Reagan’s Ten Commandments for Prosperity

I (the candidate) _or_We (the city council, county commission, or etc.) do proclaim and affirm our agreement with Reagan’s Ten Commandments for Prosperity.

1. Thou Shalt Have Low Tax rates

When I sign this bill into law, America will have the lowest marginal tax rates and the most modern tax code among major industrialized nations, one that encourages risk-taking, innovation, and that old American spirit of enterprise. We'll be refueling the American growth economy with the kind of incentives that helped create record new businesses and nearly 11.7 million jobs in just 46 months. Remarks on Signing the Tax Reform Act of 1986, October 22, 1986

High taxes are not good for anybody, neither those who are taxed, nor those who think they will benefit from those taxes, because they take wealth and resources, which is power, and they concentrate them into the hands of those who are taking the taxes, which ultimately makes those people more wealthy and powerful, reduces the wealth of those who have earned it, and has no positive effect on those who are lacking or who are poor.

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2. Thou Shalt Have A Strong dollar.

A strong dollar is one of our greatest weapons against inflation. Conservative Political Action Conference March 2, 1984

Inflation is almost entirely a product of the printing press, the more money the government prints, and the weaker the value of each individual dollar, the less each dollar buys for Americans, it is only by pursuing a strong dollar that is stable and that is not at the whim of a few individuals who can decide, almost without constraint, what interest rates should be or how many dollars to put into circulation, that we can protect ourselves from fiscal ruin.

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3. Thou Shalt Have Free trade.

Our trade policy rests firmly on the foundation of free and open markets. I recognize ... the inescapable conclusion that all of history has taught: The freer the flow of world trade, the stronger the tides of human progress and peace among nations. Remarks at a White House Meeting With Business and Trade Leaders September 23, 1985

Free Trade IS FAIR TRADE, where both sides agree to open, fair, and competitive trade allowing the markets to determine the value of goods, promoting connections between nations and cultures, and spreading the principles of freedom in the economic realm even where political freedom is lacking. For Trade to be Free, it must of course be fair, but for wealth to increase for ALL trade must be free!

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4. Thou Shalt Not Over-Regulate the People

The economic realities of the marketplace have done more to bring down the price of oil than all those years of frenetic government regulating. Presidential Radio Address - 26 February 1983

Whatever good you think a "regulation" will do, ALL regulation transfers the decision-making authority away from the individual, the community, private entities, and the individual states to the entity that is making the regulation. If you think you can "regulate" away all problems and all risks, or use regulation to make things "fair" or "just", you are mistaken- you will only end up increase the power of a few over the many and the result will be gigantism without any of the benefits the regulation was meant to deliver.

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5. Thou Shalt Have Only A Limited Government.

It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government. Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981

The notion that you can justify giving something like 30% of ALL wealth that the People produce, over 30% of the LAND in this nation, and almost 50% or so of ALL decision-making powers to 9 supreme court justices, a president, and 535 legislators without seeing serious abuses of power at the expense of the rights, the property, and the welfare of the People is a Utopian fantasy. Those who pursue gigantism in government can use whatever high-sounding terminology they LIKE, but in the end, they are either foolishly ignorant of how dangerous giving such powers to a FEW people is OR they actually WANT that power.

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6. Thou Shalt Limit Government Spending.

We've tried spending our way to prosperity for more than four decades and it hasn't worked. Radio Address, October 18, 1977

Every dime spent by government IS A TAX on the People, and in the end, that tax is going to be paid one way or another. For every dollar spent by government, there are fewer dollars available to YOU: only economic activity produces wealth, government spending reduces the amount of available wealth and reduces the overall wealth of the People!

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7. Thou Shalt Have Market Pricing.

Why don't we impose wage and price controls? Because they don't work and never have… They distort the natural market forces, create shortages and end up with black markets supplying the people's needs at bootleg prices. Letter to Captain Wayne Speigel, 1975

It is true that there must always be restraint in favor of ethics, fairness, and even the common good, but the best judge of what should be produced and how much it should cost must be the People, as individuals who invest, who own businesses, who work, who sell, and who buy good and services. When this basic freedom is removed it delivers only inefficiency, more gigantism, and nothing good for the People, be they well off or poor or in between.

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8. Thou Shalt Have Privatization.

Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States. May 1988 Speech at Moscow University

The "middling sort", as Benjamin Franklin described himself and his friends, the artisans, shop keepers, and entrepreneurs who started with nothing, gave MUCH, and produced wealth for themselves and MANY OTHERS around them,. These people were the "agents of transformation" in 1776 and they have always been the "prime mover" of our nation. The only groups who ever benefit from nationalization of any kind and by ANY name, are the people who get rich off government favors and the people who run the government- nobody else, which includes over 95% of the population, benefits.

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9. Thou Shalt Have A Strong Defense.

Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong. Republican National Convention, August 23, 1984

Regardless of the myth-makers on your TV and in your newspapers, the Cold War was won because the United States of America was STRONG and the Soviets could not keep up with our advances in technology nor in raw capabilities, or firepower. It was the people manning SOSUS who tracked Soviet subs, the people who funded and manned all those "non-wars", and the men and women of the US Military who proved to be too great an obstacle to Soviet ambitions who ended the Cold War, and those of us who were THERE will always be proud of this and will not simply let those who all the while told us we would fail try to take away from this glorious result of the Reagan revolution!

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10. Thou Shalt Reform Welfare

I'm talking about real and lasting emancipation, because the success of welfare should be judged by how many of its recipients become independent of welfare. State of the Union Address, February 4, 1986

We could even refer to this commandment as "Thou Shalt Not Promote Dependency". Why does the Bible itself say that those who do not work should not eat? Meeting our own needs, being independent of others, being self-reliant is not just a way to live well, it is an experience that is in and of itself enjoyable and fulfilling like few other experiences. Simply handing people money, after the government keeps its share to feed itself and line its pockets, is a terrible way to treat people and it tells them "we don't think you have what it takes to even survive on your own."

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So signed on this (day) of (Month) In (year).

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HOW TO PROCEED:

1. Copy this and PRINT IT

2. Give a copy to your local government or to any candidate who is running for office, you can also EMAIL them

3. Ask them to SIGN their name or, for local governments, to pass a resolution Prolcaoiming their agreement with these principles

4. Let us know whether they agree, disagree, or refuse to answer by emailing me, Bill Collier, at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  

5. Volunteer to help coordinate effo4rts to record officials who agree, disagree, or do not answer so we can let everybody know where our leaders stand