Politics
Laffer: Obama Picked a Losing Team
Laffer lauds Clinton as a great supply-side President. On the other hand, George W. Bush, despite his party affiliation, has ushered in the end of supply-side economics, says Laffer. Lower taxes have indeed raised revenues, says Laffer, but the Bush administration's inability to cut spending has threatened the economy with huge deficits that Obama will have a hard time erasing.
"Obama's going to probably raise taxes on the upper income groups. He's going to probably be forced to raise other taxes as well. He's going to increase spending which is already a real problem. He said he's going to go much more towards protectionism," says Laffer, adding that all of that will be bad for the economy. And as for the Laffer curve that vaulted him into the limelight, Laffer says the press continues to get it wrong. "It's about people's incentives to work. At a 110% tax rate, if you came into the office every day and got a bill instead of a paycheck then you wouldn't work very long," says Laffer. "The government wouldn't collect any money. And obviously if there are no taxes, the government will also collect no revenue. So the whole point of the curve is to figure out where you should be on your taxes depending on which income group you're taxing. Nothing more.">To order reprints of this article, click here: ReprintsTo begin commenting right away, you can log in below using your Disqus, Facebook, Twitter, OpenID or Yahoo login credentials. Alternatively, you can post a comment as a "guest" just by entering an email address. Your use of the commenting tool is subject to multiple terms of service/use and privacy policies - see here for more details.
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