08/27/2026
“It works every time it’s tried.”
Rush Limbaugh used that line for years when talking about the basic economic principles Ronald Reagan believed in, principles grounded in the work of economists like Milton Friedman, Art Laffer and Thomas Sowell.
And the basic idea really isn't complicated.
Let people keep more of what they earn. Keep taxes low enough that working, investing, saving and taking risks are rewarded. Get unnecessary government regulation out of the way.
Encourage businesses to invest and expand. Create an environment where entrepreneurs have a reason to start businesses, employers have a reason to hire people, and investors have a reason to put their money to work.
You don't create prosperity by dividing up a fixed economic pie. You create prosperity by making the pie bigger.That was at the heart of Reagan economics.
When businesses invest, they buy equipment, build factories, develop new products and hire people. More people working means more people earning wages and paying taxes. Competition for workers pushes wages higher. More production creates more wealth.
As Milton Friedman repeatedly taught, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Government can spend money, but government first has to tax it, borrow it, or create more money, and ultimately somebody pays the bill.
Art Laffer's famous curve made another important point, tax rates and tax revenue are not the same thing. Obviously a zero-percent tax rate produces no revenue, but a 100-percent rate eventually destroys the incentive to produce taxable income. Somewhere between those extremes is a rate that raises necessary revenue without strangling the economic activity that produces it.
And Thomas Sowell has spent a lifetime reminding us to look beyond intentions and examine results and incentives. A policy can sound compassionate and still produce terrible consequences if it rewards the wrong behavior or discourages productive behavior.
But there is another side of conservative economics that Washington has neglected for far too long:
You cannot simply cut taxes and then pretend spending doesn't matter.
Economic growth can produce additional tax revenue, but it cannot excuse unlimited federal spending and trillion-dollar deficits. Eventually the debt has to be serviced, and interest on that debt consumes money that could otherwise be used for national defense, infrastructure, tax relief or simply left in the pockets of the people who earned it.
Real fiscal conservatism requires both sides of the equation:
Keep taxes reasonable.
Encourage investment and economic growth.
Reduce unnecessary regulation.
Protect a sound currency.
And control government spending.
We don't need government to manufacture prosperity. We need government to create the conditions in which free people can manufacture prosperity for themselves.
Reagan understood it. Friedman explained it. Laffer illustrated it. Sowell has spent decades demonstrating why incentives and results matter more than political promises.
And Rush Limbaugh had a much simpler way of putting it:
“It works every time it’s tried.”
Free people. Free markets. Limited government. Fiscal responsibility.
Give Americans the freedom and incentive to work, build, invest and succeed, and then get Washington's spending under control.
It isn't a new idea.
It's an idea that is tried and true. It works every time it’s tried.
Rick Tate
Chairman Pickens County Republican Club
