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CEI's Monthly Planet CEI’s Monthly Planet Fighting For Freedom JUNE 2004 COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE VOLUME 17, NUMBER 4 A More Creative and Productive World by Hon. John W. Snow he Competitive TEnterprise Insti- tute’s 20th Anniversary Gala, held on May 19, 2004, in Washington, D.C., was a complete success. Syndicated columnist and CNN “Crossfi re” co-host Robert Novak served as Master of Ceremo- nies. Also, Nobel Lau- reate Dr. Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snow delivers the Keynote Address at CEI’s 20th Anniversary Gala was presented with the Prometheus Award for Human Achievement for his successful efforts in allowing that shows that ideas really do count. And right ideas can developing countries to feed themselves. U.S. Trea- triumph if forcefully advocated. sury Secretary John W. Snow delivered the Keynote The forceful and effective advocacy of right ideas—that Address. Excerpts from his remarks follow. is what Fred Smith is all about. He and I connected a long time ago, when the railroad industry was in dire straits and the prospect of nationalization stood as a real outcome. Fred ’m grateful to all of you for this opportunity to honor CEI, got to work with a number of people, who all said, “This Iand to honor an old friend, Fred Smith, and also to celebrate industry ought to be deregulated.” Because of his efforts, 20 years of engagement in the war of ideas—an engagement Continued on page 3 IN THIS ISSUE Ronald Reagan, Freedom’s Champion................2 A More Creative and Productive World (cont.)...8 A More Creative and Productive World (cont.)...3 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly....................10 Book Review: The Real Environmental Crisis...4 Media Mentions..............................................11 Q & A with Soso Whaley..................................6 End Notes.......................................................12 www.cei.org Monthly CEI UpDate Planet January JuneJune 2003 20042004 FROM THE GLOBAL WARMING POLICY DIRECTOR Ronald Reagan, Freedom’s Champion MONTHLY PLANET by Myron Ebell Publisher: ormer President Ronald Reagan’s passing has prompted innumerable Fred L. Smith, Jr. Fwords about his achievements. I cannot add much new, but would like to highlight several points that are of special importance to us at CEI. Editor: The chattering classes—the media, university intellectuals, and the Ivan G. Osorio permanent Washington establishment—considered Reagan dim and ignorant because he rejected the conventional wisdom. Everyone “knew” that the West Assistant couldn’t win the Cold War. Everyone “knew” that infl ation couldn’t be lowered Editor: without increasing unemployment and vice versa. Everyone “knew” that the modern economy was so Elizabeth Jones complex that it required continual government intervention. The Left feared Reagan because they saw he was determined to act on his ignorance. They thought he Contributing would wreck the world. Instead, he only wrecked theirs. The Brezhnev doctrine that once a country went Editor: communist it could never return to freedom is now a quaint memory. And at home, Reagan challenged Richard Morrison the domestic liberal equivalent of the Brezhnev doctrine: the idea that the growth of government and loss of freedom could be slowed but never reversed. Reagan’s ability to see through the liberal consensus is, I think, due to two ususual experiences in his CEI’s Monthly life. As president of the Screen Actors Guild, he saw, fi rst-hand, communists try to take over the movie Planet is produced industry. He learned that for communists the end justifi es the means; and he also learned that they could 10 times a year by the be defeated. Competitive Enterprise With his movie career over, Reagan took a job with General Electric as host of their television show and Institute, a pro-market company spokesman. Visiting and speaking at GE factories and facilities all over the country, he talked to public interest group thousands of people in business and industry. He learned that profi t-making businesses do a lot of good dedicated to free enter- prise and limited gov- and could do a lot more if not hampered by over-regulation and high taxes. ernment. For Reagan, these experiences awakened an interest in politics. Disliking air travel, Reagan, during his time with GE, spent long hours on trains reading books on history, politics, and economics. He read about CEI is a non-partisan, the American Revolution, the Constitution, and economists such as Hayek, Hazlett, and Friedman. non-profit organization Following his two terms as Governor of California, Reagan from 1975 to 1979 did a daily fi ve-minute incorporated in the Dis- syndicated radio broadcast, which he mostly wrote himself. A selection of these published in 2001, Reagan trict of Columbia and in His Own Hand, shows his knowledge about a wide range of issues. And, on the issues that concern CEI, is classified by the IRS he was right on every count. He knew that the world was not running out of petroleum. He knew that as a 501 (c)(3) charity. government regulations caused the energy shortages of the 1970s. He thought that the federal government CEI relies upon contri- butions from founda- owned far too much land. And he recognized that the Endangered Species Act and land use planning tions, corporations and threatened property rights—which he recognized as the basis of our freedom and prosperity. individuals for its sup- Because Reagan believed that, “We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around,” port. Articles may be he accomplished a great deal as president despite the liberal establishment’s unrelenting opposition. reprinted provided they He solved the energy crisis by deregulating energy prices. He lowered tax rates from confi scatory levels, are attributed to CEI. thereby giving people incentives to work and save and invest. Contrary to the claim that this resulted in runaway federal defi cits, Reagan forced Congress to stop the exponential growth in non-defense federal spending, which was lower as a percentage of GDP when he left offi ce than when he entered. Phone: Reagan also waged war on the regulatory state, perhaps the most serious and least noticed threat to (202)331-1010 freedom and prosperity—and not coincidentally the focus of CEI’s efforts. From 1970 to 1981, the year Reagan took offi ce, the number of pages published each year in the Federal Register increased from Fax: around 20,000 pages a year to 80,000. The Reagan Administration beat it down rapidly to 45,000 (under (202)331-0640 his successors it has climbed slowly back to nearly 80,000). CEI and other advocates of limited government owe much to Ronald Reagan, not the least of which E-mail: are two important lessons. First, great things can be achieved in the cause of liberty through dedication, [email protected] perseverance, and courage. Second, when President Reagan left offi ce in 1989, he reminded his “regiments” that “action is still needed if we’re to fi nish the job.” Unfortunately, since then, we have considerable ground in the cause of restoring government to its constitutional limits. We’ve got a lot of work to do, ISSN# 1086-3036 and we no longer have Ronald Reagan to lead us. But we should “believe in our capacity to perform great deeds...And, after all, why shouldn’t we believe that? We are Americans.” 2 www.cei.org MonthlyMonthly PlanetPlanet JuneJune 20042004 A More Creative and Productive World Continued from page 1 this industry was deregulated. It was railroad deregulation, plus the deregulation of the truck, airline, fi xed commissions, and fi nancial industries that have made this economy much, much stronger. I make that point to foreign fi nance ministers, whose standard query is, “Mr. Secretary, how is it that the American economy has come through these traumatic events? The administration inherited a recession, then 9-11, then the corporate scandals, then the meltdown of the equity market and $7 trillion came out of U.S. households—that’s more wealth than the combined GDPs of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. And despite all these shocks to the system of this economy, your economy continues to move forward. How could this be?” Left to right: U.S. Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs Paula The answer is that we have the most resilient, adaptive, Dobriansky, Prometheus Award Recipient Dr. Norman Borlaug, competitive economy in the world. And why is that? It’s and CEI President Fred Smith with the Prometheus Award for because, on a scale like no other country in the world, we Human Achievement apply free market principles. That is why our economy could respond, adapt, and adjust to these terrible external events. This resiliency of the American economy came about because of people like Fred Smith, who decades ago saw that deregulating the large segments of the economy locked in the cocoon of regulation would cause them to perform a lot better—and, more importantly, that the entrepreneurial spirit of America would come alive if we allowed markets to work. The worst barrier to creativity is regulation. The world is much different from the one Fred and I dealt with back in the 1970s. I had come out of the Ford Administration, where one of the highlights of my life was working on deregulation initiatives that President Ford wanted to advance. I saw just how tough it was to deregulate, because constituencies of the regulatees line up in support of Left to right: Washington Times Commentary Editor Mary Lou the status quo, in which they’ve all developed a stake. I was Forbes; Richard, Layton & Finger, P.A.
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