Taxes Have Consequences with Brian Domitrovic

Since the United States adopted the income tax in 1913, the relationship between this tax and the fate of the economy has been clear. When tax rates have gone up, the rich have gotten less rich; they have sheltered their incomes from taxation; and the economy has faltered. The reverse has happened when tax rates have gone down: the rich have gotten richer as they sheltered less and the economy improved. The Laffer curve — proposing that a tax-rate cut can lose revenue — has been a mainstay in American economic accounts at the top echelons of income for the entire history of the income tax.

About the Speaker

Brian Domitrovic is the Richard S. Strong Scholar at the Laffer Center in Nashville. He is the author or editor of six books, including "Taxes Have Consequences" (with Arthur Laffer and Jeanne Sinquefield), "The Emergence of Arthur Laffer" (2021), "JFK and the Reagan Revolution" (with Lawrence Kudlow, 2016), and "Econoclasts" (2009). He has been professor of history at Sam Houston State University in Texas and the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought at the University of Colorado Boulder. He holds a PhD in history from Harvard.