RIP, Jude Wanniski

Jude's supply side revolution helped reverse some of the damage caused by years of Keynesian economics.

From Dow Jones NewsPlus:

Jude Wanniski, Supply-Side Economics Advocate, Dies

NEW YORK -- Jude Wanniski, a former Wall Street Journal editorial writer who coined the phrase "supply-side economics" to describe his idea that a reduction in personal tax rates would stimulate productive investment, died Tuesday in Morristown, N.J., the New York Times reported. He was 69.

The cause was a heart attack, according to a statement by Polyconomics, his consulting firm in Parsippany, N.J., the Times said.

Wanniski was a fierce and unconventional partisan who marshaled intellect and salesmanship to promote big tax cuts as the best cure for an ailing economy, a theory embraced and executed by President Reagan, the Times said.

It said Wanniski waged his campaign in thousands of articles, most influentially in editorials he wrote for The Wall Street Journal during the 1970's. Though these editorials were unsigned, he worked hard at becoming known, once calling himself "the most influential political economist of the last generation," the Times said.

The Wall Street Journal is published by Dow Jones & Co. (DJ), which is also the publisher of Dow Jones Newswires.

Since 1978, Wanniski had been president of Polyconomics, where he and his analysts advised corporations, investment banks and others. He has also been involved in political campaigns like that of Steve Forbes in 1996 for the Republican presidential nomination, which highlighted another novel economic idea: a single tax rate for everyone, according to the Times.