Jude Thaddeus Wanniski (June 17, 1936 – August 29, 2005) was an American journalist, conservative commentator, and political economist.
Early life and education
Wanniski was born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, the son of Constance, who worked at an accounting firm, and Michael Wanniski, an itinerant butcher. His father was of Polish descent and his mother was a Scottish immigrant. When he was still very young, his family moved to Brooklyn, where his father became a book binder. 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.
Career
After college, Wanniski worked as a reporter and columnist in Alaska. From 1961 to 1965 he worked at The Las Vegas Review-Journal as a political columnist, where he taught himself economics.
In 1965, Wanniski moved to Washington, D.C., to work as a columnist for the National Observer, published by Dow Jones.
From 1972 to 1978, Wanniski was the associate editor of The Wall Street Journal. He left after being discovered at a New Jersey train station distributing leaflets supporting a Republican senatorial candidate, an act considered an ethics violation.
In 1978, Wanniski started Polyconomics, an economics forecasting firm, where he and his analysts advised corporations, investment banks and others.
He also began directly advising politicians on economic policy, first candidate Ronald Reagan and later presidential hopefuls Jack Kemp and Steve Forbes. He helped design the tax cuts made during Reagan's first term in office. His formal role as a Reagan adviser ended after an interview he gave to the Village Voice was published under the headline "The Battle for Reagan's Mind."
In the late 1990s, Wanniski developed a friendship with the controversial leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, stating in 1997: "My wife Patricia and I spent the four-day July 4th weekend in Chicago at the International Islamic Conference, hosted by the Nation of Islam, in conjunction with the World Islamic Peoples Leadership. It may have been the single most important political event I have witnessed in my life. ... What made the event so important was that when the weekend began, Farrakhan was the spiritual leader of 200,000 members of the Nation of Islam and clearly the most influential of 33 million African-Americans. At its conclusion, Farrakhan stands a good chance at uniting 1.2 billion Muslims under his spiritual leadership."
Polyconomics as a corporation ceased operations on June 30, 2006, ten months after Wanniski's death, but the name (a combination of "politics" and "economics") lives on at The Polyconomics Institute, where one can find the Wanniski's collected works for Polyconomics, as well as correspondence with economic policy makers, and lectures.
Economic and political beliefs
Wanniski consistently advocated the reduction of trade barriers, the elimination of capital gains taxes, and a return to the gold standard.
Lower taxes
Wanniski was instrumental in popularizing the ideas of lower tax rates embodied in the "Laffer Curve" and was present in 1974 when Arthur Laffer drew the curve on the famous napkin for Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
A simplified view of the theory is that tax revenues would be zero if tax rates were either 0% or 100% and somewhere in between 0% and 100% is a tax rate that maximizes total revenue. Laffer's postulate was that the tax rate that maximizes revenue was at a much lower level than previously believed, so low that current tax rates were above the level for revenue to be maximized.
Many economists are sceptical that it was true in practice. Wanniski suggested that the United States was on the wrong side of the Laffer curve.
The Two Santa Claus Theory
The Two Santa Claus Theory is a political theory and strategy published by Wanniski in 1976, which he promoted within the United States Republican Party. The theory states that in democratic elections, if members of the rival Democratic Party appeal to voters by proposing programs to help people, then the Republicans cannot gain broader appeal by proposing less spending. The first "Santa Claus" of the theory title refers to the Democrats who promise programs to help the disadvantaged. The "Two Santa Claus Theory" recommends that the Republicans must assume the role of a second Santa Claus by not arguing to cut spending but offering the option of cutting taxes.