| Bruce Reeves Bartlett | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 11, 1951 Ann Arbor, Michigan |
| Residence | Great Falls, Virginia |
| Nationality | United States |
| Education | Rutgers University, B.A., 1973 Georgetown University, M.A., 1976 |
| Occupation | author, historian, economist |
| Known for | Opposition to George W. Bush's economic policies |
| Political party | Independent[1] |
| Parents | Frank and Marjorie (Stern) Bartlett. |
| Notes | |
Bruce Bartlett (b. October 11, 1951, in Ann Arbor, Michigan) is an American historian who turned to writing about supply-side economics. He was a domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan and was a Treasury official under President George H.W. Bush.
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Bartlett was educated at Rutgers University (B.A., 1973) and Georgetown University (M.A., 1976). He originally studied American diplomatic history under Lloyd Gardner at Rutgers and Jules Davids at Georgetown. He did much work on the origins of the Pearl Harbor attack, doing a master's thesis on the topic at Georgetown, the substance of which was later published as "Coverup: The Politics of Pearl Harbor, 1941-1946". He was closely advised by Percy Greaves, who had been Republican counsel to the congressional committee investigating the Pearl Harbor attack in 1946.
In 1976, Bartlett changed careers, going to work for U.S. Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas). Bartlett spent much of his time working with the House Banking Committee, of which Paul was a member, which involved Bartlett in economic issues. Paul was defeated for reelection in November, 1976.
In January 1977, Bartlett went to work for U.S. Congressman Jack Kemp (R-New York) as staff economist. Bartlett spent much of his time on tax issues, helping to draft the Kemp-Roth tax bill, which ultimately formed the basis of Ronald Reagan's 1981 tax cut. Bartlett's book, "Reaganomics: Supply-Side Economics in Action" appeared in 1981 (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House Publishers). He also co-edited the book The Supply-Side Solution (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers, 1983).
In 1978, Bartlett went to work for Perry Duryea, who was the Republican candidate for governor of New York. In November 1978, Duryea was defeated and Bartlett returned to Washington, where he joined the staff of newly elected Senator Roger Jepsen (R-Iowa).
In 1981, Jepsen became Vice Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress and Bartlett became deputy director of the committee staff. In 1983, Jepsen became chairman and Bartlett became executive director of the JEC. During this period, the committee was very active in promoting Ronald Reagan's economic policies.
In late 1984, Bartlett became vice president of Polyconomics, a New Jersey-based consulting company founded by Jude Wanniski, a former Wall Street Journal editorial writer, that advised Wall Street clients on economic and investment policy. Bartlett left in 1985 to become a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, where he specialized in tax policy and was especially involved in the debate around the Tax Reform Act of 1986.
In 1987, Bartlett became a senior policy analyst in the White House Office of Policy Development, then headed by Gary Bauer. In 1988, Bartlett left to become deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department, where he served until the end of the administration of George H.W. Bush. He worked briefly at the Cato Institute in 1993.
From 1993 to 2005, Bartlett was affiliated with the National Center for Policy Analysis, a free-market think tank based in Dallas, Texas. The NCPA fired him in 2005 for his outspoken criticism of President George W. Bush.[3]
Since 1995, he has written a newspaper column for Creators Syndicate, based in Los Angeles, and written extensively for many newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Fortune magazine, and Commentary magazine. He currently blogs at Capital Gains and Games.
In 2006, he published Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy (ISBN 0-385-51827-7), which is critical of the Bush Administration's economic policies as departing from traditional conservative principles. He compared the second Bush to Richard M. Nixon as "two superficially conservative presidents who enacted liberal programs to buy votes for reelection."[4]
In an August 2007 The Wall Street Journal op-ed, Bartlett criticized the FairTax proposal as misleading and unlikely to simplify taxpaying.[5] Bartlett was especially critical of what he states are FairTax's accounting tricks in rate calculation and proponent claims that "real investment spending would rise 76%" if their plan were adopted.[5] A sponsor of the plan, Representative John Linder acknowledged Bartlett's point that the Church of Scientology had proposed a national sales tax, but said that the FairTax movement was independent of the Church of Scientology and Bartlett had confused them with the Scientology-affiliated Citizens for an Alternative Tax System.[6] Other sponsors of the plan were critical of Bartlett's article claiming he used "red herrings" and provided false information on the plan and research.[7][8] In September 2007, Bartlett wrote an article for The New Republic,[9] where he continued his criticism of the FairTax, including his claim that the FairTax/national sales tax has its origins with the Church of Scientology. Bartlett restated information about the bill ("prebate" distribution method, i.e., rebate in advance) and what is included in the rate studies (prebate and government) that the plan's proponents have disputed and claim are false.[10]
In August 2009, Bartlett wrote a piece for the Daily Beast in which he attributed the recession of 2009 to George Bush and Republicans, whose policies he claimed resulted in an inferior record of economic performance to those of President Clinton.[11] In the same editorial, Bartlett wrote that instead of enacting meaningful healthcare reform, President Bush pushed through a costly Medicare drug plan by personally exerting pressure on reluctant conservatives to vote for the program. Bartlett claimed that because reforming Medicare is an important part of getting health costs under control generally, Bush could have used the opportunity to develop a comprehensive health-reform plan and that "[b]y not doing so, he left his party with nothing to offer as an alternative to the Obama plan."[11] Bartlett concluded:
Until conservatives once again hold Republicans to the same standard they hold Democrats, they will have no credibility and deserve no respect. They can start building some by admitting to themselves that Bush caused many of the problems they are protesting."[11]
In his book, The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward, Bartlett embraces Keynesian ideas, stating that while supply-side economics was appropriate for the 1970s and 1980s, supply side arguments do not fit contemporary conditions.
During an interview on CNN on August 19, 2011 Bartlett stated that presidential candidate Rick Perry "is an idiot, and I don't think anybody would disagree with that." [12] The comment was in reference to Perry's earlier assertion that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's actions would be "almost treasonous" if the Fed were to print more money before the election to stimulate the econonmy. [13]
Bartlett lives in Great Falls, Virginia. He is a member of the American Economic Association and the Committee for Monetary Research and Education.[2]