Supply-side founder and mentor Art Laffer is mounting a terrific counter-offensive to the supply-side attack coming from The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait and The New Yorker’s James Surowiecki. In a recent piece entitled, “The Onslaught From the Left, Part I: Fact Versus Fiction,” Art makes three summary points:
• This paper serves as a response to a recent New Republic article by Jonathan Chait which criticizes the supply-side economics movement and lays out the typical redistributionist’s case for raising taxes on the rich.
• While the article refers to supply-siders as “wingnuts,” the tenets of supply-side economics — low taxes, sound money, free trade, reduced regulations, etc. — have been adopted (successfully, I might add) in the U.S. and across the globe.
• The best way to help the poor is not to make the rich poorer, but to make the poor richer. All Americans as a whole have gotten richer as a result of pro-growth supply-side policies. The economic and social gains of the past 25 years — across class, race, and gender lines — speak for themselves. The irony is that many of the policies promoted by the Left would hurt the very classes of people whom the Left professes to champion.
On Kudlow & Company Friday night, Art brilliantly defended supply-side economics in a face-to-face discussion with Mr. Surowiecki. By the way, James Surowiecki is usually quite reasonable, particularly his writings on the wisdom of markets. And he acknowledged the supply-side incentive effects that spur growth from lower marginal tax rates.