Jude Wanniski, 69, Journalist Who Coined the Term ‘Supply-Side Economics,’ Dies
NY Times
Jude Wanniski, a journalist, consultant and, most of all, a fierce and unconventional partisan who marshaled intellect and salesmanship to promote big tax cuts as the best cure for an ailing economy, a theory embraced and executed by President Reagan, died yesterday in Morristown, N.J. He was 69.
The cause was a heart attack, according to a statement by Polyconomics, his consulting firm in Parsippany, N.J.
Mr. Wanniski coined the phrase “supply-side economics” to describe his idea that a reduction in personal tax rates would stimulate productive investment, the production side of the economy and spur economic growth. He immodestly called this idea, which he formulated in the early 1970’s, “a general theory of the world political economy.”
Others viewed it as traditional Republican “trickle down” economics, meaning that the benefits accruing to wealthier taxpayers would filter throughout the economy. But, indisputably, the idea that tax cuts are almost always a good idea became a tenet of Republican, and many Democratic, campaigns.
Mr. Wanniski waged his campaign in thousands of articles, most influentially in editorials he wrote for The Wall Street Journal during the 1970’s. Though these editorials were unsigned, he worked hard at becoming known, once calling himself “the most influential political economist of the last generation.”
The columnist George Will, no shrinking violet himself, once remarked, “I wish I was as confident about something as he is about everything.”
Mr. Wanniski was eager to express big thoughts, like his explanation of the cause of the Depression in his 1978 book, “The Way the World Works.” He wrote that the day-to-day collapse of the stock market in 1929 coincided with votes on the Senate floor on the protectionist Smoot-Hawley tariff bill.
National Review, a conservative magazine, called the book one of the 100 most influential books of the 20th century. Mr. Wanniski suggested that the theories expressed in the book helped rehabilitate classical economics, as opposed to the Keynesian and monetarist theories, which were then clashing in a war of ideas.
Since 1978, Mr. Wanniski had been president of Polyconomics, where he and his analysts advised corporations, investment banks and others. He has also been involved in political campaigns like that of Steve Forbes in 1996 for the Republican presidential nomination, which highlighted another novel economic idea: a single tax rate for everyone.
How far Mr. Wanniski may have wandered from the traditional bounds of the Republican Party was suggested by his endorsement of Senator John F. Kerry in the 2004 presidential race. He called President Bush “an imperialist.”
Jude T. Wanniski was born on June 17, 1936, in Pottsville, Pa. His grandfather was a Pennsylvania coal miner and a dedicated Communist who gave his grandson a copy of “Das Kapital” for his high school graduation. He was raised in Brooklyn, and the Dodgers popped up regularly in his writings.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Los Angeles. He worked for The Las Vegas Review- Journal as a political columnist from 1961 to 1965 and reported to his next job as a Washington columnist for The National Observer in a silver convertible, shiny gold coat and mirrored sunglasses - with a Las Vegas showgirl on his arm, according to “Worldly Power: The Making of The Wall Street Journal” by Edward Scharff.
