value from 1980 to 1990, a larger increase than in any previous decade.

In The End of Prosperity, supply side guru Art Laffer and Wall Street Journal chief financial writer Steve Moore point out that this Reagan recovery grew into a 25-year boom, with just slight interruptions by shallow, short recessions in 1990 and 2001. They wrote:

We call this period, 1982-2007, the twenty-five year boom–the greatest period of wealth creation in the history of the planet. In 1980, the net worth–assets minus liabilities–of all U.S. households and business … was $25 trillion in today’s dollars. By 2007, … net worth was just shy of $57 trillion. Adjusting for inflation, more wealth was created in America in the twenty-five year boom than in the previous two hundred years.

What is sonight, referring to the disaster known as free trade. But he could have just as well been talking about the devastation he visited upon all those who ride around the Beltway in their limousines from one country club to another.

Trump begins the general-election campaign this morning as the underdog, but there are important lessons here. First and foremost, you can’t beat somebody with nobody. Trump was the Joe Louis of this GOP field, and he was up against the same kind of ham-and-eggers that the Brown Bomber feasted upon — the Bum of the Month Club.

Cruz was just the last of the bums, following in the footsteps of Walker, Bush, Carson, Perry, Christie, Rubio, Fiorina and all the rest of them who thought it was really, really important