Word: wanniski
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...prim and patrician Isaac Newton cursing the apple that hit him on the head is the fable of three men in business suits having dinner at a posh Washington restaurant. Arthur B. Laffer, an upstart economics professor from California, Louis Lehrman, and Wall Street Journal editorialist Jude Wanniski were finishing their drinks, as the story goes, when conversation shifted to one of their favorite topics, conservative economics. Wanniski (or was that Lehrman?), asked if it was possible for the federal government to cut taxes without losing money, and Laffer answered affirmatively. Taking out a pen and drawing some lines...
...Laffer curve, they say, fell off the table and onto the lap of America. The details of that encounter grew larger than life, as Wanniski used the editorial pages of his newspaper to spread the doctrine of balancing the budget by cutting taxes. Laffer meanwhile became the guru of the cult--young and virile, he embodied the youthful energy that massive taxcuts and comprehensive deregulation could unleash, a spirit of enterprise and discipline that would signal the awakening of a new America. Crackpots, more conventional economists called them, but the three set their nets out and fished for disciples, drawing...
They've all sold out, every one of them." That dour assessment came from Jude Wanniski, a fanatic believer in supply-side economics, after a visit to the White House last week. By "they" he meant members of the President's economic team, who in Wanniski's zealous view have all but abandoned supply-side theory-one of the basic doctrines of Reaganomics...
...Wanniski became Laffer's most avid apostle and spread the gospel of tax cutting with all the fervor of a circuit-riding preacher. An important early convert was Jack Kemp, a New York Congressman and former quarterback with the Buffalo Bills. In 1977 Kemp, together with Senator William Roth Jr. of Delaware, introduced a bill in Congress to reduce personal income taxes by almost 33% over three years...
...Kemp-Roth bill gained a loyal supporter: Ronald Reagan. As the 1980 presidential campaign began, the tax-cut proposal was the centerpiece of his economic policy. But when Reagan wrapped up the Republican nomination, the G.O.P.'s mainstream economists flocked to his fold, and the influence of Laffer, Wanniski and Kemp waned as old-line conservatives began having an impact. Among the most prominent: Alan Greenspan, Gerald Ford's chief