by Jeffrey P. Snider
Alhambra Partners
Walter W. Heller was said to have been an “educator of Presidents.” As an economist and Presidential advisor in the inner circles of DC, Heller worked with more candidates and officeholders than perhaps any other man. As he himself described, his influence went all the way back to Adlai Stevenson and kept on through Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and Mondale. To his mind, he takes credit for turning Presidents into thorough Keynesians starting with JFK in January 1963 and the tax cut “stimulus” that Heller claims was “born on my desk.”