Requiescat in pace

It is easier to find heroes among writers, pundits or academics than legislators and politicians. Thinkers are far less prone to temptations and pragmatism. President Reagan remains an exception, as does his economic inspiration, Rep. Jack Kemp.

Kemp, who died Saturday at age 73, was among the most important Congressmen in U.S. history. He wasn't powerful because he held a mighty post, and he never served in the House majority. He helped to transform the Republican Party though he was never its Presidential standard bearer. His influence sprang from the power of his ideas, and from the sincerity and enthusiasm with which he spread them.

A celebrated pro quarterback, Kemp was an unlikely intellectual. Yet amid the economic troubles of the 1970s, he immersed himself in the details of fiscal and monetary policy. Along with a handful of others, many of whom wrote for this newspaper, Kemp became a champion for the classical economic ideas that challenged the Keynesian orthodoxy of that time. He also had to mount an insurgency inside the Republican Party, which for decades had been dominated by budget-balancers who saw their fate mainly as moderating and paying for liberal excess

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Philosophy Posted by John Kranz at May 4, 2009 10:54 AM