoln, pace communism on the course to ultimate extension. most of reagan -- both at home and abroad, encompassing churchill's understandg of consistency and politics. consider reagan's agreement in 1982 to rate taxes by $98 billion over the next three years, a deal that cause a lot of conservatives to cry that they had been betrayed. the long analysis of this in my book, summarize briefly, i make a speculative argument, the only speculative argument in the group which i have convincing

evidence of, going more on intuition, reagan knew early in the fall of 1981 that the overall tax cut package fee in 1981 had been too large fees and the deficit would be too large and he did have to give back on some of the tax cuts. he had an uncanny sense of timing and negotiations, his opening bid was $3 billion in increased taxes. the democrats wanted to cancel the rest of the income-tax cuts, canceled the rollback. that, above all, was what reagan wanted to preserve. remember too, if you know the story, the deal as laid out on paper, was for every dollar of tax increases, congress would come forward with $3 of spending cuts. you can argue about whether that was a good deal or not the reagan's point of view was he washrinking the budget. he said this was his bgest mistake in domestic policy, because congress didn't deliver

his spending cs and by several estimates, every dollar of new tax cuts led to $1.15 of additional spending. he didn't make that mistake again, go on with other tax increases, a preacher living the central point of income tax rates. reign policy story is more straightforsard but reagan is misunderstood. what is interesting now is the way the two sides have changed, 20 years ago it was conservatives who said, ten years ago liberals said that reagan did an about-face, when so on the soviet union in his second term. may be the first person to make this argument was that fischer at the university of toronto who i have gotten to know, whose book on the subject is quite od. she called the reagan reversal. i recount in my book as jim man does in his, the consvatives, the arms deal, my favorite was george will who wrote in

december 1987 on the day reagan signed a treaty, future historians will identify this day as the day the united stat lost the cold war. i have asked george about that and some of his other statements and his credit he says i was wrong. ronald reagan knew even more than i thought he did. good for george. on the surface this reading of an old and new reagan appears quite plausible, but contrary to the reagan reversal school it is possible to make out a fundamental consistency in his cold war statecraft from beginning to end. changing as he perceivedis own position and also changing as he understood the difference circumstances in the soviet ufion. on the one hand we will call reagan's tough talk, the evil empire, the lies, cheating and stealing or marks from 1981, you remember those quite clearly, the results are interesting, private letter he wrote in 1983 to a friend, he said, quote, i

have never believed in any negotiation with the soviets, that we could appeal to them as we could to people like us. you don't talk to them like normal people. to contie with reagan, negotiations with the soviets is a case of presenting a choice in which they face ternatives they must consider on the basis -- our arms reduction talks, they must recognize that failure to meet us on some mutually agreeable level will result in an arms race in which they know they cannot maintain superiority. they must choose the screen reduced, equal levels, or inferiority. it comes closer reagan saying on will make the deal they can't refuse. like the famous movie character, right? this is the tough side of reagan. on the other hand, we know of reagan's personal letter, handwritten letter, in which he said, among other things, is it

possible that we have permitted ideology, political and economic philosophy and governmental policies to keep us from considering the very real, everyday problems of our peoples. mr. president, should we not be concerned with eliminating obstacles that prevent our people from eliminating our cherished goals. isn't it possible that these obstacles are born of government objectives which have little to do with the real needs and desires of our people? the letter goes on in a sentimental fein, his soviet adviser called it maudlin, he tried to keep him from sending the letter and the state department drafted a draft, he did know, he thought the senate -- state department roads this. that was a state department product. i am guessing the soviets found a letter deeply confusing when they received it. in december 1981, in an interview with a newspaper reporter, reagan said this.

i have always recognized that ultimately there has got to be a settlement, a solution. you don't believe that, you are trapped in the back of your mind with the inevitability of conflict some day. that kind of conflict is going to end world. he is here saying almost the same thing churchill said in his iron curtain speech about the necessity of reaching a genuine settlement with the soul of the the it 7 -- soviet union. churchill used to say in the middle months of 1945 when he saw trouble coming, if i could sit down with stahl once a week and have dinner with him there wod be no trouble at all after the war. surely and errant judgment, but in tyree typical of the overconfidence of personal diplomacy that certain political leaders have. reagan would drive his advisers cry when he would say if i could just sit down with soviet leaders i'm sure i could make me sea reason. explain what is crazy about their system and what is better

about hours and it is not to have thiarms race, this man is really not leave. to a certain extent that may be correct. this explains the same overconfidence in personal diplomacy you see today, obama saying he will talk to the iranians initially without preconditions and to clear heads got to him about that. reagan foundomeone he could talk to for real in gorbachev. i have a lot to say about gorbachev, he had some genuine reformist instincts, although they were deeply confused. he thought the problems of social is required more socialism, or as i put it in the book, he was much less machiavellian than he was inspector clouseau so. he was someone you could make a deal with. that is why the book is so thick. i end with ed meditation on domestic policy. a lot of us wonder why didn't

reagan succe more in reducing e size and influence of the federal government in domestic affairs? conclusion is this. reagan was more successful in rolling back the soviet empire than in rolling back the domestic government empire, chiefly because the latter is a harder problem. the soviet union was easy compared to the epa, to take my favorite example. gov. daniel's comment after reagan left office, he said the reagan years will be for conservatives with the kennedy years remain for liberals, breakthrough, conservative camelot. the lesson is plainer than that the damage of decades cannot be repaired in anyone administration. there's an interesting parallel between reagan's governorship and his presidency. in his second term, reagan began to understand partly along frustrations of not being able

to reduce spding more, curb the bureaucracy, unable to get a vote to eliminate cabinet apartments and h also understood future presidents might completely lacked any resolve to try to curtail government grows and here we are today. starting in 1987 he proposed repeatedly a series of five constitutional amendments call the xpayers' bill of rights. an interesting symmetry with the economic bill of rights of franklin roosevelt in the 1940s. reagan also advocated balanced budget amendments. he did not succeed, the other three, supermajority requirement for a tax increase, surmajority vote, the second one, the package was a constitutional spending limit, the federal government could not end a certain percentage o gross domestic product, and

finally, something you would have fought in the 1980s would be unnecessary if you think about putting in the constitution, a constitutional prohibiion of price controls. no one was talking about bringing back price contr in 1987, yet today the federal government is controlling the wages of bankers and soon it will be controlling the wages and prices of the health-care sector. if you get rapid inflationnd another couple years, hard to think that we will bring back wage and price controls. reagan's second solicitor general wrote something stage about this. the reagan administration tried to make a revolution. it proposed dismantling part of the welfare bureaucratic state which had grown up over the previous half ctury revolutionary it was and it requir boldness, more boldness, after more boldne. this boldness was not always in evidence and when it was,

defeated at the hands of congress and new media. one of the themes of the book is how often reagan complained about and was frustrated by his own party. part of the reagan sorry forgotten by all republicans who say they are reagan republicans. the old mccarthy line, the chief use of the liberal republicans is to shoot the wounded after the battle. a lomore of those remain the days. our judgment might differ in a number of ways on exactly how successful you think reagan was across a broad range of domestic issues. it is worth medating on what he tried and why he didn't always succeed in some of his larger objectives because there might someday be another crack at it for central government's. we should learn from studying that experience, instead of celebrating superficial aspects of his genial personality. thank you very much and i look forward to the comments.

[applause] >> thanks, steve. i forgot to mention when we were starting out that steve will be available after words when we go upstairs after the event to have some lunch. steve will be available, you can purchase his book if you haven't already done so and he will be available to sign it and to chat with you about this important work. our first discussion today will be james mann, foreign policy institute of her and the school of advanced international studies at johns hopkins. he was senior writer and resident at the center for strategic and international studies and served as staff writer at several newspapers including the los angeles times, where he had fought, he had a positi

securityorrespondent he won the everett m. hood award for diomatic correspondent in 1993, and 1999. many in the audience may well know one of his earlier books, the rise of the balkans, the history of bush's work of cabinet was published in 2004 a discussed at that time, and the rebellion of ronald reagan published in march of this year and is available in the usual places. we are happy to have mr. man here today to comment on this ok. thanks. [applause] faugh >> i am going to offer a few commentss on the book. and the big question that any

writer or historian faces in coming to grips with this period, with ronald reagan. i am the nonconservative on the panel. i think, given- ♪ given my writing about china, and i hardly claim to by liberals. i classify as iconoclast. you probably don't want to know my views about healthcare, that is not what we are here to talk about today. on this book, on sten hayward's book, i find that i liked the book. the passages, which are many, on

a ronald reagan and the cold war, are remarkably good history. having just gone over the history myself, i got reagan right, many commentators don't. in particular, this book manages to take into account as i try to, in which he took office, his second term, desire to limit or abolish nuclear weapons. reagan's extraordinary apropos which balanced communism with a genuine idealism for reducing

nuclear weaponrand reaching agreement with the soviet unioná in the process -- the battles between conservatives and reagan, in his second term, the quote he gave you was representave, one of many. once gorbachev takes office, there were divisions in washington about what gorbachev means, whether he represents significant change. the conservative view, whi was shared by many in the intelligence community, which was shared bnonconservatives of a different kin like richard

nixon, was that gorbachev did not represent significant ange, it was a charismatic face for the same policies. that might have been impossible in 1985, but as time goes on, it becomes less and less true. i don't agree with everything in the book but there are parts of the book which are clearly a conservative wrir writing for a conservative audience. when steve speaks about the media academic complex in an aside in the book, i know what he means. that is one side of the story, and there may also be -- conservatives are not without complexes without those of their

own. those parts of the book i don't agree with. there is another point where the book compares the new york times editorial page with process fee, a nice line, my own completely take at the new york times editorial page, at least pravda said something, then you're tim times editorial page said nothing. you need an answer or interpretation, taking them in order of importance. first of all, why was gorbachev

appointed? there are essentially political interpretations of this. steve's book rightly criticizes the liberal argument of the early 80s, that reagan's policies, were going to gi rise to a new hard-line soviet leadership. it wasn't borne out in the way that was argued. on the other hand i am not sure, it is an open question, the extent to which politics mattered at all. i personally think gorbachev was appointed simply because he looked like he would have a pulse for another 30 years. alth and vigor were the main

factor. you can even argue that he was appointed because the soviet military, among others, thought that he would revive a soviet economic power and somehow figure out a way to advance soviet technology, that in a way he was appointed as a hard-liner. all of that is the village is and age and victor are the main issues. the second-biggest general issue is how do you square essentially rean's first term and his second term on soviet licy. how do you formulate the relationship between those early years, defense buildup, strategic defense initiative, the evil empire speech and several others, national security directive, that specifically lays out a bowl of challengin soviet power, and the 85 to 88 period where the

main events are jobs, the last one of which, reagan says specifically that his views about evil empire came from another time and another place, d his arms control treaty, which is really the first arms control treaty ratified by the senate, first successful arms control treaty in 18 years. there are several ways of formulating this, and one mistake from the right and left is to say that reagan's term, diplomacy with gorbachev didn't matter because the soviet collapse was inevitable. the liberal or left-wing version of the inevitability argument is this was the inevitable result

of truman's policy of containment and over a period of decas containment worked, the soviet union collapsed. that is all true, it doesn't address the question of how and when itollapsed. and then, thconservative argument that i hear from time to time is gray and's second term didn't count. what really counted was the first termbecause reagan buildup american defenses and the soviets gave in. this is the traditional view of reagan, that he built the american defense and gorbachev responded by deciding to tear down the wall. and i explain in my own book why this isn't true. the age of reagan doesn't accept

this. steve -- steven hayward and r are persuaded, he cites the argument of a scholar which points out that e soviet union, despite it all, despite the american defense buildup, the soviet union was, in his words, lethargically stable, that it had enough missiles, enough nuclear weapons and chemical and biological weapons and hardware to go ofor years, that it is one thing to say the soviet union was not going to try to match the united states, a completely different thing to say that it was going to go along with the revolutions in eastern europe, the fall of the berlin wall. that was something else and in my own view, that was the result as much of reagan's very

skillful policies the second term as it was of the first term. there are other explanations that get offered, but how do explain the second term? i think we agree that these don't hold, that reagan was simply captured by moderates in the second term. you do hear this formulation from conservatives, thanancy reagan, george shultz, colin powell, somehow captured the minds of ronald reagan. this is laid out in writing a book by thomas reed is served in the reagan administration. the evidence, in my mind, some doesn't support this, reagan made his own decisions, he may have seemed passive from time to time or longer periods of time that he was the decisionmaker and you can point with any of

these people to the image they're supposed to have captured reagan, to times when they didn't get their way. george shultz d not want reagan to give the speech, care wn that wall. nancy reagan did not want reagan to go to pittsburgh. there is also a formulation that fall of reagan's soviet policies were a reaction to the iran-contra scandal. his presidency was in trouble and his diplomacy with gorbachev was a reaction to that. the problem with that is it simply doesn't even fit the chronology. the most important singl moment of the diplomacy, the summit in reykjavik where reagan and gorbachev talked about eliminating nuclear weapons was

before the iran-contra scandal broke. so that is easy to dismiss. . the third and most important problem to address, and this is impossible to know the answer, is how much in reagan's policies was theesult of a long-term strategy from the beginning, and how much was a very savvy response to events? one theory about -- that spotlights -- postulate a long-term strategy, that reagan took office, bringing the soviet union to collap. i find it in a particular book,

and in fact, his own defense secretary rejects the idea that there was a strategy to bring the soviet union to collapse. there were policies that were aimed at challenging the soviets. bill casey as cia director was pushing away, but i can't see -- i can't see even the beginnings of a reagan strategy over eight years to bring the soviet union to collapse. steven hayward's book offers to me a sounder version of a long-term strategy which is that reagan's early policies were meant to strengthen america's hand in negotiations with the soviet union, you didn't enter

into a summit until you had strengthened america's defense, and so on. , that strikes me as something that makes some sense. to me, that reagan was really very skillfully responding to events that he did recognize that gorbachev had the potential to be an agent of change in the soviet union when many others in the united states did not. and reagan was certainly a very skillful negotiator. to me, part of this may be a strategy on negotiation and part of it is a very skillful response to events. then we come to the question,

this is where i am happy to plead guilty, where steven hayward colains that some people separate reagan's foreign and domestic policy, what is the relationship between these events in agan foreign policy and domestic policy, he argues that it is all of one piece. seems to separate them out. on that, i just plain disagree. to me, this is a funny version of the old convergence theory that the united states and the soviet union have become, or are becoming like each other.

to me, the problems -- more than problems, of the 1-party state are different from anything we face on a roll of the state in our multi-party system. those are two fundamentally different issues, so i will say teasingly that i may be more of an anti-communist than you are. with that, let me open it up to discussion, thanks. [applause] >> thanks ve much. our last discussn will be the man i know for come years simply as our chairman, the chairman america's and senior economist at the cato institute between 1985, and 2008. he was acting chairman of president reagan's council of

economic advisers. he has also served as director of economics at the ford motor co. a professor of economics at the university of california berkeley and los angeles, assistant director of the federal office of management and budget, defense analyst at the rand corp. director of special studies in the office of the secrary of defense, director of program analysis division of the institute of defense analysis, someone with that backgrounds well placed to tell us the great deal about what has happened in american history during the reagan era and before. bill has written on many public policy issues. his 1971 book bureaucracy and representative government is considered a classic, his most recent book is reflections of a political economist, selected articles on government policy andovernment processe please welcome bill.

[applause] >> most relevant of my books is called reaganomics in which i summarized the development and affect of the reagan economic program over its two terms. steve's book is simply the best comprehensive history of the reagan administration. no other comprehensive history is anywhere near as good. no partial history, no good section is as comprehensive as what steve has come up with. let me summarize what i regard as reagan's major achievements in foreign policy. the end of the cold war, breakup of the warsaw pact, the breakup of the soviet union, the latter two phenomena in '89 or early 1990s, they were clearly a consequence of the developments

during the reagan administration. i will develop on that later. one other thing in which i don't have sufficient appreciation, may be coming to end, the reagan packed of courts. that effect of his adminiration, t first republican to serve eight years since calvin coolidge. he packed the courts with like-minded people. that has been an important stabilizer in the american legal history. let me focus primarily on domestic and specifically onomic policy. the major achievements,he inflation rate was reduced from 12-1/2% during 1980 to 3.8% in 1982. it had previously been regarded as impossible to reduce the inflation rate by that magnitude over that period of time.

there was strong economic growth in 1983 through 1989. the consequence of the fact that top marginal tax rates were reduced from 70%n 1980 to 28% in 1986. .four ..

>> you have to reduce the budget deficit, and you have to maintain whatever controls over particular prices in particular segments that are necessary. the left explanation of inflation was that prices are going up in subsector and that is causing inflation. prices to go up rather substantially and energy in the 1970s, but that was not the reason why we had inflation. what happened, what did reag do? by the end of january of 1981 he had eliminated price controls on oil. and that eliminated the queues at gas stations. some of you may not remember that period, but for a good bit of that period going into a gas station and it took an hour to get to the pump.

and that eliminated the queue in a gas station overnight. and in his economic program in 1981 was going to increase its budget deficit. we knew that at the time. a consequence of an increase in the rate gf defense spending and a significant reduction of tax rates. so that perspective of the left should have been rejected by that particular experience, in the sense that we did just the opposite of what they recommended. and still brought inflation down by more than two thirds within two years. as a consequence of really very tight monetary policy. i think the single most important action by reagan in that period of time on inflation is that he gave paul volcker, who have been appointed by jimmy carter, very strong support to use monetary policy to control

to bring inflation rate down. carter had appointed, without knowing who heeally was. he had appointed poker as a consequent of a recommendation from others. voelker came in and started tightening the money supply very quickly. and the fall of 1979. carter reversed volcker on that matter becse 1980 was a presidential election year. and so volcker did not have support of the president to maintain a tight monetary policy that he had started in the fall of 1979. but when reagan came in, he gave volcker for a strong support to impose, tighten up monetary policy to substantially reduce inflation. and it worked within two years, much more quickly than most people anticipated.

more than as city inflationary rate was brought down by more than twohirds. on taxes, the perspective of a reagan not at the time or the fact is that very different effects on the economy than was from the position, perspective of the conventional left. is that the left typically interpreted the effects of taxes on the economy in terms of its effect on the demand of goods and services and for labor. we interpretedhe effects of taxes from the economy primarily in terms of its effects on the incentive to work, save, invest, and increase your produivity. and for that reason we are called supply-siders. we focus on the effect of taxes on the supply of output and not on the demand for output. so what did we do? taxes were reduced, tax -- top tax margin rate was reduced in

the first year in 1981. and then in the 1986 tax bill, the marginal tax rate was reduced further to 28%. atop marginal tax rate was reced further to 20%. at the same time, most people below the median income were taken off the federal income tax rolls. right now something like 96% of the federal iome tax is sustained by the top half of the income distribution. but there's some lessons to be learned from that, and this we have learned sometes, we have learned some wrong lessons. the residual supply-siders have left us with two quite

incompatible assertions about the effective tax rate cuts. one is the assertion that tax rates, tax cuts are self financing. it is not arthur's own interpretation, but the tax cuts are self financing. so you don't need to worry about the deficit. this is a point of view by the way that dick cheney apparently stl holds. you don't need to worry about tax cuts. because they don't increase the deficit. they are self financing. there's another perspective that is entirely incompatible with the first perspective, is the start that tax cuts lead to spending cuts because they starve the beast. now there are all too many people call them selves suly-siders who at one time or another aiculate both of these positions. of course, they are inconsistent. it turns out the key empirical events particularly since about 1980 is that both of these are

wrong. tax cuts are not self fancing. there are some tax cuts that increased revenues where you have a high elasticity of tax base with respect to the tax rate, as in say capital gains. or whether absolute tax rate is so very high, and when the top marginal tax rate was 70%, it's very likely of reducing that rate by some amount with self financing but not necessarily all the way down to 28%. and even the capital gains tax cuts by george w. bush in 2003 look like they might have been self financing, but that is not the general case with respect to tax cuts. and the evidence of the starve the beas hypothesis, although it had been, this hypothesis had been strongly supported in the press by a mitof the people

bilton friedman and gary becker, it is just inconsistent of the facts. no longer history suggests that you cut taxes, the demand for government services goes up. you cut the price of most anything, good or service, the amount of tha good or service that is demand goes up. and what happens at what is now confirmed by the evidence is that reducing the relative tax burdenn the united states, reducing the tax shares, say of total gdp of the united states, has been strongly associated with increasing government spending, not a starving the beast, a reduction of the government spending. now another ing that is important to recognize is that although reagan is remanded for his tax cuts in 1981 and 1986, in most other years, particularly 1982, 1983 and 1984, he increased taxes. so he did not have, he did not have a tax cut under all

circumstances, respected. now the 1982 tax increase had a history of anna knauss is within the council of economic advisers. that when given the 1981 tax cuts, if you bring inflation rate down as rapidly as was in fact happening, it actually led to a negative tax rate on certain kinds of business investment. the 1981 did not take into account the interaction between the effect of the tax cuts, the tax rate cuts and inflation itself. and so that was the primary direct reason i think for the 1982 tax increase. the 1983 tax increase was a consequence of the fact that reagan's 2001 -- 1981 proposal on social security did not get a single vote in the senate, and

so he appointed a commission to address social security, headed by an greenspan, but the recommendations basically came from the darman, who was greenspan's chief of staff on that particular committee. a long story among many of us in the reagan administration, or question that many of us in the reagan administration asked each other, why have people come to hate dick garmin so quickly? and the answer, it saves time. [laughter] >> but in any case, dick garm was a very bright guy and he was an aide to baker. and so he was involved in any number of important decisions. let me now turn to some cases of

very discriminating judgment on similar issues in which reagan's judgment proved to be right in both cases. one is that in the summer of 1981, professional air traffic controllers, federal employees, went on strike. they thought they could get away with it for two reasons. one is that they had endorsed reagan in the 1980 election. three reasons. the second is that reagan himself had been a union president, president of the screen actors guild. and third is that patco is a monopoly. they are the only ones who are allowed at the time to be professional a traffic controllers. reagan, within hours, went on television and said this is an illegal strike. we're going to do whatever we can to maintain air traffic in part by using military air traffic contrlers.

and the strike was broken. that however was misinterpreted by a lot of the press and that somehow reagan's anti-union position, not really true. we did not intervene at all in a very much larger and extended strike in at&t two years later. so we had a scrupulously neutral position with respect to the at&t strike in 1983. reagan appointed a man named bill baxter to be the antitrust assistant attorney general in the department of justice. baxter was a dynamo. within months of being in the job, he dismissed a 15 year old antitrust suit against ibm on the basis that technology in that area have gone way beyond

what was the justice department's concern 15 years before that. but at the same time, not long after that, baxter was involved in the breakup of at&t in two or three different organizations. so these were discriminating judgments, and i think the judgments in which case was very corrected in both cases. another one that i think is quite interesting. reagan, after some controversy within the administration, authorize an invasion of the tiny caribbean iand called grenada. that followed a situation in which the hezbollah had bombed the barracks, paris and barracks in lebanon, in beirut. but reagan had authorized the

invasion of grenada riemer to reduce the cuban influence in the caribbean because the grenada political system had basically been taken over by the cubans. and that, even the bombing of the marine barracks in beit gave people the impression that we were in for another round of military activities. one of the more important things that i think reagan ever did in foreign policy is pulling the marines out of beirut. that kept us from getting involved in a middle eastern war in the 1980s. and pulling marines out of beirut basically under the argument that the political developments in lebanon did not represent a national security that to the united states.

that is a principle that i wish that george h. w. bush and george w. bush have followed. another interesting discriminating judgment is that reagan's public and private views about most of the soviet leaders were absolutely devastating and critical. at the same time this man went with gorbachev, and pulled off both basically an opening to gorbachev. and that plus the rapid defense buildup in the earlier part of the 1980s i think was the primary thing that led to the end of the cold ware, and ultimately the breakup of the warsaw pact and the breakup of the soviet union itself. there had been a lesson learned in the meantime. it's a lesson that we were slow to learn, but i think was more

widely understood in russia itself, in the soviet union. in the 1970s, our cia, the central intelligence agency, finally recognized the soviet defense budget was a lot larger share of their gdp than what they had in telling us for a long time. their earlier position was that the soviet defense budget could be him more oless maintained indefinitely because it was not that much of a bigger share than gdp than ours. what happened in the 1970s when george h. w. bush was actually director of t ci, the cia recognized that they had grossly overestimated the size of the soviet gdp. they overestimated the defense budget but is substantially overestimated soviet defense

budget -- overestimate the size of the soviet gdp. and that gave an increasing number of people in the united states a recognition of what the soviet leaders had known for some time, that the soviet defense budget was a major, much bigger burden on them than what had previously been thought about in the united states that recoition, plus the u.s. defense buildup, the part of which i think most of us always was the strategic offensive initiative program. and i think reagan's opening toward gorbachev at the end of the period was i think the primary reason for these really dramatic develments in foreign policy. reagan's judgment on people was surprisingly good.

i think he made sure their judgment on people. the two st conspicuous misjudgment i tnk with the appointment of al haig as secretary of state in 1981. we came close to having al hai becoming president after reagan was shot. [laughter] >> and that was a really very bad judgment. and i think also the appointment of don regan as a second term chief of staff was a bad judgment. don reagan i thought was a good secretary of the treasury, but he was a terrible chief of staff in the second term. but as a rule i thought that reagan's judgment about people was very good. he was correct in his judgment about most of the soviet leaders. also i think he was corre in his judgment about gorbachev, but this was a man with whom he could talk about big issues like getting rid of nuclear weapons was a substantial reduction of nuclear weapons in both of our parts. and upcoming to a peaceful

relationship over a period of time. major mistakes. steve has mentioned trade policy was i think one of the worst records of the reagan administration. particularith respect to japan. we were very dependent on japan. we have been very been up on japan for any number of reasons. but we forced the japanese to impose voluntary export restraints instead of imposing a quote on our part we enforced into a impose a voluntary export on their sales of cars and steel and semi conductors and so forth to the united states. the budget deficit was a mistake. i must acknowledge that i was more concerned about the budget deficit in the 80s then i e-mail. the budget deficit were primarily a consequence of the rapid increase of the defense

budget. so the question is whether the budget deficits were a mistake i think was a consequence, the decision about whether defense buildup was a mistake. now you ought tonow that the weinberger's proposals had very little support in the cabinet and in the white house, with the exceptioof the president. i had worked 13 years in defense and d served for a couple of years as an associate director of omb. weinberger's proposals were on the defense budget, were meaning in the sense that they treated us like ignorance, people. but he got away with it. and unfortunately, fortunately or unfortunately, i think it may very well be the big increase in the defense budget which was not financed by taxes, in other words, financed by borrowing. in retrospect may have been a

very good decision because i think it was one of the key elements i bringing about the end of the cold war and the other relatnships. so there were mistakes and trade policy was a mistake. i have come to a rather different view about the budget deficits that i had at the time. and about the defense buildup at the time. let me just give you one little story. weinberger came over to make a presentation on his budget, defense budget to e cabinet. and he brought some cardboard cutouts with the sort of a six-foot marine as being his budget. and sort of a 3-foot tiny soldier as being the budget that stockman wanted. and this was the quality and character of the presentation that he made on the defense budget before the reagan cabinet. so he treated it -- us like

ignoramuses. i think it is a decision on the defense budget to finance it by borrowing by taxes is probably a good idea. thank you. [applause] >> what bill doesn't mention there is that david stockman book, he recounts this exact same story. the virtual having worked on the budget for his catcher and editing, stockman could not believe it, weinberger showed up with a little cut out and pointed at one of them, a jimmy carter would be defense. stock and lost that battle. that's one thing that actually will get to in the queue in a. david stockman played a great role and continues today in other areas, but his book is important on the domestic issues here. and wwould like to go to questions and answers. would have gone a little bit over our planned time but we still have ample time for some

questions from the audience. and please, when you're going to have to speak in a fairly loud voice so we can hear you because of the sound problem. but please ask us a question, and also if you want to dect it to one particular person on the panel, please indicate that. and finally, please indicate who you are an institutional affiliation affiliation you might have. you're going to have to speak a. the gentleman in the back i believe was first. >> patter, i am an attorney here. i'm curious, when we discuss the different tween the reagan's first term and the reagan's second term in terms of foreign policy with the soviet union, i've always believed that that was the key to that and then their was a genuine on both sides, both on the side of the soviet union and on the side of the united states that this was the key terest that started

the reagan's welfare and a comment on that, i would appreciate. >> we both talk about it in our books. the question is referring to is a large nato exercise in november of 1983 that coincided with the installation of the intermediate range missiles which was so controversial. and there's some evidence, i go through the mist after ofis evident in my mind. some evidence that the soviet union genuinely not impossible to work preparing a preemptive strike against them. and that they in response ponder their own preemptive strike back. and is ultimately bubbles a few reagan who was alarmed by this when he is told. he said how could the soviet union think we would attack them? i tell the story in great length in my book. i tell a lot of stories at great length in my book. that's part of the problem. i think it is probably a factor in tngs, although i will add, what jim was talking to mothers quite a lot of evidence, i was

not the first to fight it, but reagan was willing to have a some as early as 1982 or into 83. he was exchanging private messages with others in 1983. right or able archer happens, right before grenada happened and so forth is you have a korean airliner is shot down. and that really disruptive things. it was sort of a fall beginning to build in the summer of 83 and then get spun out in the other direction culminating with able archer and they do think that those events contributed to reagan thing now is the time to change my rhetorical approach. i am a chapter about 1983 with reagan telling time magazine, what evil empire remark? and reagan said iould make that remark again now, even after the things they've done what he. so he was starting to change his rhetoric at that point. and i think then, one of my theories is he realized that now it's time for me to give it. and he got the missiles in place. that was a big deal. the buildup was cooperative and

does scare and others time to back off a bit and so forth i talk a lot about that. jim may want to weigh in on that also. >> i don'tave too much different to say about. the fact it was a major here is really sort of a random ihink what we chose to talk about, but in the book i do give a lot of weight to this episode where actually the british have an intelligence agency reporting to them who comes to them and says that the soviets thought that nato was on the verge of a strike against them, and their agent says, you kno what are you doing her i thought i was working for all of you in the interest of world peace. and produces a considerable debate, both in london and then in washington, about whether the soviets really thought that the reagan administration was capable of striking against the soviet union.

and there is, you know, interviews with people likbud mcfarland was a national security advisor seemed to make clear that reagan really was genuinely puzzled about that. and really he gives a speech at the begnning of 1984 which has a remarkably different tone. and i think able archer and so are other event in 1983 have cost him some concern about the possibility of misunderstanding. it certainly also worth mentioning that the beginning of 1984, it's a presidential year and the democrats are complaining that reagan hasn't had a summit with the soviet union. so he -- the ambassador in washington writes about this episode, and he interprets reagan's speech as the new sort of conciliatory tone as a matter of domestic politics. an i think it was both. and when you look back, it

certainly was a response to able archer and other events between the u.s. and the soviets in 1983. >> roger p. long. >> roger cohen, cato institute. is becoming even say lot about reagan's ideas. that seems to me it's very import aspect of his administration. you remember in the '70s we had public convergent pieces and a mol equivalency basis. i was in the state department during the second reagan term and i remember because i was in the bureau of human rights, how the bureaucrats over there in the state department resisted from day one reagan's hum rights agenda and how we used to have to fight to get that across. it worked magnificently in the end in changing the climate of ideas. so could you say a little bit more about what your research showed in that? >> well, one of the things i do

in the book is constantly talk about, i call it the instinct argue that reagan had. and that the more reaganites nevers of his administration. they like to pick fights abgut the. i think this is one thing that makes them different from the last replicant administration. and in one of the arguments i make is that you can keep the initiative in politics even if you lose particular policy fight. by the way what i thought you might ask me about and something i make a big deal about in the book is the fight that ed meese. as attorney general over original content of the hostages. that cause a big hullabaloo. it may have been a contributing factor in the defeat of the nomination by the way because it raises up and certainly a factor, not the factor. however, i think i was an enormously important useful argument to srt. and lo and behold i noticed today that even a guy like him who is the guy, lamarr. tomorrow kowtowed originalist of some kind even when ty're not. that is an example of picking a

fight about something. in the case isot even connected whether, there was some connections. reagan had ideas about federalism. so instinct for argument that pervaded the i think the larger part of the practice of reagan's presidency. when you are losing you is to make a political initiative. i think that's, you can pick individual things that you can pick human rights in the. they like to fight about stuff. it was great. >> i think these proposals, in the second term were productive. although i think that ed meese got the argument wrong. talk about original intent, not original meaning. and intent is somehow you have to infer the intent of the people who wrote the language, which i think is a mistake because people can support language for very different reasons, and i think the fact

that ed meese didn't have the argument track. i think the consequent didn't go very far. actually agree with you, i include in the book a couple of references in the defects of the acnes part of the. that's why they were so shocked and outraged by a. >> and bill's argument is also justice alito who we have a president to thank for who you're talking about today. >> replicans in congress keep talking about waste, fraud and abuse in the budget. and my problem with that eventually you have to talk about cutting programs i have some memory of that period, i

don't know if reagan era talk about that. i think before he ran for president he really understands that eventually some kind of programs have to be cut. >> bill have more insight than i would. i argue in my book and of the people made his argument for me that reagan made a mistake in 1981 when his political was highest in the sense that we will have to cut spending was at its broadest here in thi town, and not proposing some fundamental reforms in social security medicare, some of the other entitlement programs. instead they change eligibility rules to limit spending that would. we had the famous ketchup as a vegetable episode which i recounted the book because jay leno was joking about 15 years afterwar. and exactly try to make a virtue out of the fact that they were cutting social security.

that was a nonstarter from the beginning with republicans in the senate, let alone democrats. and then the momentum for serious spending restraint dissipated pretty quickly. here i accept stockman's account that the budget cuts were phone and went away pretty fast. by the time to go to the fall of 1981 you hadost ctrol of the budget process is actually. and yet it never really returned to making a fundamental argument that government needs to be smaller. reagan, although he didn't talk about the new federalism, he never went back to what had been a mistake for them in the 1976 campaign. did he propose a specific number. we're going to send $90 billion in federal responsibilities back to the state. and that ended up being hung around his neck as the problem even inc. is a sound idea. he didn't make that mistake again in the 1980 campaign and he never says he tried to spread a. so i think that was something that was it the factor to stay. >> you can't cut the budget

without cutting programs. reagan only made one serious program proposal in 1981. i got was this proposal cuts, social security by a gd bit. stockman thought it was possible and he wanted a lot of money right off the bat. it went to t senate, did not get a single, not one vote on the senate. that was a discouraging it. it was a badly conceived proposal, and the mood was not right for a. it's also important to recognize that for the whole of the reagan period he faced a democratic control of the house. in this particular case he didn't get a vote in the senate are. >> peter whitney, duke university. yota in your book about reagan influence as a relation, the question on ideas onhe creation of nafta. he did mention a nafta like organization as i recall in the

1979 speeches. and he ignored his advisers and the right ahead with his free trade mantra. and the other guy said he was at go take a i believe tha some of these meetings and that reagan'n statements have big influence on him and the mexicans eventually reform. >> the question for those of you might not have heard it. reagan's role in nafta. i talk to my first wife about the origins of the idea with his idea of a north american free trade zone which i think was in 1979, or 1980. i don't talk much about nafta in this book because i believe naturally comes to fruition at orchard although i do talk a lot because i had forgotten about and it was kind of below the radar but a lot of the time in the second term, although i am with bill in saying that their record on trade was equivocal at best, reagan is possibly trying to beat back the threat of

protectionist legislation from congress, even tougher section with japan pic is always threatening to veto a trade bill. i give him props so to speak for admirably carried on against sentiment that was pretty strong in both parties. i don't talk about nafta. i probably could have but there are a lot of things i had to leave out. even with the length i wrote. >> i would have to take a position with you, my feeling was i was very active watching mr. reagan when he got elected on his rhetoric during the election. we have no race problem in america. we have nonvironmental problem in america. those sweeping statements were very, very strange. however, he did not become as bad a president as george bush, the last eight years that we ha

certainly he was a very, very restraint in a lot of his rhetoric on the soviet and by the evil empire, i got into trouble with them because i wrote him a letter that mr. president, have you watched yourself in the mirror to see what empire you are presiding over mike'probably a great statement. i mean if you consider the soviets, do i love them which are bad. in fact, during his period, our -- know dubberly talked about it so i would say the human rihts, within the country he was really a bad influence. >> would you agree with that, steve? >> that's the question we were looking for. let me ask a follow-up here since bush, we have to ask what would reagan do question, don't we? in the aftermath of september 11, 2001, would ronald reagan have fled the country

into an invasion of iraq? in your judgment. >> let me take the first general part of your questn first. the first answer i give when people say what would reagan do today, is my first answer is he would ban powerpoint at the white house. i actually kind of mean epic i ink he would've seen the defense of the powerpoint. on a more serious question though is i think it actually does get to an aspect of the previous question, which to sprawling to take on any sensible way. but there's one part i can take on. one of my conclusions, this is my opinion, it'hard to grant a pointy. i think reagan might have a very poor war leader if we had a large war. i think he would notave undertaken the iraq invasion. just my opinion about the matter. and this comes from a couple of reasons that he was very, very reluctant to use force despite all of his so-called cowboy talk in the '60s about paving over vietnam and putting a parking stripe down the middle. he really didn't have the stomach for it. and on the particular case of latin america, this is

interesting. liberals used to charge, i remember tipple and remember tipple militate reagan will be happy until we have marines in nicaragua. and we now know from reagan's diary he said i am never sending troops to central america. were going to support the contras and all that was very controversial. but ong the reasons was it was a peripheral theater for one thing. he didn't need to. conts were. second i think it was the distaste of using force that we saw about the man. but third, in his diary he became very sensitive to what he learned in traveling to latin america which i think he had been to not really aware of is there really is a lot of resentment of big brother yank it up north. by the way this is a reason why he was pressured to take up noriega in panama which first president bush letr did and reagan said i don't want to do that. and part was the use of force and part was he became very sensitive to an aspect that you're suggesting about the legacy of american powernd our neighborhood. i think suggest somewhat more equivocal portrait of the guide

then maybe you have that we can fight later. >> let me just amplify that, personal on iraq. that there is a strong component with reagan in certain of his defense secretary, caspar weinberger, of you say the use of ground troops, you save the u.s. army for use, hopefully not, but you save it for a major war against a major power like the soviet union. not for smaller force. so in 2003, there was much talk about the powell doctrine and how that might apply to iraq. actually the powell doctrine was originally the weinberger doctrine, and it was as you know,you don't centers into battle and lets you got several things, but including an end game and so on. i think reagan would have, the comparison between bush and

reagan is paul's letter to bush's own identification because i don't think reagan would've done iraq. and in fact, after reagan leaves office in 1989, george bush senior sent 20000 troops to panama in december of 1989. that was by far the biggest american military operatn since vietnam. reagan had done nothing comparable to that. so i think, for george bush junior to compare himself to reagan, i think the comparison just doesn't work. >> important to remember that in 18 months from 9/11 to the time that we actually went to war in iraq, the war in iraq started in march of 2003. not that 9/11 2001. during that period of time to become good iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. almost all the people of almost all the people on those airplanes were saudi's.

and the cia wasn't even very clear about whether iraq had any dangerous weapons. once we got over there it became quite car that theyidn't have any dangerous weapons, they had thing to do, that they were not a threat to us. and our arguments to the bush adnistration were, well, we've got to use iraq as preserving basis for democracy in the middle east. at is kind of an argument that reagan would never have accepted as a basis for going over and maintaining. >> one more question. do we have one? the german on the isle. >> one aspect that want aard with reagan's habit of pointing people wholly incompetent to manage agencies whose mission he disapprovedf despite his having taken an oath of office to preserve, protect, see if the laws are basically administered. there were people like james

watt, earl butts who had no slightest competency for the office he held. >> well, let me push back this way. i would make a distention between, that was a train wreck accident. i know the whole story about that is pretty funny. one aspect of it, all new epa people to do to meet environmental groups in town. she gets out of her car, her limo and sashays into the mayflower wearing a fur coat with her cigarette holder. [laughter] >> great way to break bread with environmentalists. i disagree with you about what. he was plenty confidenopic and. he used to go around and talk to them which are dissected in either party don't do. i don't think the employees share your view of him about his competence. let me step back. is will allow me to sort of

get a second order reason to what jim mann ended on saying i don't agree with your unity between reagan's domestic statecraft. how can you compare a two-party system where one group above throws out the other group of bums with a one party system. at the second order of analysis is reagan in his inaugural address talked about how our government signed now governing without the consent of the government. and elsewhere he talked about administrative agencies. seem to be unaccountabl to elected branches of government into theaters. e point about this is in a not asking him to changeis mind is simply to understand layperson like me i think roger has been a lot of work on this in years as we now have sort of administrative units of government, the power of making laws that are essentially resemble one party government. they don't change even if you want to change them. so one of the arguments that was made, the premise is that i will

put it this way. modern bureaucratic rule is a partisan instrument of the democratic party. very controversial thing to say. you can disagree with it, find. a point of view that says it is constitutionally dubious the way we are now governing an important voice in our life. reagan understood that pretty well. betterhan most oer republicans do bodily. so the premise of your argument was it is somehow either wrong or illegitimate imac wedgeworth right word is, a president who appoints a letter disagrees with the agency. may be. it may be the case say baxter. i talk about baxter in the justice department or keiko zandi overthrows a generation of antitrust theory and the way we have been these laws. someone said that baxter, as if xter hung up a site on the wall that said no more nonsense. or you had jim miller you cld mention, the first director of the federal trade commission. he goes in andismisses an antitrust suit, what was the

basis of the complaint? cereal makers were monopolizing store shelves by gving us too many choices. this is idiotic. but by the way, the carter people and all that antitrust folks at reagan is turning antitrust. it is terribl nor do i think it's quite contestable to what you said all that up and opens someery serious and deep problems that it seems to me are not even well understood by a lot of conservatives are reagan did articulate more than anybody since i think, and coach. sorry for the long speech. >> any other comment? >> i think that the influence of reagan on policy perspectives about over into areas one is the idea that fiscal policy should not be used for countercyclical purposes. in other words, the supply side perspective as disappeared at least in congress. and its very tempting for

congress to use fiscal policy in the name of carsick occult purposes because they get to choose how the money is spent. and that is how we got $800 billiontimulus program and cash for clunkers and things like that. and i think that perspective unfortunately, the perspective of the reagan administrion and the monitor's perspective on what causes aggregate demand has to be revived. because it is at the moment given the events of this last year almost dead. second is that at least for a period of time i think that the changes in the cous have ended ended. we are going to get a very different set of people appointed to the court in the future than we did for 20 years. even clinton did not appoint the kind of people we are going to see in the future. so i think the perspectis that

led, perspectives on macro policy and on the court, those perspectives have died at least for the moment and have to be revived. >> well, before i bring this to any and let me mention that if you want more, steve is going to record a podcast here in a few minutes, which will appear at www.cato.org. and indeed you can get podcast and video cast from all of our events after you leave today. you can go upstairs, meet with steve, buy his book and have him sign it for you. meanwhile, i would lik to thank you for writing the book, for coming today. and i would like to thank the others for being a. let's go have lunch. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> we are at book expo i am with craig hara founder of pm press. what is the impressed? >> good to see you as always. pm press is a small group of publishers. we do different types of media, dvds and cds, audio lectures, including music as was fiction and nonfiction books. all of the stuff that we do has ideas behind it. the ideas are political in the sense that we want to have an open dialogue aboutot only can he dance but history has been interpreted, who make history, who defis what is important for people to know and help it can empower people to make the right decisions. >> this is your first year and you have lot of books coming out in your launch. do you want to talk about the series that he started? >> sure. what we have, was new to us with the impressed could be doing in fiction. i can, because what's important for us is to have ideas behind what we do. fiction is a place where stories

can often be told and interpreted in different ways. we have started a series called the outspoken authors series which combined short fiction from popular science fiction writer such as kim stanley robinson, and along indefinitely as were the talk about their personal politics, what they are trying to get across in the story. and sort of demystify a bit of what the science fiction is about. to the reader it can be shocking. you know, as the author often, their personal ideas often are covered up ivies sort of fictional mayor gets. but fascinating stuff. >> what are the two books you are starting out with your? >> the two books were start off with, this one, "the lucky strike," which is sort of an alternative history about at would have happened in hiroshima is the bomb was not dropped. devlin are going to give away the ending or the story here, but again it brings into play how people are responsible for their own actions, whether it's

from the loneliest soldier or the internet or to us as individual consumers. the sort of stories say what can happen when people take control and responsibility forheir own actions. the other one is terry bison which is more of a parody of the left behind series and books were he gets his opportunity to blast the right wing born-again christians. we also take great pleasure d blast him. >> so you consider yourself a politically leftist publisher? >> i am uncomfortable using the terms lefst as with right wings because i think they carry a bit too much baggage along with them. but to the people who use suc terms or to the reader, i would say that leftists are perhaps extreme leftists would be the stereotype. >> what of the book do you have coming up? >> well, we have been working a lot with an author named derrick jensen who is very well known for his nonfiction. he has de it bloodshed good

books on environment anything from climate change to history, from prehistoric history, native american history, to present-day. and that we are working on within is sort of a different tribute he than a couple of novels under an imprint called a flashpoint imprint what he is writing, again, like most of our fiction, a story behind it. so he has a tale to tell that he has a tale to tell that involves what happens when man explos nature, what happens when there is climate change, what happens when there is a very bad power relationship between those on top and those on the bottom, between the haves and have-nots. so he has been able to put these in fictional accounts that ar very gripping, good stories. we've also done books with him where he introduced his own influences. we've done a book called "how shall i live my life?" where he interviews a wide at the right of activist from environmentalists to spiritual folks to doctors, animal rights

activists, and find out for himself how people can live in a way that is just live on a planet that is more just and in a way that we can somehow treat each other in a more humane and fair manner. >> you primera are a book publisher but you also have one of the media. you want to talk about your dvds that you are publishing? >> we have dvds and we have cds as well. the dvds that we have done to date are all documentaries. and we have covered everything, much of our material delivers with presence. don't feel as if on way to solve societies problems. we've also done cds. we do audio elections. with people may be best known for the written books and at best selling books, but what they have to say on various subjects of current events is equally important. so we try to present the media

film, audio, and book so that people can explore these ideas in whatever format is easiest for him. >> with regards to format, outside of dvds and cds, in regards to the book you are putting up, you're printing these books. are you thinking about putting books in other formats? >> we don't have a choice on this matter. i don't really. we of course, we are exporting things. where making them as available as possible. you can co to our website and download any of the books or pamphlets that were published as pdf to get the book also be available for any of the various handheld devices such as candle sony reader, none of which i particularly expect to catch on too widely, but it's important when you're working from a perspective of trying to get ideas acrosso make it available in every format. so that's what we are doing. >> craig is the cofounder of the impressed. what does it take to start a

public venture these days? >> simple answer, an unbelievable amount of dedication and the ability to work 20 hours straight. the ability to build nights and nights without sleep is one of the major things. of course, it takes a lot of money. being a nontraditional publisher of political literature, we don't have a great deal of money. but what we do have is a system data program. is called the friends of the impressed when people pay in $25 a month if they get every release we debate is a great value for them because we are doing two to three releases every single month. and in that way we have a sustainable pace that we can count on to help out with different costs. >> craig o'hara, cofounder of the impressed.

>> this is a tremendous crowd. i have really honored to see you all out tonight. i don't think i've seen a crowd this big since i went to bob dylan, willie knows in concert. [laughter] >> but i promise not to take a sweaty bandanna à la willie nelson and toss it into the crowd and less there is a big call for that. i imagine, i probably would have such a big crowd out here tonight. but i'm glad to be in atlanta. it's wondeul to see you here. it is also great to be back at the atlanta history center. i spent several wonderful weeks here. this is an amazing institution, and you should be very proud to have such a place in your town. they have a beautiful collection

that is just a scholars dream, and i only wish that i had more weeks to spend there. w, i'm sure that people in atlanta there is a very significant event coming up. and to my mind it may well be the most significant event in american history. you of course all know what that is, don't you? well, this september 2 is the 145th anniversa of the fall of atlanta in 1864. on that day, the conderates departed. they blew up a munitions train, which caused an enormous amount of destruction in the city. and although sherman takes the blame for atlanta's burning, this was in fact the first