Arthur Laffer Quotes

• Government spending is taxation. When you look at this, I've never heard of a poor person spending himself into prosperity; let alone I've never heard of a poor person taxing himself into prosperity.

  Arthur Laffer

  Government, Looks, Taxation

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• It is not true that Congress spends money like a drunken sailor. Drunken sailors spend their own money. Congress spends our money.

  Arthur Laffer

  Money, Sailor, Congress

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• The tax rate increases reduce economic growth; they shrink the pie; they cause more poverty, more despair, more unemployment, which are all things government is trying to alleviate with spending.

  Arthur Laffer

  Government, Pie, Growth

  "How Low Can They Go? Arthur Laffer Defends Slashing State Income Taxes". Interview with Paul Solman, www.pbs.org. August 1, 2013.

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• And you can't have a prosperous economy when the government is way overspending, raising tax rates, printing too much money, over regulating and restricting free trade. It just can't be done.

  Arthur Laffer

  Government, Done, Too Much

  "The Journal Editorial Report", www.foxnews.com. June 12, 2010.

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• What I'm not saying is that all government spending is bad. It's not - far, far from it, but there is no free lunch, as a former colleague of mine used to say. There is no public tooth fairy. Father Christmas does not work on the Treasury staff this year. You can never bail someone out of trouble without putting someone else into trouble.

  Arthur Laffer

  Christmas, Father, Government

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• You know, without China there is no Wal-Mart and without Wal-Mart there is no middle class and lower class prosperity in the United States.

  Arthur Laffer

  Class, United States, Prosperity

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• There are 11 states in the United States that in the last 50 years instituted an income tax. So I looked at each of those 11 states over the last 50 years, and I took their current economic metrics and their metrics for the five years before they put in the progressive income tax... Every single state that introduced a progressive income tax has declined as an overall share of the U.S. economy.

  Arthur Laffer

  Years, United States, Income

  "How Low Can They Go? Arthur Laffer Defends Slashing State Income Taxes". Interview with Paul Solman, www.pbs.org. August 1, 2013.

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• Let me just try to give you sort of the intuitive one here on the stimulus funds. If you have a two-person economy - let's imagine we have two farms, and that's the whole world, just two farms. If one of those farmers gets unemployment benefits, who do you think pays for him? Am I going way over your heads today?

  Arthur Laffer

  Thinking, Two, Giving

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• If you like the post office and the Department of Motor Vehicles and you think they're run well, just wait till you see Medicare, Medicaid and health care done by the government.

  Arthur Laffer

  Running, Thinking, Government

  "Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" by Bob Cesca, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 5, 2009.

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• People can also change the timing of when they earn and receive their income in response to government policies.

  Arthur Laffer

  Government, People, Income

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• And just remember, every dollar we spend on outsourcing is spent on U.S. goods or invested back in the U.S. market. That's accounting.

  Arthur Laffer

  Dollars, Remember, Outsourcing

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• Sound money is the sine qua non of a prosperous society.

  Arthur Laffer

  Sound, Prosperous

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• It has always amazed me how tax cuts don't work until they take effect. Mr. Obama's experience with deferred tax rate increases will be the reverse. The economy will collapse in 2011.

  Arthur Laffer

  Cutting, Economy, Increase

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• There are lots of other things that affect state growth besides state taxes. However, the reason I look at taxes is because these are policy variables that can be changed by state governments in order to get better results than they otherwise had.

  Arthur Laffer

  Government, Order, Growth

  "How Low Can They Go? Arthur Laffer Defends Slashing State Income Taxes". Interview with Paul Solman, www.pbs.org. August 1, 2013.

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• You want to prove that Milton Friedman is a fascist? It's easy. Quote him.

  Arthur Laffer

  Want, Easy, Milton

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• The income effects in an economy always sum to zero.

  Arthur Laffer

  Zero, Income, Economy

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• The zero-income-tax-rate states have far faster growth in tax revenues than did the states with highest income tax rate over this period.

  Arthur Laffer

  Zero, Growth, Income

  "How Low Can They Go? Arthur Laffer Defends Slashing State Income Taxes". Interview with Paul Solman, www.pbs.org. August 1, 2013.

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• We are having the single worst recovery the U.S. has had since the Great Depression. I don't care how you measure it. The East Coast knows it. The West Coast knows it. North, South, old, young, everyone knows it's the worst recovery since the Great Depression.

  Arthur Laffer

  Recovery, East, West Coast

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• Let's take the nine states that have no income tax and compare them with the nine states with the highest income tax rates in the nation. If you look at the economic metrics over the last decade for both groups, the zero-income-tax-rate states outperform the highest-income-tax-rate states by a fairly sizable amount.

  Arthur Laffer

  Zero, Groups, Income

  "How Low Can They Go? Arthur Laffer Defends Slashing State Income Taxes". Interview with Paul Solman, www.pbs.org. August 1, 2013.

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• If you look at the performance of the zero-income-tax-rate states and the highest-income-tax-rate states, I believe a large amount of their difference is due to taxes. Not only is it true of the last decade, but I took these numbers back 50 years. And, there's not one year in the last 50 where the zero-income-tax-rate states have not outperformed the highest-income-tax-rate states.

  Arthur Laffer

  Zero, Believe, Years

  "How Low Can They Go? Arthur Laffer Defends Slashing State Income Taxes". Interview with Paul Solman, www.pbs.org. August 1, 2013.

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• With the shrinking of the US economy, and it's shrinking very rapidly, you not only have more money, but you also have fewer goods. That's a classic double-whammy on inflation.

  Arthur Laffer

  Shrinking, Classic, Economy

  "Economic Debate: Laffer vs. Liesman". "The Kudlow Report" with Larry Kudlow, www.cnbc.com. February 26, 2009.

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• When you look at the world, everyone in the world who cares about his or her family wants to have a major portion of their assets in the United States because we are the growth country and the freedom loving country.

  Arthur Laffer

  Country, Growth, Who Cares

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• There are several states that move from Karl Marx-like policies to Adam Smith-like policies and back again in a weekend. So for the states with huge volatility in their income tax policies over time, the differences in growth rates in those periods are really amazingly consistent with tax rates really mattering.

  Arthur Laffer

  Moving, Weekend, Differences

  "How Low Can They Go? Arthur Laffer Defends Slashing State Income Taxes". Interview with Paul Solman, www.pbs.org. August 1, 2013.

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• I mean, everyone agrees with stress tests for banks. I mean that's clear. But banks should do that on their own. And they should worry about their own capital functioning. That's what they should do. It shouldn't be a government function.

  Arthur Laffer

  Stress, Mean, Government

  "Economic Debate: Laffer vs. Liesman". "The Kudlow Report" Larry Kudlow, www.cnbc.com. February 26, 2009.

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• I think the inflation prospects for the U.S. over the next five or six, seven years, are quite serious. You cannot have a bumper crop in apples without the value or the price of each apple falling. The Fed has had the largest increase in the monetary base in the history of the U.S., from colonial times to the present, times ten.

  Arthur Laffer

  Fall, Thinking, Years

  "Journal Editorial Report" with Paul Gigot, www.foxnews.com. June 12, 2010.

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