But it looks like he really isn’t running for president.

Of course, in his three charges at the Oval Office — in 1976, 1980 and 1992 — he started late, surged to near victory, then lost. So nothing can be ruled out absolutely until the Democratic primaries are over in 2016.

Yet he said on the “Meet the Press,” “If I could go back in a time machine and be 66, I might jump in. But that’s a counterfactual, so you don’t need to speculate on that.”

If elected, he would be 78 when assuming the presidency — 86 upon leaving it if he served two terms.

The oldest president elected was Ronald Reagan, 69 when elected in 1980, and 77 when he left office. That’s nine years younger than Brown would be if elected.

Reagan, of course, also was a California governor, 1967 to 1975. He served between Gov. Pat Brown, 1959 to 1975, and Pat’s son, Gov. Jerry Brown, whose first period in office was 1975 to 1983.

The Reagan biographies show his staff had to make sure his campaign schedules in 1980 and 1984 were not too grueling. In those days there were newspaper reporters and four major TV networks. But things have gotten more hectic in the intervening 35 years, with social media accelerating the news cycle.

That also could prove a problem for Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, who would be 69 on election day.

While he was in town, I talked with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., about retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer’s seat, the Republican Congress sharing power with Democratic President Barack Obama, California’s high-speed rail project and more.

A former state legislator, McCarthy came back to his home state to address the Town Hall of Los Angeles.

When he learned Boxer was not running for reelection, did he even for a moment consider running for the seat? McCarthy said he did not want to go to the back of the line. In other words, he had no desire to abandon the powerful majority leader’s post to become a new senator with less influence.

Divided government? McCarthy expressed the hope that, with the president of one party and Congress controlled by the other party, they could find common ground. As models to follow, he cited the accomplishments of Republican President Ronald Reagan working with Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neil in the 1980s and Democratic President Bill Clinton working with Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the 1990s.

To reach solutions, McCarthy said he didn’t need to get 100 percent of what he wanted. He expressed his goals for Congress as seeking freedom, opportunity and accountability. But he said he wasn’t interested in top-down solutions and pointed to California’s Silicon Valley as a success built from the bottom up.

Compromise

Issues he hoped to reach compromise on were human trafficking, cyber security, transportation and the Keystone XL pipeline. The latter may be a pipe dream since the president has already promised a veto.

Addressing California issues, McCarthy supported the opening of the Monterey Shale deposit for oil and emphasized trade as a strength for California, bemoaning the strike called for the ports.

He spoke of the water issue and concern for the drought. He warned Southern Californians, “You’ll feel the drought this year.” McCarthy objected to regulations that allowed water to end up in the ocean instead of in the Central Valley and Southern California.

Drought

Even as McCarthy was speaking, U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell was in Sacramento holding a press conference with Gov. Jerry Brown announcing a $50 million drought response program for the Western states, with the lion’s share headed for California.

McCarthy responded to the secretary’s visit, “Until the administration recognizes the underlying problem of federal and state regulations preventing our communities from getting the water we desperately need, no amount of spending will solve our crisis.  … I hope that, while Secretary Jewell is in the Valley, she will spend some time with our farmers who have been devastated by regulations that put fish over people.”

And, yes, the majority leader is still opposed to the high-speed rail project. When asked for an alternative transportation plan, McCarthy suggested California consult with Elon Musk.

Unfortunately, it appears billionaire entrepreneur Musk is planning to build his hyperloop test track in Texas.

JFK is remembered for the New Frontier, for staring down Khrushchev over Cuba, for early civil rights actions, for “Ich bin ein Berliner,” for youth, optimism and Jackie.

The Gipper is remembered for making America again “stand tall,” for “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!,” for restoring prosperity and for being the Great Communicator with a dash of Hollywood style.

The question I keep wondering about is: Why hasn’t any Republican since advocated Reagan’s economic recovery plan, which won him a landslide over President Carter in 1980, then propelled the country to strong economic growth that lasted until President George H.W. Bush raised taxes in 1990, sparking a recession? Indeed, the Reagan policies even were followed for the most part by President Clinton, who first raised taxes in 1993, then cut taxes three times with Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich from 1995 to 2000.

Reagan program

Reagan’s program was simple:

1. Cut taxes 33 percent across the board. Working with Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill, Reagan settled for 25 percent — good enough for government work.

Note that Reagan did not seek “targeted tax cuts,” “tax cuts only for the middle class” or some other complication. It was simple: 33 percent (25 percent in practice).

2. Stable money, with gold kept at about $350 an ounce. Helping Reagan was Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, a Democrat first appointed by Carter, then re-appointed by Reagan.

3. Spending restraint. Reagan was less effective here, as spending actually rose 90 percent during his eight years in office. Hence the record deficits of that day. Much of the problem was that Reagan built up defense spending to push the Soviet Union into bankruptcy, which worked. There’s no Soviet Union today, and current defense spending — even if one thinks that’s the right amount — is 40 percent what it was under Reagan.

Clinton also worked with Gingrich to restrain spending, resulting in the brief budget surpluses of the late 1990s.

4. Regulation and bureaucracy reform. Reagan could have done more here. But as the late Nobel economics laureate Milton Friedman used to point out, Reagan was the only post-World War II president who actually cut the number of pages of federal regulations.

All the other presidents, including Republicans Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and the Bushes, increased the regulations all of us must obey, upon penalty of fine or an orange jump suit. And the last Bush, George W., brought into law one convoluted economic package after another, culminating in the financial crash of Sept. 2008.

Contrast

Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign came up with “Believe in America: Mitt Romney’s Plan for Jobs and Economic Growth” — 160 pages of details nobody read, even me.

Can anybody remember anything from his economic plan — from this tome or from his stump speech or TV ads, which used the “Believe in America” theme? Which always reminded me of the “I believe in America” opening scent from the first “Godfather” film.

The point is: Why do Republicans always praise Reagan, and want to be associated with him — but don’t run with his popular and successful economic plan?

Happy Birthday, Mr. President!

Anderson long was associated with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Shortly after I came to the Orange County Register to write editorials in the late 1980s, he stopped buy to discuss his new book, “Revolution,” detailing the economic, defense and other polices of the Reagan years. He was a real gentleman and helped us understand the economy. He became a source of mine on economics issues.

The quandary is why Republicans have not continued the Reagan-Anderson prescription for prosperity: Sound money, permanent tax cuts, spending cuts and de-regulation. Reagan-Anderson showed them how to do it, winning two landslides in the process. But Republicans, while citing Reagan as a kind of totem, have refuse to follow his actions.

And yes, Reagan wasn’t perfect. He increased some taxes and didn’t cut spending enough. But overall, taxes were cut. And as he left office, the budget deficits — created to increase defense spending to win the Cold War, which he did — were going down fast.

For example, President George H.W. Bush actually increased taxes in 1991, infamously breaking his 1988 election pledge, “Read my lips! No new taxes!” The economy crashed and in 1992 voters dumped him for Bill Clinton.

Later, President George W. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts had expiration dates on them — they weren’t permanent. That scrambled business and personal financial decisions as the expiration date approached: from about 2008 through Jan. 1, 2013, when some (but not all) the tax cuts finally were made permanent. This confusion was a reason, although not the only one, for the recession being the Great Recession.

In 2008, nominee John McCain had opposed even Bush’s inadequate tax cuts, while proposing a defective tax-cut plan of his own. And in 2012, nominee Mitt Romney was saddled with the massive tax increases to pay for the RomneyCare program he imposed in Massachusetts as governor, and which became the model for Obamacare.

CA GOP

In California, Republicans have had the misfortune that the last two governors they managed to elect, Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger, in office increased taxes. The last tax-cutter elected was Gov. George Deukmejian, way back in 1986 — 29 years ago. In 1987, he even rebated a $1.1 billion surplus to taxpayers.

The party obviously has many problems, some of which it has been correcting the past couple of years. But a major remaining problem for the CA GOP is it has gone against its signature issue: tight-fistedness with the taxpayers’ money.

The Reagan-Anderson prescription for prosperity — and victory at the polls — still is out there waiting for some Republican candidate for president to use it in 2016, and for governor in 2018.

Incredibly, the GOP tax reform cut taxes on the rich, but imposed the infamous “waitress tax” on those poor working gals. Before then waitresses were free to make their own estimate of their taxable tips. Many figured they didn’t need to give so generously to the wastrels in D.C. like Dole. The reform gouged them up front with an estimate of their tips. How cruel.

The waitress tax was Dole’s doing that year, and somehow he got Reagan, in the midst of the Iran-Contra scandal, to go along with it. No wonder Dole was dubbed “the tax collector of the welfare state,” and voters dumped the GOP from power in the Senate.

After all that, Reagan proclaimed, “I am not a potted plant.” He went on to continue winning the Cold Warn and preventing Democrats from helping Dole attack the economy with even higher taxes.

Pelosi

That comes to mind after House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco said of Republicans taking over the Senate, while keeping control of the House: “I don’t think anyone is irrelevant. We have leverage if they don’t have the votes. They have leverage because they know we will be responsible. And that allows them to be irresponsible to a certain extent.”

Democrats “responsible”? Perhaps in relation to Republicans the last time they controlled both houses of Congress, 2003-06 — when the GOP went on a wild spending binge, ran up the deficits and bankrupted the country. No wonder Democrats swept back into control of Congress in the Nov. 2006 election.

President Obama remains, of course, a Democrat. As shown by his executive order declaring an amnesty of 5 million illegal aliens, the president is determined to show he’s not “irrelevant.” And Pelosi backed him.

The good news is that we now have gridlock, meaning both sides won’t be able to pass any new scheme to waste our money, only to fund previous wasteful programs. For that, at least, Democrats are not irrelevant.

Why then don’t Republican candidates just follow Ronald Reagan’s successful economic recipe from the 1980s? Cut taxes; in his case, from the top income tax rate of 70 percent in 1980 to 28 percent in 1988. Keep money stable to prevent inflation. Reduce spending and regulations as much as you can. Simple.

Yet not one Republican president or candidate for the office since then has followed the Reagan recipe. President George H.W. Bush sat next to Reagan as vice president for eight years, solemnly gave his “Read my lips: No new taxes!” pledge at the 1988 GOP National Convention — then still raised taxes, crashed the economy and was booted from office in favor of Bill Clinton.

His son, President George W. Bush, did cut taxes twice — but the tax cuts expired in 2010, he imposed more business regulations through Sarbanes-Oxley and he turned Clinton’s surpluses into record deficits.

If Republicans want to return to Reaganomics, prosperity and victory at the polls, they again should return to the Reagan recipe by studying the new book, “The Pillars of Reaganomics: A Generation of Wisdom from Arthur Laffer and the Supply-Side Revolutionaries,” edited by Brian Domitrovic.” It is published by the Laffer Center at the Pacific Research Institute, CalWatchDog.com’s parent think tank.

Laffer will be speaking about the book at Noon, Thursday, Oct. 16 at the Pacific Club, 4110 MacArthur Blvd., Newport Beach. Info here. Those attending will receive a free copy of “Pillars.”

In addition to being the major economist who helped fashion Reagan’s program, he helped design its precursor, California’s Proposition 13 tax cuts in 1978, as well as numerous other tax cuts for states, cities and foreign countries.

Laffer has been a sage source of mine since I came to California in 1987 to write editorials for the Orange County Register. A couple years ago he took his own advice and moved to Tennessee, which has no state income tax. I still can’t escape the beach.

What supply-side economics is

The first thing to understand about supply-side economics is that it is not designed to “put money in people’s pockets.” Yet that’s often how it’s described,

Rather, as its name indicates, supply-side economics emphasizes encouraging supply — that is, long-term production, doing stuff, making stuff; instead of demand — that is, buying stuff.

That’s why G.W. Bush’s early 2008 “stimulus” of $168 billion, which rebated up to $600 a person ($1,200 for a couple), didn’t prevent the economic crash that September and the subsequent Great Recession. It was a demand-side stimulus that had no long-term effect.

Supply takes place in the long term. It takes years to gear up producing such goods as cars, cell phones and equipment.

So just giving people a little more waking-around money — demand-side thinking — does nothing to encourage production, and so nothing to help the economy. Demand-side thinking usually comes from the Keynesianism most people learned in college in Econ. 101. But impoverished Haiti has plenty of demands; what it lacks is production. Conversely, Switzerland is rich because it produces — it supplies — at the highest level in the world. Not surprisingly, Haiti is a morass of high taxes and regulations, whereas Switzerland is a Lafferite free-market paradise.

Laffer Curve

That’s where the famous Laffer Curve comes in. In the book, Domitrovic describes it:

“The Laffer Curve is a simple theoretical diagram, a bell curve…that compares tax revenues that are gained under all tax rates between 0 percent and 100 percent. At one end (the 0 percent tax rate), tax revenues are zero, at at the other (the 100 percent rate), tax revenues are also zero, because no one chooses to earn money when the government confiscates every penny. In between there is a bulge. And at one point, that bulge peaks — implying that any tax rate increase beyond it will result in lower revenue….

“Laffer…had used the curve often in the classroom, as a teaching tool. Then in December 1974, he sketched the curve on the restaurant napkin before two high staffers of the Gerald Ford administration, Donald Rumsfeld and Richard B. Cheney, along with his friend, Wall Street Journal editorialist Jude Wanniski.”

Alas, Ford did not embrace supply-side tax cuts, the economy continued to stagnate and in 1976, voters canned him for Jimmy Carter.

Laffer himself notes others before him said something similar. The earliest apparently was 14th century philosopher and sociologist Ibn Khaldun, who wrote in words Reagan sometimes quoted:

“It should be known that at the beginning of the dynasty, taxation yields a large revenue from small assessments. At the end of the dynasty, taxation yields a small revenue from large assessments.”

What Laffer invented was the graph that dramatically shows how the Laffer Curve works.

Laffer also details two previous supply-side tax cuts that boosted the economy. The first was by presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s, when the top federal income tax rate dropped to 25 percent from 77 percent. The second was by presidents John F. Kennedy, who touted them before his 1963 assassination, and President Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed the tax-cuts into law in 1964. Yes, Democrats can cut taxes, too.

Basically, the Laffer Curve is just common sense. If you tax something at 100 percent, nobody will pay the tax. If you tax something at 0 percent, no tax will be collected. The art of the Laffer Curve is finding the right recipe in between — that is, 1 percent to 99 percent tax rates — that maximizes both economic growth and tax revenues.

LBJ-JFK tax cuts

The LBJ-JFK tax cuts, and how they were enacted, are described in detail in the fourth volume of Robert Caro’s magisterial biography of LBJ, “The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson.” Unfortunately, Caro, although brilliant on the biographical and political aspects, doesn’t “get” why supply-side economics works, or the connection to Reagan’s tax cuts.

Here’s Laffer’s explanation:

“The 1964 tax cut reduced the top marginal personal income tax rate from 91 percent [!] to 70 percent by 1965. The cut reduced lower-bracket rates as well. In the four years prior to the 1965 tax-rate cuts, federal government income tax revenue, adjusted for inflation, had increased at an average annual rate of 2.1 percent, while total government income tax revenue (federal plus state and local) had increased 2.6 percent per year. In the four years following the tax cut these two measures or revenue growth rose to 8.6 percent and 9.0 percent, respectively. Government income tax revenue not only increased in the years following the tax cut, it increased at a much faster rate in spite of the tax cuts.

“The Kennedy tax cut set the example that Reagan would follow some 17 years later. By increasing incentives to work, produce and invest, real GDP growth increased in the years following the tax cuts, more people worked and the tax base expanded. Additionally, the expenditure side of the budget benefited as well because the unemployment rate was significantly reduced.”

And click this audio YouTube for JFK’s own 1962 explanation of his tax cuts.

Reagan deficits

Didn’t Reagan’s tax cuts increase the deficits? Yes, but the economy grew even faster than the deficits; and in his eight years in office, federal revenues actually increased 75 percent — from $517 billion in 1980, the year he was elected, to $909.2 billion in 1988, his last year in office. (See p. 24 here for this and the data below.) It’s like taking out a higher mortgage on a newer home after getting a raise.

Moreover, Reagan’s deficits came about for one reason: He was increasing defense spending to break the back of the demonic Soviet Union. It was a one-time deal. It worked when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, a couple months after the Gipper left office. The deficits also were dropping fast, from $221 billion in 1986, to $150 billion in 1987 and $155 billion in 1988.

The reverse side of the Laffer Curve — that tax increases often make things worse — also was proven when Reaganomics was abandoned by President Bush with his 1990 “read my lips” tax increases. Instead of the deficits going down, the Bush tax-increase recession zoomed them back up — doubling to $289 billion in 1992.

What about the Clinton boom of the late 1990s? Didn’t he increase taxes in 1993? Yep. But after the Gingrich Republican Congress was elected in 1994, Clinton worked with the GOP to sharply cut capital gains tax cuts. It was Reaganomics with an Arkansas accent.

Gold standard

People sometimes say I write too much on the importance of the gold standard to stabilized money. But it is important as the means to stabilize the dollar and prevent inflation. Briefly…

The book includes a Laffer essay from 1980, “The Case for a Gold-Backed Dollar,” that resonates just as much today. Reagan, and especially Paul Volcker, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board at the time and a Democrat, actually took Laffer’s advice and pegged the dollar to about $350 an ounce. That policy continued after Alan Greenspan became Fed honcho in 1987, until 2001. Unfortunately, after 9/11, Greenspan inflated the dollar, a policy continued under his successor, Ben Bernanke, driving gold up to as high as $1,800 an ounce.

Wonder why prices are rising? That’s it. Inflation takes about 15 years to work through the economy.

In 2012, Bernanke began stabilizing the dollar again at about $1,200 an ounce, a policy Janet Yellen, who became Fed chairman this year, has continued — a positive, Lafferite development.

“A properly designed program should have as its initial goal the stabilization of prices generally at or near their current level,” Laffer wrote in 1980. “Stated simply, a workable system of gold/dollar convertibility must not permit the economy to experience wrenching adjustments because of changes in gold….

“Based upon his posturing since the late 1960s it is, in my opinion, quite conceivable that Volcker could actually lead the search for a new order.”

That’s just what happened.

Back to Reagan

I highlighted Laffer’s writing. But “Pillars” also includes contributions by the late Warren Brookes, George Gilder, Charles W. Kadlec, Stuart J. Sweet, David Booth, Jeffrey Thompson and Reagan administration economist Bruce Bartlett.

When you remove the dustjacket, the book cover shows a good-as-gold engraving of Reagan holding a drawing of the Laffer Curve. My iPhone snapshot is nearby.  In these digital days, it’s still great to read a beautifully crafted physical book — 1980s style.

In conclusion, if Republicans finally want to get their act together and start not just winning elections, but governing for prosperity, they should start with this book. The Reagan prosperity recipe worked — and can work again.

Nehring, in only-somewhat tongue-in-cheek remarks Monday, said he’s even willing to accept a debate moderated by liberal MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow or Ed Schultz. If the left-leaning cable channel can’t accommodate the request ahead of the Nov. 4 election, Nehring said in a statement, then he could be talked into appearing on Russian government-funded RT or North Korea’s KCNA, “although with that last one we can’t find a bureau for them in the United States.”

Newsom’s campaign is exceedingly unlikely to oblige. Spokesman Sean Clegg said flatly that he doesn’t anticipate the incumbent participating in any debates. In an email, Clegg cited Nehring’s recent salty email to state party leaders in which he bemoaned the disunity among GOP statewide candidates.

“Ron Nehring, who just attacked his own GOP members in a profanity-laced tirade, is out-of-control, reckless, desperate, and we have no intention of promoting him,” Clegg said.

But what about the future? It’s well known Newsom likely will run for governor when Brown’s fourth term ends in 2018; or for one of the U.S. Senate seats that could open up in 2016 or 2018. Possible opponents for any of these seats include California Attorney General Kamala Harris, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.

Wouldn’t debate practice now be preparation for the future?

Even the best debaters fumble on occasion, as Ronald Reagan did in his first debate with Walter Mondale in 1984.

The Gipper more than fully recovered for the second debate. When a reporter questioned Reagan about his age, 73 at the time, he quipped, “I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” He won every state but Mondale’s Minnesota home.

Before that year, Reagan took part in memorable debates with President Jimmy Carter in 2000 and over the Panama Canal in 1978.

The point is you can’t get enough practice in debates. Given that he’s likely to win easily, Newsom should be eager for a dozen debates with Nehring.

By the way, instead of the usual campaign platform, why doesn’t Nehring just campaign on one plank? The plank: Get rid of this pointless post.

Anyway, without practice, in the future Newsom could be surprised the way Carter was by Reagan in the most memorable reply of the 1980 debate:

His campaign message — California is back, I fixed a state ruined by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, I’m solving pension and other problems and can do the same for America’s — could resonate in 2016 with Democratic primary voters.

The Washington Post just ran a humorous story on Brown’s feud with the Clintons going back to the 1992 primaries. So if Hillary runs, as seems likely, Brown would get another chance to tweak them by running in the primaries.

True, Brown today is 76. But Hillary is 66 and would be 69 if elected in Nov. 2016. That’s a year shy of how old Ronald Reagan, the oldest elected president, was when he entered the White House in 1981.

The Post on the 1992 campaign:

After Clinton locked up the nomination, Brown pushed for the ability to give a speech from the floor of the Democratic Convention, hosted that year in New York City. He wasn’t allowed to do so, but was eventually allowed to second his own nomination. He used the opportunity to launch into a restating of his campaign themes: fighting the “growing concentration of wealth” and banning “political action committees so people and corporations are on the same level.” (If he does run in 2016, he’s got his platform all-but-set.)

It used to be any prominent politician, Republican or Democrat, could get at least a few minutes to speak at his party’s convention. But the Clintons began the unfortunate policy of freezing out those they didn’t like. Also prevented from speaking at the 1992 Democratic National Convention was Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey (father of current U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr.) because he wanted to give a pro-life speech.

In a similar fashion, after Pat Buchanan gave his infamous “Culture War” speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention — which didn’t “declare” a culture war, as it’s often portrayed, but only announced one already existed, which in 2014 is obviouis — the GOP shut down any dissenting voices beginning at their 1996 convention.

That’s why, except for Clint Eastwood’s extempore performance at the 2012 GOP Convention — you don’t tell Dirty Harry how to make his day — since 1996 both party conventions have been staged and boring.

Here’s some of the fireworks from the Brown vs. Clinton debate in 1992:

Laffer also heads the Laffer Center at the Pacific Research Institute, CalWatchDog.com’s parent think tank.

His new article explains why people are fleeing California:

But he missed a step. Shouldn’t we first be blaming himself and other Republicans for nominating such duds as the Bushes, McCain and Romney?

More than 50 years ago, JFK used to ask of Republicans, “Where do they get these candidates?”

Despite all the changes in the past five decades, that hasn’t changed.

And Kennedy didn’t mean the great Barry Goldwater, whom he was friends with from their Senate days. The two pals planned to hold a series of debates around the country during the 1964 election, but JFK was shot. He was succeeded by LBJ, who refused to debate Goldwater and ran one of the most vicious campaigns in history, especially the infamous “Daisy” Mushroom Commercial that Bill Moyers (yes, the PBS guy — he’s always lived off our tax money) ginned up.

That reminds me of the old conservative quip. “People said that if I voted for Goldwater, we’d get war and death. I voted for Goldwater, and we got war and death” — but under supposed peacenik LBJ, of course, who won his mendacious election in a landslide.

Kennedy meant guys like Nelson Rockefeller and George Romney (father of Mitt).

Anyway, if they want to win, Republicans obviously need to start again nominating candidates in the Goldwater-Reagan mold.