The Conservative Sage

One of the countless annoying things about MSNBC is the self righteous promotional spots featuring diatribes from several of their commentators. Al Sharpton's is particularly confounding. His rant is a critique of "trickle down economics". A pejorative for supply side economics pioneered by the Ronald Reagan administration. Supply side economics involves the reduction of top marginal tax rates and reduced regulation in order to boost economic activity. Reagan's policies created the second biggest peacetime recovery in US history with a net jobs increase of over 21 million. Reagan was able to bring down the unemployment rate to 5.4% from a high of 10.8% during the recession of 1982. Many companies benefited from the Reagan era boom and were able to take advantage of our vibrant capital markets. One such company was started by a geeky Harvard dropout named Bill Gates which went public in 1986 creating 12,000 millionaires along the way. Microsoft as we know would go on

What was most striking to me after watching Mitt Romney's beat down of President Obama in Denver last week was when moderator Jim Lehrer ask both candidates to explain the role of government. One would expect that our President, the widely acclaimed constitutional law scholar would surely shine in that moment. He would easily recall one of the countless lectures he gave to his students at the University of Chicago and outline the principles of the constitution which clearly define the limits of government power. If you were expecting that, like me you are still waiting. The president gave a not so shockingly socialist response: " the federal government has the capacity to help open up opportunity and create ladders of opportunity and to create frameworks where the American people can succeed.."   translation : government programs . The president then went on to talk about hiring more teachers and how the government has built infrastructure projects in the past. If one