There has never been a time in human history when human beings have not tried to improve their lives. But the 1980s were the first time that such behavior was characterized so widely as greed. But the 1980s were not the decade of greed. People tried to better themselves and for once there were fewer, and not more, obstacles in their way.

The prosperous eighties are attached by liberals because that decade vindicates conservative economic policies, repudiates liberal economic policies, and thereby threatens the power base of the liberal left-which is dependent upon the perpetuation of the myth that confiscatory tax policies will bring prosperity to the majority of Americans. As a result, that glorious decade and its principal benefactor, Ronald Reagan, are ceaselessly maligned by the Democratic left.

Because they can't make their case against supply-side economics with empirical evidence, the liberals have reduced themselves to characterizing the eighties as the decade of greed. Even though the irrefutable evidence proves that all classes from poor to rich benefited from supply-side tax pollicies under Ronald Reagan, the left is unwilling to admit that. For the left to condemn these across-the-board improvements by labeling them as greed is tantamount to saying that they are opposed to prosperity for the poor and middle classes if the wealth also happen to benefit. Only if the wealthy suffer will these demagogues be satisfied; but that will happen only by increasing marginal tax rates, which will inevitably punish the middle classes and the poor as well. Since when does prosperity become greed? Let's just cite one piece of the evidence which bears directly on the greed issue. As reported in National Review, "charitable donations by individuals rose from $64.7 billion (1990 dollars) in 1980 to $102 billion in 1989, an increase of 57.7 percent. Moreover, after declining relative to national income during the Seventies, charitable donations rose from 2.1 percent of income in 1979 to a record 2.7 percent in 1989."

As Paul Craig Roberts observed in a column in The Wall Street Journal (Wait! Read this real carefully-it is crucial):

"All of the propagandistic claims of supply-side failure that dominated the economic news of the 80s have been laid to rest. We know for certain that the United States did not disinvest, the United States did not suffer declining productivity growth, did not become uncompetitive, did not create primarily dead-end, low-skill jobs and did not experience declining real family income in the 1980s.

"Promoted by criticism from economists that U.S. government statistics were failing to detect a weakening in the nation's industrial base, the Commerce Department undertook a two-and-a-half-year study of American manufacturing. The study, released earlier this year, shows the 1980s were years of an almost unbelievable revival by U.S. industry. In a front-page story that must have been galling for that paper's editorial writers, the New York Times reported on February 5 that the rate of U.S. manufacturing productivity growth had tripled during the 1980s and was now on a par with Japan and Europe, and that manufacturing's share of gross national product had rebounded to the level of output achieved in the 1960s when American factories hummed at a feverish clip. Far from losing its competitiveness then, the report revealed the U.S. had experienced an unprecedented export boom.

"As far as jobs are concerned, the charge that Reaganomics had created a nation of hamburger flippers was destroyed in 1988 when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the percentage of new jobs in the higher skill categories was much larger in the 1980s than in the 1970s. The commissioner of the bureau testified before Congress in August 1988 that low-skilled jobs are not growing as fast as those that require a lot of training. The Reagan expansion created skilled jobs at a more rapid pace than our educational system could produce people to fill them.

"To paint a picture of the rich getting richer as the poor get poorer, the partisan Congressional Budget Office and a bevy of Democratic economists had to use unadjusted census data to construct a measure of average family income biased by rising divorce rates and the growth of single-parent households. What these critics discovered as the effects of the decline of the institution of marriage on family income, not Reagan economic policies."

Whoa! That is powerful stuff. Perhaps you should go back and read it again before continuing, because it certainly is not the picture painted by most economic prophets of doom and gloom. I'll wait right here until you get back.

Okay. Ready to resume? Here we go. We are constantly reminded by the media how people spent profligately and consumed obscenely-how the rich got richer and the poor got poorer-under Reagan. Don't you believe it. Don't let the liberals deceive you into believing that a decade of sustained growth without inflation in America resulted in a bigger gap between the haves and the have-nots. Figures compiled by the Congressional Budget Office dispel that myth.

A review of income and inflation figures during both the Carter and Reagan years reveals how much the American people prospered under Reagan, and how much they suffered financially under Carter. The report studies incomes from 1979 to 1983, the four-year period under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, and also the latter period of the Reagan administration.

How can anyone ever forget the Carter years, which gave new meaning to the phrase misery index? There was double-digit stagflation, gasoline lines, and interest rates were up 20 percent. The poorest fifth of the population had a drop of 17 percent in real family income during the Carter administration. (Now ask yourself: Why are these years never cited as dreadful, mediocre years? That's easy. Liberals love misery. It makes them feel necessary. And believe me, everyone was miserable. Such was not the case in the eighties and that, to them, was just too darned unfair.) Contrast this with the period from 1983 to 1989, the years of full-blown Reaganomics, during which the poorest 20 percent of the population saw their income rise 12 percent.

The richest fifth of the population also saw their income rise 12 percent. On a percentage basis, it is simply untrue that the poor got poorer under Reagan. In fact, family income levels rose across the board during the Reagan years.

The destitute became more destitute under Jimmy Carter. Many of you were probably destitute then and I'm sure you remember it well. I was and I do. The destitute always know who they are. You can tell by the way they vote the next chance they get. Hence, bye-bye, Jimmy. The quickest way to devalue anybody's cash holdings and earnings is inflation, and we all know that Carter's administration broke the mold in that category, catapulting it to new heights unequaled before or since. In fact, some scientists worried that inflation was soaring to such never-before-achieved altitudes that it posed a threat to the ozone layer. They later discovered that the threat was posed only by the gaseous emissions coming from the Carter administration itself. In contrast, we also know that Reagan brought inflation down. Way, way down. The inflation rate remained at 5 percent for most of the Reagan years despite the existence of sustained growth throughout that period.

This recent report further corroborates a report of the House Republican Conference in mid-1984. At that time the figures were just coming in from President Reagan's across-the-board tax rate cuts that went into effect in 1982. The Republican supply-siders, pioneered by Congressman Jack Kemp, had argued that "across-the-board rate reductions would increase tax revenues from the wealth compared to the poor by liberating income from shelters and encouraging saving and investment. The reductions would shift the tax burden upward, toward the high earners, even though rates came down across the board."

The report of the House Republican Conference totally vindicated Reaganomics. Of course, you would expect that, but I believe them anyway. They are my soul buddies. It showed that the very rich-i.e., those making a million dollars or more-actually paid 41 percent more in taxes in 1982 under the tax rate cuts than they did in 1981. The lowest level of income earners-i.e., those making $25,000 and under-paid 12 percent less taxes in 1981 than in 1982. Thus, the rich paid more in tax revenues than they did under Jimmy Carter at much higher marginal tax than they did under Jimmy Carter at much higher marginal tax rates. As Jack Kemp gleefully wrote about these results: "Not only did upper-income taxpayers contribute more in taxes absolutely, but they also shouldered a larger relative share of the entire income tax burden than before. The share of total tax revenues which was paid by those making $40,000 or more increased from 45.1 percent to 48 percent. The tax burden of those making less than $40,000 dropped by the equivalent percentage. This means that there was a substantial shift in the tax burden to upper income groups in the middle of one of the most severe business recessions on record. This result powerfully vindicates the incentive-enhancing argument for marginal tax rate reductions and demonstrates the base-broadening effects of lower rates."

Take your pick of the two reports, 1984 or the present. The results are the same. Each shows that Reaganomics did work, and that the gap between the rich and poor was narrowed rather than expanded during those years. The Democrats have to face the fact that by advocating increases in marginal tax rates, they are working for the benefit of the rich and to the detriment of the poor. The uncontroverted evidence demonstrates the folly of their belief that tax policy is a zero-sum phenomenon. This fundamental misapprehension is what fuels their belief that tax increases for the wealthy will result in redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. It is these demagogic promises of redistribution and other techniques of class alienation they use to get elected in their own districts year after year. They simply cannot comprehend the concept articulated by Mr. Kemp that "a rising tide lifts all boats."

Don't fall prey to the seductive emotional appeals of the Democrats as they attempt to pit one group of society against another with their politics of class envy. Let the facts speak for themselves. If a liberal president gets elected, he, like Jimmy Carter, will make sure "fairness" applies to all economic levels. There will be no discrimination against anyone. He will see to it that we all get poor again.

The decade of the 1980s is now history and the objective evidence is there for all to examine. The indisputable truth is that the decade was one of real economic growth without inflation. As a direct result of his tax cuts (and not as a coincidental occurrence or the result of a fortuitous positive business cycle while he was in office, as his detractors would have us believe), America became economically and militarily vibrant again. It was our strong economy spurred by these tax pollicies that allowed us to become strategically competitive with the Soviets again by providing sufficient wealth for us to enjoy guns and butter simultaneously. It was the Reagan years that squeezed the totalitarian lifeblood from the Eastern Bloc nations and the Soviet Union and brought the Marxist revolution to its knees.

Governor Mario Cuomo (pronounced COOMO on my show) is a master at blaming the 1980s for all of our problems. He appeared on Meet the Press a while back, and said that while Ronald Reagan was a nice man he had taught Americans that they didn't need to care about the poor anymore. Cuomo urges us to care more.

Liberals such as Cuomo love to demonstrate their compassion by throwing money-other people's money, that is-at problems. Liberals measure compassion by counting the number of people who receive some kind of government help. In attempting to solve society's problems by governmental transfer payments, they disregard human nature and the long-term effects of their programs. As stated by Senator Phil Gramm, liberals like to achieve fairness by spreading the misery. Conservatives seek to expand opportunity. By government giveaway programs, individuals are often hurt far more than they are helped. The recipients of these programs become dependent on the government and their dignity is destroyed. Is it compassionate to enslave more and more people by making them a part of the government dependency cycle? I think compassion should be measured by how many people no longer need it. Helping people to become self-sufficient is much more compassionate than drugging them with the narcotic of welfare.

Throwing money at problems has never solved anything. If it did we would have the most well-educated young people in the world. Instead, we will spend an average of $6,000 a year per student in this country in 1992 and one quarter of the students can't locate the United States on a world map. In fact, let's run the numbers on that $6,000. The average class size is what, 30 students? So 30 x $6,000 = $180,000 per classroom. The teacher probably earns around $30,000, so that leaves $150,000. Next we have books, chalk, utilities, building amortization, dead frogs (fewer and fewer, though, as many students wimp out at the thought of dissection, so they now use pictures, which are cheaper than dead frogs), spit ball remover, school buses, drivers, school board members, principals, condoms, abortion counseling, attendants to valet park students' cars, and computers. Remember, now, that we are spending $180,000 per classroom. How many classrooms are there in your neighborhood school? I'll bet you that we could do all of the above plus hire college professors and pay them $50,000 per year and limo students to and from school every day and still have money left over. So just where is all that money going? What are we getting for it other than a bunch of whiners who alternately demand and grovel for more every year? Think about that.

It didn't used to be this way. Previous generations were without many of the material riches that we enjoy today, but they know how to read and write. Abraham Lincoln was probably educated in his day for the amount of money we spend on a school lunch for one student today.