Laffer Speaks
07 Oct 2006
Dr. Arthur Laffer is speaking this Tuesday, Oct. 10, 4:15 – 5:30 p.m., at the Renaissance Hotel in the Music City Ballroom.
Come on out and ask him about the Neo-Laffer Curve (pictured above): a more accurate representation of the dynamics of the relationship between tax rates and revenue. In all seriousness, Laffer is a keen mind, whose famous curve (not pictured. hint: it’s a parabola.) was sadly oversimplified and used for a barrage of dangerous and irresponsible economic policy decisions that continue even today. Maybe he’ll have something to say about that.
I can’t figure out if this event is open to the public or if you have to register. Maybe I overestimate the crowd that would turn out to see a 66 year old economist speak. But I’m gonna go.
Maybe he’ll say his criticism still stands because it was an attack on the liberals who though that this curve was a simple straight line with a slope of one. You know, we tax more and we get more taxes. His whole point was that when you tax more you don’t necessarily get more taxes. Duh. Also the only way you are going to get a tangled curve like that is if you have a complicated tax system. In the end, with a simple tax code and when you have lots of varied people the differences average out, like with the way gas pressure is based on the average velocities of all the atoms in a room. Complex tax codes are even more of a problem for liberals. It’s the non-liberals who have been arguing about unintended consequences all along.