#arthur laffer

La curva de Laffer es uno de los conceptos económicos más citados y a la vez más malinterpretados del debate fiscal contemporáneo. Desde su introducción popular por Arthur Laffer en la década de 1970, se ha utilizado para justificar recortes de impuestos bajo la promesa de mayores ingresos fiscales. Pero, ¿qué dice realmente esta curva? ¿Cuáles son sus fundamentos teóricos? Y más importante:…

Politics as performance art … er, without the art.  I don’t know about you folks, but I’m sick and damn tired of the games people play, the manipulation and hypocrisy from our elected officials.  Just do the job and sit down and shut up!!!  Here’s what we can expect to dominate over the next month or two … Get ready: Two big upcoming theatrical performances Biden wants to tax the rich, and House…

Arthur Laffer is to an economist what an astrologer is to an astrophysicist.

Laffer’s theory (”the Laffer curve”) was embraced by presidential candidate Ronald Reagan when he ran in 1980. Like most Republicans, he welcomed any excuse for another tax break for the rich. But the problem was that the Laffer-inspired Reagan tax breaks, implemented early in his presidency, did not produce the promised revenue for the federal government. So Reagan was forced to later raise taxes under the guise of “tax reform” to try to cap an exploding deficit. Yes, in those days Republicans did care about deficits.

Many Republicans understood from the start that Laffer’s theory was economic snake oil. One of them was George H.W. Bush who in 1980 called the Laffer-Reagan proposal a “voodoo economic” theory.

Bush, of course, became Reagan’s VP and later tried to fib his way out of his original (and correct) assessment of Laffer’s goofball idea.

Bad ideologies seldom completely die. Earlier this decade in Kansas, Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, a devout adherent of Lafferism, made voodoo economics the basis for Kansas’s state budget. After several disastrous years, the legislature overruled Brownback who later resigned and fled the state. To further safeguard against a return to Laffer voodoo economics, Kansas did something in 2018 that it seldom does -- it elected a Democrat as governor.

I Can’t Seem To Stop The Snarky …

Will there ever come a day that I don’t have an excess of angst just bubbling over, demanding to put fingers to the keyboard and words to the page?  I have my doubts.

On Sunday morning, Trump posted the following tweet that was liked by 52 thousand mindless people:

“A poll should be done on which is the more dishonest and deceitful newspaper, the Failing New York Times or the Amazon (lobbyist)…

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

D-Brief reports on the abundance of plastic waste found buried in the beaches of the Cocos Islands.

Joe. My. God. notes that the US has imposed tariffs against India.

JSTOR Daily looks at the strange history of phrenology.

Lawyers, Guns and Money takes note of the Trump Administration’s honouring of Arthur Laffer.

The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer looksat the electricity price crisis that…