I happen to believe that this is quite accurate. But if you oppose lowering taxes for anyone, for any reason – and you know who you are – then you are no fan of Dr. Laffer. Unfortunately, whether the revenue is present or not, has now been amply demonstrated to have no effect on what elected officials will promise and spend.

Dr. Laffer is the first to admit that he did not come up with this economic concept. In fact he has written a rather nice monologue on the topic, linked below. The concept is certainly an old one, with contributions dating back centuries. I will let him briefly tell how it came to be called the Laffer Curve:

The story of how the Laffer Curve got its name begins with a 1978 article by Jude Wanniski in The Public Interest entitled, "Taxes, Revenues, and the 'Laffer Curve.' " As recounted by Wanniski (associate editor of The Wall Street Journal at the time), in December 1974, he had dinner with me (then professor at the University of Chicago), Donald Rumsfeld (Chief of Staff to President Gerald Ford), and Dick Cheney (Rumsfeld's deputy and my former classmate at Yale). While discussing President Ford's "WIN" (Whip Inflation Now) proposal for tax increases, I supposedly grabbed my napkin and a pen and sketched a curve on the napkin illustrating the trade-off between tax rates and tax revenues. Wanniski named the trade-off "The Laffer Curve."

From: The Laffer Curve: Past, Present, and Future
by Arthur B. Laffer
Backgrounder #1765
http://heritage.org/Research/Taxes/bg1765.cfm

While on the faculty of the University of Southern California, Dr. Laffer played a key role in the writing of Proposition 13, the still-controversial California property tax cap initiative that spawned a host of similar laws around the United States and is generally credited with launching the tax revolt of the 1970s and 1980s.

Dr. Laffer became influential during the Reagan administration as a member of Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board (1981-1989).

In 1986, Laffer was a Republican primary candidate for the US Senate in California.

Unbeknownst to him, the computer game character Larry Laffer of the famous Leisure Suit Larry series of games was named after him.

{source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Laffer}

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Destination USA, op. ed. by Arthur B. Laffer, Wall Street Journal, Jan. 3, 2005

Just because the United States has its largest trade deficit ever doesn't mean that we're living beyond our means. Far from it. In fact, the characterization of the U.S. as a land of chronic over spenders, hell-bent on selling themselves into global servitude doesn't make sense at all. And once the over-consumption model is put into question every policy remedy based on the presumption of squander looks pretty weak.

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Dr. Laffer interviewed Feb., 2005 by By Bill Steigerwald, Pittsburg Tribune-Review

Q: What grade do you give Bush on economics?

A: I'm really shocked by it. As you probably know, I was not a fan of his father's. I voted for Clinton twice. I really thought Bush (the elder) and Bob Dole were tax collectors for the welfare state. The reason I voted for Bush W. was more Al Gore than it was Bush. And now I am just totally a fan. This guy is just incredibly good at economics.

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Reminder: Economist, Dr. Arthur B. Laffer, dubbed the “Father of Supply Side Economics,” and known for the “Laffer Curve” will be the speaker at a Goldwater Institute lecture on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 at noon at the Camelback Inn in Scottsdale, Arizona.

For details see: http://freedomsphoenix.com/Feature-Article.htm?InfoNo=005137