Clark remembers Margaret Thatcher

Today we mourn the passing of Margaret Thatcher. She was a personal hero of mine and I even named the family dog after her!

Who was Margaret Thatcher? Often called the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher grew up poor in England. In the ’70s, she became Prime Minister of an old, broken down country. While in power, she dismantled the special interests that were only interested in lining their own pockets and harming England’s economic future.

Through her force of will and ideals, Margaret Thatcher caused an awakening that brought Britain out of a major economic slump in the ’70s. How did she do it? By reducing taxes and creating marketplace incentives for people to get working.

She reminds me of another hero of mine: Martin Luther King Jr.

His story is similar. He too had a vision that things could be different. Both the Iron Lady and MLK didn’t care who the special privileged parties were. And each in their own way unleashed enormous economic growth.

I know it sounds weird to talk about MLK in economic terms. But the South was an economic backwater in his day. Southern states owe their prosperity to MLK and to air conditioning!

Today, we’re at a time that’s crying out for leadership that can overcome the narrow, petty self-interest of a party or a particular self-interest. We are not in dire straits like England was in the ’70s, but we need a correction.

And it requires overcoming dirty money and politicians who can’t talk to people of the opposite party. We need a leader with an overriding vision who doesn’t talk in soundbites, with a vision to lead us to greater prosperity.

Margaret Thatcher went into a hopeless situation and made it happen. We’re not anywhere near hopeless and we can get it done here too.