Arthur Laffer is identified in the excerpts only through the statements of others: as the co-author, with Stephen Moore, of the book Trumponomics, and as the economist associated with the Laffer curve. No excerpt features Laffer as a speaker, and none supplies biographical detail beyond these references.
Trumponomics and the Committee to Unleash American Prosperity
In an October 2018 episode, Bob Zadek introduced Stephen Moore, describing him as one of Donald Trump’s chief economic advisors, a founder and former president of the Club for Growth, a former member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, and a commentator who had worked closely with the Heritage Foundation. Zadek told listeners that Moore had written Trumponomics with Arthur Laffer, a book then coming out at the end of October, which Zadek said would explain why listeners were doing so well compared to a few short years earlier Stephen Moore on Trumponomics (2018).
Moore, in the same episode, described forming the Committee to Unleash American Prosperity with Laffer, Larry Kudlow and Steve Forbes. He called Forbes, Kudlow and Laffer economic icons and, in his words, probably the best economists of the last 50 years. Moore said the purpose of the group was to educate Republicans so that when they ran for president in 2016 they would run on a pro-economic growth, supply-side, lower taxes, less regulation agenda. He recounted that the group met Trump and teamed up with him, and that Kudlow had become the chief economist for Donald Trump Stephen Moore on Trumponomics (2018).
Moore also described the intellectual content of that agenda in terms he attributed to Kudlow: that if you tax something you get less of it, and if you tax something less you get more of it. He said the program took taxes off businesses and off workers so as to get more work, more businesses and more investment, and he characterized Trump as a common-sense businessman rather than an ideological person in the manner of Ronald Reagan Stephen Moore on Trumponomics (2018).
The Laffer curve in later discussion
A March 2019 episode was hosted by Charlie Deist, filling in for Bob Zadek, with economist David Henderson as guest. Deist noted that Bob had spent an hour the previous October with Stephen Moore, a former president of the Club for Growth, who had recently authored Trumponomics. Deist described Moore as a supply-side economist, meaning he thinks that tax cuts tend to pay for themselves, and said that Moore’s co-author on the book was Arthur Laffer, probably best known for his Laffer curve David Henderson on Trumponomics, Deficits, and Immigration (2019).
Deist characterized the Laffer curve as the famous idea that you can actually create more revenues, get more tax revenues, if you lower taxes. He said this led to the whole kind of voodoo economics, and that the theory behind the Laffer curve is intuitively appealing to someone like Donald Trump, who would naturally want to both cut taxes and have more to spend. Deist also said that Trump had consulted Moore on a number of key economic proposals, including free trade, and that Moore had been pushing Trump to remove tariffs David Henderson on Trumponomics, Deficits, and Immigration (2019).
The same episode’s introduction concerned Trump’s nomination of Moore to the Federal Reserve Board. Deist said it looked from the outside like a politically motivated move, because Moore had just written an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling the Fed and its recent interest rate hikes a threat to growth. Deist framed the morning’s question as whether it is really the Fed’s job to promote growth, and whether it should focus instead on price stability, a stable dollar, or some aggregate measure indicating the economy is neither overheating nor artificially depressed. He noted that many people said the nomination threatened the Federal Reserve’s independence because Moore had been a partisan in favor of Trump’s presidency, and that Moore had chimed in that maybe Jerome Powell should step down David Henderson on Trumponomics, Deficits, and Immigration (2019).
Across episodes: the Laffer curve and supply-side claims
The topic recurs across two episodes, and the treatment shifts with the speaker. In October 2018, Moore, a participant in the program he describes, presents the supply-side tax-cutting agenda as successful and attributes the ideas in part to Laffer and his co-authors. In March 2019, Deist, speaking as host, presents the Laffer curve as a famous idea that lowering taxes can raise revenues, links it to what he calls voodoo economics, and raises it in the context of questions about Moore’s nomination to the Federal Reserve and the central bank’s independence. The excerpts show no development in Laffer’s own position, since he does not speak in either episode; what changes is who is characterizing the idea and to what end.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state Laffer’s title, field, institutional affiliation, or any biographical facts beyond his association with Trumponomics and the Laffer curve. They do not describe the mechanics or graphical form of the Laffer curve, nor any empirical dispute over it beyond Deist’s reference to voodoo economics. They do not record Laffer’s own words, and they do not say what became of Moore’s nomination to the Federal Reserve.