Edwin Meese: The Gipper’s Principles for Governing Still Apply Today

Edwin Meese III was attorney general of the United States and is a founding member of the policy board of the Carleson Center for Public Policy.

As the years pass, Ronald Reagan’s stature continues to grow, and it has reached the point where all sorts of people quote him to support their policies or candidacies.

Last year, during the contrived "crisis" over a possible national default, California Sen. Barbara Boxer evoked the Gipper to justify raising taxes: "I find myself these days quoting Ronald Reagan. ‘The full consequences of a default,’ he said, ‘or even the serious prospect of a default by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate.’ "

Never mind that President Reagan, whose 101st birthday is Feb. 6, said in 1982: "We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much."

With our nation at a crossroads and in desperate need of the kind of leadership Reagan afforded us, it’s important to set the record straight about what he stood for...