President Donald Trump will present Arthur B. Laffer with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The presentation will take place on June 19.
Dr. Laffer is called the “Father of Supply-Side Economics” and is one of the most influential economists in American history, the White House said in a press release.
Laffer is renowned for his economic theory, the “Laffer Curve,” which establishes the strong incentive effects of lower tax rates that spur investment, production, jobs, wages, economic growth and tax compliance, the White House said.
Laffer was the first chief economist of the Office of Management and Budget and a top economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan. Among other accomplishments during his career, he served as a consultant to the Department of the Treasury and Department of Defense. Laffer’s public service and contributions to economic policy have helped spur prosperity for the nation, the White House said.
Laffer is a native of Youngstown, Ohio, who lives in Nashville, Politico said.
He moved with his business, Laffer Associates, from San Diego to Nashville in 2003, the Nashville Post said. The economist said he made the move because Tennessee does not have an income tax. His company provides international investment advisory services to institutions and management of institutional accounts.
Politico explained the premise of the Laffer Curve:
Laffer explained his controversial theories to POLITICO a few weeks ago in Nashville: “If you raise taxes, … some people may actually leave your state. Some people … leave the labor force and stay home. Others may choose to not employ people, so unemployment rates go higher.”
In addition to working in the Reagan Administration, Laffer also served as a senior economic advisor to Trump, The Tennessee Star said.
The economist was a critic of former Nashville Mayor Megan Barry’s $9 billion mass transit plan as well as former Gov. Bill Haslam’s gas tax, The Star said.
He has become the co-author of a line of children’s books titled “Let’s Chat” exploring economics and democracy.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom was established by President John F. Kennedy in 1963, the White House website says. It is the nation’s highest civilian honor and is awarded by the President “to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the security or national interests of America, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
Tiger Woods was the most recent recipient, receiving the honor on May 6.
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Jason M. Reynolds has more than 20 years’ experience as a journalist at outlets of all sizes.
It was supply-side economics that caused the decline of the middle class and the rise of a very small super-rich and large poor underclass to replace it. Thanks to supply-side economics, the U.S. has one of the most backward inequitable economies with far less opportunity for upward mobility. Between 1945 and 1970, we still had what was called the Great Compression where the middle class was the biggest and most dominant class in the U.S. But starting somewhat with Carter and even more so with Reagan, we got stagflation and supply-side economics that destroyed most of the well paying jobs and government aid that made the U.S. middle class after the World War Two possible. Now, people have to work two lower paying jobs with often little security and benefits in place of old jobs that at least, even if drudgery, did provide economic security and old age pensions. Now, thanks to people like Arthur Laffer and, above all, Milton Freidman, who gave us the brutal Pinochet Regime in Chile with its impoverishment and mass murder of thousands of dissidents, we have a banana republic type of economy here in the U.S. To hale somebody like Laffer and to think that Laffer hales from Middle Tennessee is an especially hard pill to swallow. People like Laffer should be publicly disgraced and made to pay restitution to the victims they laid off from decent-paying jobs.
At first, nobody detected the downside of Reaganomics (a.k.a.: supply-side) because Reagan had people max out on their credit cards and to get new cards whenever their first card ran out. Reagan assured a sheepish public that their unpaid bills would never come due (a departure from earlier types of conservatism that used to admonish people to “tighten” their belts). By 1986, we would have a wave of serious recessions mixed with other credit-card induced bubbles. This is no way to live!