Joyce Comments: There are a number of Ronald Reagan's 1975 Copley News Service columns preserved at the Ford Digital Library as President Gerald Ford had an interest in reading Reagan's column. Those snipped below were retrieved from the newspaper archive of Amherst Newspapers in Ohio.
The Vail Trail - January 24, 1975
Let's Listen To Reagan
By Ronald Reagan
It is clear from the President's State of the Union message and his tax proposals that preceded it that he has decided not the tackle head-on the powerful groups that have a vested interest in Big Government and deficit spending.
While his tax cut proposals will--at first--be welcome news to many Americans, and may provide a genuine psychological lift to public opinion regarding the economy, I fear there will be heavy price to pay some months later when the resulting federal deficits steal those tax cuts back through renewed inflation.
Though he did call on Congress to put a moratorium on all new spending programs (except for domestic energy production), he did not insist upon cuts in the existing and proposed federal budgets. This amounts to a sharp retreat from his pledge of last August for a balanced budget by 1976. In fact, the result of the newly proposed program will be a deficit of some $30 billion this fiscal year and $45 billion in 1975-76. Given the past track record of federal forecasting, the final figures could end up much higher.
It has taken the experience of the average American family in the few recent months to prove that the Keynesian theory that inflation-begets-prosperity is bankrupt. Today it begets recession.
Unaccompanied by federal spending cuts, the President's tax proposals rest on the assumption that you and your neighbors will use the money to go out and buy refrigerators, automobiles and other products. If everyone does, production and employment go up at least temporarily. Certainly, putting money back into the pockets of those who earned it cannot be faulted. But, there is no certainty that, after the frightening inflation of the last few months, people will want to do anything other than hide it under a mattress or in a safe deposit box.
In 1972, the economy was sluggish. The administration's response was to persuade the Federal Reserve Board to loosen the money supply, and thus credit. That produced what looked like instant prosperity, but its real result more than a year later was greatly aggravated inflation. Memories are short.
It was this inflation that brought on today's recession. "Pump priming," in the form of tax cuts without spending cuts, will only bring on steeper inflation a few months from now.
A major cause of inflation is the government spending more money than it takes in. Already, we, the taxpayers, are paying more than $30 billion a year in interest on the national debt. To the extent that it pays interest, the government has less to spend on defense and domestic programs.
Bankrupt though it is (and a private business in similar condition would be so declared) the federal government will keep on running by going into competition with businesses and individuals for the limited amount of capital available in order to pay its bills.
Ultimately, you, the consumer, will pay for it in the increased prices you'll pay. That's inflation.
Two basic remedies to this problem were missing from the President's message. First, he should ask Congress to curb the spending appetite of the programs of vested interests, such as those of the educationists, hospital builders (we have a surplus of beds), city and state grants, foundation grants and subsidies to various businesses and industries. It is time to gore some sacred oxen.
Second, he should insist that we "index" individual income tax rates by tying them to the cost of living index so when you receive a pay raise (to cope with inflation) you aren't robbed of it automatically by being thrown into a higher tax bracket as a result.
The Vail Trail - January 31, 1975
Let's Listen To Reagan
By Ronald Reagan
There has been a lot of talk lately to the effect that it's "just a matter of time" before the United States "normalizes" its relations with Castro's Cuba.
The idea fot its first big push last fall when two U.S. senators--one a Democrat, the other a Republican--took off for Havana with a bevy of newsmen in tow, but without approval from the State Department. The United States hasn't had diplomatic relations with Cuba for some 15 years, but the senators had it in mind that they would engage in a bit of suave personal diplomacy to see if they fiery Fidel Castro had softened up any.
What they were treated to first was the most vitriolic harangue against the United States that the Cuban premier has mustered in several years. It lasted for more than an hour. Far from sizzling the ears of the senators, the visitors sat down to dinner and small talk with Castro afterward.
At about that time, a privately endowed group of former U.S. government officials and scholars, the Commission on U.S.-Latin American Relations, sent the President a 54-page report urging a lifting of the 10-year-old embargo on trade with Cuba. Along with it has come a steady drumbeat of like-minded newspaper and magazine articles.
Why the concerted campaign -- and it appears to be just that -- to open trade and diplomatic relations with the Cuban dictator whose people have lived, since 1959, in egalitarian poverty?
Surely, the yearning for Havana cigars can't be that great on the part of a few congressman and liberal scholars.
The rationale appears to be that there is nothing to be gained, in terms of this nation's interests, in continuing the isolation of Castro's Communist island. Therefore, the argument goes, we should be gentle and conciliatory to the bearded revolutionary.
Very little has been said of what we should expect from Castro in exchange for a lifting of the embargo of the Organization of American States (OAS) and for recognition by the United States. If, in fact, the time has come for us to reevaluate our Cuban policy, we should do it with a quid pro quo in mind.
At the November meeting of the OAS, the United States abstained from voting on a resolution to lift the trade embargo on Cuba. The resolution didn't get the two-thirds vote required, but it came close. Before we change our position, we should define the "quo" the United States should demand satisfactory answers from Castro on these questions:
What will he do about Soviet military bases on the island? We should settle for nothing less than their removal.
What will he do to assure the other nations of the Western Hemisphere that he will no longer train, equip and support Communist guerrillas in other American states? Perhaps a free and open inspection program in Cuba by OAS monitors could provide the solution.
What will Castro do about settling the $1.5 billion worth of claims by U.S. citizens whose property his government seized?
What will he do to assure former Cubans, now U.S. citizens, of the freedom to visit Cuba unhindered and without harassment?
What will he do to guarantee the restoration of individual freedoms to the people of Cuba? He may argue that this interferes with the internal affairs of his country, but he's never hesitated to interfere with the internal affairs of other Latin American nations, and not on the side of individual liberty, either.
Instead of U.S. senators making fools of themselves, and instead of self-appointed study groups suggesting we hand Castro what he wants, let's do some good old-fashioned American bargaining. In the process, we might be able to bargain the bombastic dictator into restoring liberty to his people. They need it.
(For Release In Papers On Friday, March 21, Or Thereafter)
The press called it a fetus.
The defense lawyer called it a fetus.
The jury called it a baby.
And, after they did, they convicted Dr. Kenneth C. Edelin of Boston of manslaughter. He had delivered, by Cesarean section, a male child to a patient with whom he had agreed to perform a legal abortion. The jury ruled, after lengthy deliberation, that the baby was alive when it was removed from the mother.
The press had described it as "a fetus of 20-24 weeks." The jury was shown photos and described it as a 6-month-old baby.
The juror who held out longest against conviction said--after the verdict--that most of the jurors believed that the baby "was alive during the operation when it was taken out of the mother and that the doctor was negligent for not checking for a heartbeat. They thought his examination was too short."
Dr. Edelin was frustrated and angry at the outcome, not surprisingly. That he momentarily charged the jury with racial prejudice (he is black) can be attributed to the heat of the moment. There is no evidence to suggest that the jury based its decision on anything other than the charge put to them and the facts presented. In fact, most of them expressed personal sympathy toward the doctor.
One can give Dr. Edelin the benefit of the doubt and suppose that he harbored no malice toward the baby; he only performed his duty to abort the birth, both earnestly and professionally. He's now appealing the case and the final outcome cannot be predicted.
Meanwhile, it has given the right-to-life forces a great deal of encouragement. And, according to reports in the media, the verdict seems to have discouraged (at least temporarily) medical research into abortion and related life-control measures.
While we await the appeal and its decision, I have become increasingly concerned that there is a subtle, but nonetheless effective, move afoot to dehumanize babies unwanted by their mothers.
The latest chilling symptom: Dr. Edelin's lawyer says that he will argue in his appeal that a women's legal right to an abortion presumes that the aborted baby will be dead. If it isn't, as in the Edelin case, then it would have no right to live, under the law. What next? Euthanasia on a grand scale? Or, putting mentally retarded infants "to sleep?"
Before, during and after the Dr. Edelin case there has been--with increasing frequency--the use of the term "fetus" to describe a baby the mother wanted to abort. Fetuses, after all, aren't people, they're "things." If it's inconvenient to convert one into a "baby," then dispose of it.
Babies, on the other hand, are warm, lovable and cuddly. Altogether human. A fetus becomes a baby when it leaves the mother's womb alive.
Even if it doesn't, it certainly looks like a baby when it is 6 months old.
One is reminded of all the pejorative terms applied to various enemies to rob them of human qualities, in order to make belittling them, ostracizing them or killing them more easy: wops, frogs, spies, micks, polacks, gooks and slopes, to name a few. Add now the "fetus." No human qualities. A faintly repulsive sound to the word. Easily disposed of by serious-looking physicians and their patients.
What can be done to combat the growing tendency to dehumanize infants in the womb?
If you're pregnant and thinking of abortion, think of adoption instead. If you're not in that situation, write a letter to the editor every time he publishes a story describing a baby as a fetus.
It is time to say to all the world: we are not talking about a slug or a snail or a salamander. We are talking about a real, live baby, whatever the shortness of its life. Write that letter. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
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