[4] His grandfather was a Pennsylvania coal miner and a dedicated Communist who gave his grandson a copy of Das Kapital for his high school graduation.
He left after being discovered at a New Jersey train station distributing leaflets supporting a Republican senatorial candidate, an act considered an ethics violation.
[5] He also began directly advising politicians on economic policy, first candidate Ronald Reagan and later presidential hopefuls Jack Kemp and Steve Forbes.
... What made the event so important was that when the weekend began, Farrakhan was the spiritual leader of 200,000 members of the Nation of Islam and clearly the most influential of 33 million African-Americans.
[10] Wanniski consistently advocated the reduction of trade barriers, the elimination of capital gains taxes, and a return to the gold standard.
As they succeed in expanding incentives to produce, they will move the economy back to full employment and thereby reduce social pressures for public spending.
Eventually Wanniski endorsed the 2004 Democratic candidate, Senator John Kerry, although he clearly preferred the Republican platform on issues related to taxation.
Wanniski has been credited with coining the term supply-side economics to distinguish it against the more dominant "demand-side" Keynesian and monetarist theories.
"[7] The rising GOP star Jack Kemp became a supply-side economics advocate due to Wanniski's tutelage, and would work to put his proposals into legislative practice.
He arranged for Farrakhan to be interviewed by reporter Jeffrey Goldberg, who had written for the Jewish weekly The Forward and The New York Times.
The extensive interview was never published in either publication, and Wanniski posted it on his website in the context of a memorandum to Senator Joe Lieberman.
He was survived by his wife, Patricia, and children Matthew, Andrew, Jennifer Harlan, his brother Terrance Wanniski and sister Ruth Necco.