Laffer-kurven er ret ubrugelig

Lafferkurven er - ligesom husholdningsøkonomiargumentet - sådan noget forsimplet, letforståeligt pjank, der ikke afspejler eller forudsiger verden og samfundsøkonomien korrekt.

Der er klart en pointe i, at man ikke skal slagte (eller sulte) gåsen, der lægger gyldne æg.

Men historisk og matematisk er Lafferkurven så forsimplet, at den er nærmest ubrugelig.

I hvert fald som et argument for "lavere skat giver mere velfærd/velstand uanset alt".

Det er forklaret kort i A Real Laffer.

Den korte tilbagevisning affødte også nogle morsomme kommentarer

Mike Kimel at Angry Bear has sliced and diced the real data for the U.S. every way imaginable. There is no - none - nada - zilch negative correlation between tax increases and economic growth in U.S. history, for as long as there is good data.

"But that runs contrary to my ideal of perfect liberty! Therefore it must be false."

Which is good enough for:
1) Joe Random on the internet,
2) Dr. Joe 'Scholar' in a think tank, and
3) Economics professors at really elite universities.

The only relationship between taxes and growth you can find in the data is that you can't have high growth without high taxes. That's all there is to it. All these people arguing that you can freeze water if you can only get it hot enough are just ideologues. Whenever I read a mainstream economist blathering on, I can swear I'm reading an old issue of Pravda. Drop the little pictures of Lenin's head and you wouldn't realize that the Soviet Union had collapsed.

Laffer curves are very useful to Republicans making the specious claim that taxes are always too high, promising constituencies that as tax rates approach zero, revenue will approach infinity. They get their way; then during democratic administrations republicans get to complain simultaneously about deficits AND taxes being too high without appearing to be completely insane. This tactic sways voters, especially the ones that are bad at math.

Laffer-kurven dyrkes mest af folk, der også dyrker Ayn Rand og Baronesse Tækker.

Opdatering 03.06.2024: De to julemænd-strategien bygger også i høj grad på Laffer-kurven.

Lafferkurven - Wikipedia, den frie encyklopædi

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