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Reader Jameson Campaigne sends along the links to the speeches that Ronald Reagan gave every year to the political action committee of the American Conservatives Union. As Jameson says, "These are wonderful and fun. Save, dip into every now and then, pass on." Will do. Here are the links:

• 1988
• 1987
• 1986
• 1985
• 1984
• 1983
• 1982
• 1981
• 1978
• 1977
• 1975
• 1974

I started at the top, with 1988. I was stunned by this passage, revealing that Democratic spin doctors back then were pulling the same tricks they pull today, to downplay the economic success of a GOP-led prosperity:

...some people—and I'm not mentioning any names because I don't want to build up any candidacies before New Hampshire but you know who they are-have actually taken it upon themselves to prove to the American people that they've been worse off under this administration than they were back in the Carter years of the '70s.

Now I agree with you, this takes some doing. How do they manage it? Well, you see, any statistical comparison of the two recent administrations would start with 1977 to 1981 as the budget years of the last administration, and 1981 to 1987 as the pertinent years for this one. Now, that sounds reasonable enough. But our opponents have a new approach, one that would have embarrassed even the emperor's tailors. They take the years 1977, to up to 1983—and then they stop. So you see, not only do 1984 and 1985 not get counted in their database, but they include in this administration's economic record four years of the last Democratic administration. As columnist Warren Brookes pointed out in an article published in the Washington Times, "All of the foreshortened Reagan gains are nullified by the Carter losses, so they look like no gains at all, or, worse, losses." Our successes, in short, are buried under the last administration's failures.

But the truth is otherwise. Because under the last administration real per capita disposable income rose at only one percent annual rate, only half the two percent rate of increase under this administrations gain that has totaled 12.4 percent in six years. Under the last administration, median family income declined 6.8 percent while under this administration it went up 9.1 percent. Or take the real after-tax labor income per hour, If you use the approach adopted by our liberal critics, you see a 4. 5 percent decline. But the truth is that that figure fell 8.5 percent under the last administration and we turned this around and accounted for an 8.9 percent increase.

Under the last administration, the average weekly wage went down an incredible 10 percent in real terms, which accounted for the worst drop in postwar history. Here again, we've stopped the decline. And that's not to mention what all this has meant in terms of opportunity for women, for blacks, and minorities, the very groups our opponents say they most want to help.

Well, since the recovery began, 70 percent of the new jobs have been translated into opportunities for women; and black and other minority employment has risen twice as fast as all other groups. Minority family income has also increased at a rate over 40 percent faster than other groups. In addition, since 1983, 2.9 million people have climbed out of poverty, and the poverty rate has declined at the fastest rate in more than 10 years.

So, think for a moment on what these statistics mean and the kind of political nerve and desperation it takes to try to sell the American people on the idea that in the 1980s they never had it so bad. The truth is, we're in the 63rd month of this non-stop expansion. Real Gross National Product growth for 1987 was 3.8 percent, defying the pessimists and even exceeding our own forecast—which was criticized as being too rosy at the time—by more than one half percent. Inflation is down from 13.5 per cent in 1980 to only around 4 percent or less this year. And there's over 15 million new jobs.

So, believe me, I welcome this approach by the opposition. And I promise you, every time they use it, I'll just tell the story of a friend of mine who was asked to a costume ball a short time ago -- he slapped some egg on his face and went as a liberal economist.

Reagan was the best. Command of the facts. Genuine wit. And a sense of personal warmth that showed through even when he was savaging his opponents.

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