Laffer Wants Goolsbee to Lie to Obama

At least if Lawrence Kudlow got the quote right:

Obama & Capital Gains If Obama gets in, I think it’s a catastrophe—if he puts through the policies he’s saying. [His exchange with ABC’s Charlie Gibson on taxing capital gains] was one of the most ridiculous give-and-takes I have ever seen. It was just silly beyond belief. [Obama] almost accepted it, and then he says he wants to raise taxes on capital gains, “cause it’s fair” – and not because it will help people, not because it will provide more revenues. It’s ridiculous what he said. [Obama economic advisor] Austan Goolsbee should be priming him on this stuff. It just doesn’t make any sense. – Arthur Laffer, supply-side economist & president of Laffer Associates

Who know if Kudlow captured what Laffer said as this paragraph is incoherent at many levels. The quotation does not really say that Senator Obama agree with Charlie Gibson’s misinformed view that lower tax rates generate more revenues. And even if he temporarily accepted this nonsense – I would hope Goolsbee would remind him that the evidence does not support Laffer’s brand of free lunch silliness. See for example, this and this. Of course, Kudlow and Laffer had no problem telling President Reagan all sorts of lies a quarter of a century ago.