http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/art-laffer-curve-trump-medal-freedom-tax-cuts.html?fbclid=IwAR32zEYx_V4ktxDj2OU-enWj4-pyZ7QGEspPOcip79Iw0Cmx6B2zoXgbdKw
"In the real world, Laffer’s contributions have built a streak of unbroken wrongness over a time and scale few policy entrepreneurs in history can match. Laffer predicted Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts would pay for themselves. When they instead produced historic deficits, Laffer continued to claim he was right. He predicted Bill Clinton’s attempt to reduce the deficit by raising taxes on the rich would backfire (“I think the plan will fail. It entails price controls, which have never worked. It calls for tax increases, and that’s exactly the wrong way to go. It makes no sense to raise taxes on people who work and pay more to those who don’t work. This is the Reagan revolution in reverse”). Instead, revenue growth exceeded projections. He likewise predicted President Obama’s plan would “destroy the economy” (it did not) and that President Trump’s tax cut would “pay for itself many times over” (it did not pay for itself at all), among many other failed predictions. Not content to botch his analysis of the federal budget, he has parachuted into several state governments and prodded Republicans into adopting his utterly false worldview. In Kansas and Louisiana, Republican governors listened to Laffer and produced fiscal catastrophe so comprehensive and undeniable Republicans in their state revolted. Economists do not take Laffer’s claims seriously. This has not reduced his influence whatsoever. Laffer has elevated his curve to metaphysical status within the party, which treats the skepticism of economists as more evidence of their own correctness. “Economists still ridicule the Laffer Curve,” boasted Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Robert Bartley, “but policymakers pay it careful heed.” A dozen years ago, I wrote a book attempting to explain the mystery of how Laffer’s kook theory took hold of a major political party and could not be dislodged even after multiple high-profile failures."
