Reaganomics: Supply Side Economics in Action.

Westport, CT: Arlington House Publishers,, 1981. First edition, first printing, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper "To Justin Dart, Best wishes to a friend of supply-side economics. Bruce Bartlett July 8, 1981". The recipient was "the bluntest and most outspoken member of the 'kitchen cabinet' of old friends who have been longtime advisers to President Reagan" (New York Times obituary). In 1939 the businessman Justin (1907-1984) married the actress Jane Bryan (1918-2009), Reagan's co-star in Girls on Probation (1938), Brother Rat (1938) and Brother Rat and a Baby (1940). The couple met regularly with Reagan and his first wife, Jane Wyman, whom he had met on the Brother Rat films, and afterwards with Reagan's second wife Nancy. Their friendship lasted until Justin's death over four decades later, and was significant - the Darts were partly responsible, with other Southern California businesspeople, in persuading and aiding Reagan to run for governor of California in 1966, and encouraged him to run for vice-president in 1976, and president in 1980. In Reagan's autobiography, he recalls it was Justin who, on a trip to England, first introduced him to Margaret Thatcher (American Life, p. 204). Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1987. Bruce Bartlett was a committed supporter of the supply-side model. Published in the early months of Reagan's presidency, Reaganomics both outlines the supply-side theories, and makes proposals for further reform. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in silver. With dust jacket. Covers very slightly bowed and rubbed at extremities, very good in like jacket, slightly toned and creased.