Most economists worth their salt would tell you that the Laffer curve is at best a bad theory. The basic idea, sketched by economist Arthur Laffer onto a napkin in a restaurant in front of Dick Cheney, Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Jude Wanniski—not a joke—is that lower taxes mean a better economy. I will call it a fraudulent theory—a scam perpetrated by the likes of useless individuals like Art Laffer, Ronald Reagan, the Bushes, and Paul Ryan. Because zombies never die, the Trump administration and the Republican leadership have been working to resurrect the trickle-down economics theories espoused by Laffer and Stephen Moore and others of their ilk. How badly do people such as Laffer want to be relevant and make money? They’re willing to blame then-presidential candidate Barack Obama for the economic recession of 2007-2008. You know, the one that he helped pull our economy out of?
The other night, Laffer was on Fox News to explain how the impending economic slowdown is not the fault of Donald Trump and his tariff wars, and not the fault of the Republican tax cuts with no resulting boom in hiring or infrastructure. Instead, it’s Bernie Sanders. It’s Bernie Sanders running for president in 2020 that is bringing down our economy.
Laffer explained to the blank slate of a Fox News host that helping people turns them into lazybones, and that Bernie Sanders’ policies of redistribution of wealth will lead to an economic depression, by way of something he called “math.” He finished up with a flourish that almost spewed horse manure onto the host via satellite.
Laffer: I am very afraid that if [Sanders] were elected we would have an enormous crash in the market. Now that crash would come in anticipation of his election, but it’s much like Obama—who I believe was the reason why we had the Great Recession. As he got closer and closer to winning, the markets collapsed.
Just. Wow.