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tax burdens levied by government on productive citizens. Yet even the revenue thus obtained had "not kept pace with public spending"; rather, a mounting deficit imperiled America's economy and future. In order to restore economic growth, Reagan proposed "removing the roadblocks that have slowed our economy and reduced productivity"; he especially recommended getting "government back within its means" and "lighten[ing] our punitive tax burden". Less government, not more, was needed to restore prosperity. Reagan's desire for removing government economic restraints is reminiscent of Andrew Jackson, who sought to abolish "complicated restrictions which now embarrass the intercourse of nations" and wanted commerce "to flow in those channels to which individual enterprise, always its surest guide, might direct it" ("The Majority is to Govern").

Reagan, contrary to Roosevelt, did not consider entrepreneurs and men of wealth to be responsible for America's crises. Quite the contrary, he recognized their crucial, even heroic role in facilitating a life and standard of living worthy of Americans. He saluted "entrepreneurs with faith in themselves and faith in an idea who create new jobs, new wealth, and opportunity" and desired for them freedom to innovate for everyone's benefit. Unlike Roosevelt, who wished to restrain and restrict some, especially businessmen, to grant a specious "equality of opportunity" to others, Reagan recognized that "[t]he solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price." Reagan wanted to grant entrepreneurs the same protections under the law that all other Americans had.

Reagan's respect for entrepreneurs and his recognition that entrepreneurship is a social good, not an evil, are consistent with Andrew Carnegie's insight that "[n]ot evil, but good, has come... from the accumulation of wealth by those who have the ability and energy that produce it" ("Wealth"). Carnegie would have detested Roosevelt's attempts to perfect society and "equalize" opportunity by penalizing the best and most productive Americans: "We might as well urge the destruction of the highest existing type of man because he failed to reach our ideal as to favor the destruction of Individualism, Private Property, the Law of Accumulation of Wealth, the Law of Competition; for these are the highest results of human experience..." ("Wealth"). Reagan, like Carnegie, recognized that individuals, when left free to use their property as they

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