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Return to Prosperity: How America Can Regain Its Economic Superpower Status Hardcover – February 9, 2010

by Arthur B. Laffer (Author), Stephen Moore (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 40 ratings
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With the economy flat on its back, unemployment at a twenty-five-year high, and the housing default crisis still worsening, people are eager to learn how America can become the land of economic opportunity and prosperity again. While Keynesian economist Paul Krugman offered his analysis of the crisis in the New York Times bestselling book, The Return of Depression Economics and The Crisis of 2008, supply-side economist Arthur B. Laffer, who helped design the policies that pulled America out of the low-growth, high-inflation 1970s and put the economy on the track that led to twenty-five years of prosperity, presents a completely different prescription for restoring America’s economic health.

Asserting that the Bush-Obama plan is a failure that has only produced a cascade of trillions of dollars of debt, Dr. Laffer identifies the common sense principles of good economic behavior and lays out the changes that must be made in Fiscal Policy, Monetary Policy, Trade Policy, and Incomes Policy to get the U.S. economy growing again. The Way Back presents an urgently needed road map to recovery from one of America’s most distinguished and highly experienced economists.
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  1. Print length
    336 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Threshold Editions
  4. Publication date
    February 9, 2010
  5. Dimensions
    6.5 x 1 x 9.75 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1439159920
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1439159927
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"I'm always interested in what Arthur Laffer has to say, especially in times of crisis like these. I am a great admirer of his work." -- Jack Welch

"Laffer and Moore are two of my favorites. They are the rarest of economists -- they actually make sense." -- #1 New York Times bestselling author Glenn Beck

About the Author

Arthur B. Laffer, Ph.D. is the founder and chairman of Laffer Associates, an economic research and consulting firm. A member of President Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board for both of his two terms, he invented the Laffer Curve and triggered a world-wide tax-cutting movement in the 1980s. Dr. Laffer received a B.A. in economics from Yale University and received a MBA and Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.

Stephen Moore, an economist and policy analyst who founded and served as president of the Club for Growth from 1999 to 2004, is a member of the Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal and a Senior Economics Writer at The Journal.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Threshold Editions; 1st edition (February 9, 2010)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1439159920
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1439159927
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.16 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1 x 9.75 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 40 ratings

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Arthur B. Laffer

Arthur B. Laffer

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Arthur B. Laffer, Ph.D. is the founder and chairman of Laffer Associates, an economic research and consulting firm. A member of President Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board for both of his two terms, he invented the Laffer Curve and triggered a world-wide tax-cutting movement in the 1980s. Dr. Laffer received a B.A. in economics from Yale University and received a MBA and Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.

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4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
40 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Pilot
5.0 out of 5 stars Inside the mind of a genius
Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2012
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Economics can be a really boring genre, but the way Art Laffer explains all the topics of today, it's a real pleasure to read. He talks about the cash for clunkers, minimum wage, bailouts, and of course the big elephant, taxes of all shapes and sizes from income to capital gains. He uses real IRS/Treasury data to validate his points, and cites every fact or claim. When you're done reading the book, you shake your head and say if only one tenth of our population would have some basic understanding of how our economy should work vs how government interferes, people would vote with their minds instead of their traditions. Like JFK said, "all too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." And, yes, I got that quote from this book. I would encourage all people to read this book and awaken the "freedom" spirit that is inside all of us, that less is more, that less government involvement means more for all of us.
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gene1940
3.0 out of 5 stars return to prosperity
Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2011
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Excellent book except that Laffler is still living in the 80s when the United States was a leading producer and manufacturer of goods and services that the oil producing nations wanted to purchase. Those days are over. We need to be more energy independent, not 100%, but maybe 70-80%, as Mexico and Canada need our energy purchases to maintain thier economies, but not OPEC.
3 people found this helpful
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Fritz R. Ward
4.0 out of 5 stars Don't Bet on the Cover
Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2010
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Arthur Laffer is one of those pragmatic economists who seeks the most efficient way to accomplish a goal. He is the founder of Supply Side theory which is often conflated with Monetarist or Austrian economic thought, but which differs from the others in viewing taxes as central to understanding how an economy does (or does not) function. Writing again with co-author Stephen Moore, this book follows up their immensely popular "End of Prosperity" with a series of suggestions for how the United States can escape what is turning into a long term recession.

Good economics, Laffer argues, is not a "liberal" or "conservative" philosophy; it is simply the application of relatively easy to understand principles to solve problems in political economy. Those who assume that supply side writers have a natural affinity for the political right will be moderately surprised by the praise Laffer gives to the presidency of Bill Clinton and the ideas of Al Gore. But good economics does require a reasoned, thoughtful approach to policy issues. Reactive policies based on panic and fear are generally poor substitutes and Laffer is very critical of both the current administration and the previous one for their responses to the current economic crisis. President Obama, Laffer notes, is a very smart man, but his policies are counter productive to his own stated agenda.

Laffer offers numerous examples of how Obama's policies in fact frustrate economic recovery. His goal of "energy independence" for example ignores the benefits of trade and the comparative advantages that come from it. Generally speaking, if some parts of the world are oil rich but consumer poor, it is in the interest of both the US and these other countries to trade. But Obama's policies compound the problem by actually limiting the productive ways we could achieve greater energy independence. His administration is opposed to nuclear energy, one of the few forms of energy production with minimal carbon emissions (Laffer is neutral on the "science" of global warming, but for the sake of discussion assumes that limiting carbon emisions is a legitimate policy goal) which could easily be used in the United States to supplant power facilities that burn coal and other fossil fuels. In addition, the administration is actively opposing off shore drilling. Obama assumes that by doing so he is helping protect the environment. What he fails to recognize is that oil demand does not diminish just because the United States, which has an unblemished off shore drilling record, declines to access its reserves. If we do not, other countries, many of whom do not have the environmental protections that we do, will drill. Indeed, even as the US has failed to drill off the shores of Florida, the Cubans have done so. And the criticisms that Laffer and Moore offer of Obama's energy policy could be extended many times over to his approach on health care and "job creation" with government stimulus bills.

The bulk of the book, however, concerns tax policy, which is more or less what one would expect of the senior supply side scholar in this country. The proposal to increase taxes on the wealthy (those making more than $250,000 a year) and limit or cut taxes on the poor and middle class is counter productive. In classic supply side fashion, Laffer argues against his critics (notably Jared Bernstein) that raising taxes on the wealthy simultaneously reduces tax revenue from them and also short circuits economic growth. Supply side theory has many political critics, but few informed ones, and the numbers bear out Laffer's argument on both counts. Because the wealthy are so easily able to defer income and find other tax dodges increasing taxes on them does not generate new revenue.

The more radical claim of supply side though is that cutting taxes from the wealthy benefits the poor. (Mostly liberal) critics claim that cutting, or at least not increasing taxes on the "wealthy" benefits only them but not "the poor" whom they argue will face an increasing "gap" between their wages and the wages of the wealthy. This claim is also demonstrably false. The basic premise of the critic's argument is the assumption that the "poor" are a static group. But the reality is studies of the poor over time do show marked improvement. In the period from 1975 to 1998, to cite one of Laffer's more remarkable statistics, over 98% of the households ranked poor were no longer so. Similarly, in just the 10 years from 1996 to 2005 the income of the typical "poor" family increased from $15,000 to $31,000 in real terms. The reason the statistics cited by the critics fail to note this sort of phenomenal growth is that poverty is essentialy a function of a) youth and b) immigration. So as heads of households rise out of poverty, they are replaced by a new group of unskilled workers who become the new "poor" used by liberal critics to show the great disparity between poor and wealthy. But when measuring the gains of actual people as opposed to groups, one cannot argue against the fact that tax cuts for the wealthy were enormously successful at creating wealth across the board.

Needless to add, Laffer and Moore do not think allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire at the end of 2010 will do much to promote economic recovery. Nor do they think a tax increase will result in increased revenue for the government. But the bulk of Laffer and Moore's book is arguing for substantive tax reform as opposed to merely cuts. Some of their arguments will even surprise the crowd who think supply side theory is simply an apology for the wealthy. Laffer and Moore suggest the US abandon its current tax code in favor of a flat tax on income with almost no deductions. They do make an exception for mortgage interest, but that is about it. They even suggest taxing unrealized capital gains yearly, a modification that would do more to "soak the rich" than even the most extreme demands for a tax increase on "those making more than $250,000." The bill for Warren Buffet alone would run into the billions. But a flat tax would have a number of advantages over our current tax code, the most obvious being that it would give the markets a degree of certainty they lack now and would encourage, rather than discourage, growth. Laffer and Moore even propose rolling the payroll tax into the flat tax.

In all, I found this a thoughtful and cogently argued book. Laffer is indeed correct that, if the goal is to maximize government revenue then, to a point (and that point, all evidence suggests, is no higher than a 33% marginal rate) tax cuts, not increases, will do the trick. He is certainly correct that a single flat tax could easily replace our income, payroll and corporate taxes and incidentally save the US billions of dollars just in the cost of collections. And on his policy analysis, he is for the most part correct: a carbon tax is more effective than a cap and trade proposal; high minimum wages do hurt the poorest members of society, free enterprise zones are more cost effective than government welfare programs, and so on. But at some point, I think one has to move beyond the approach of a pragmatic economist. We should ask ourselves, is maximizing government revenue really a good thing? Do we really want a carbon tax instead of a cap and trade scheme if, as we now know in the aftermath of the CRU email and data release, the "science" of global warming is little more than the political agenda of small group of "scientists" who spend much of their time trying to silence their critics? If free enterprise zones are so effective, why limit them to only the poorest neighborhoods?

But an even more important question lurks between the lines of this book. As Laffer notes in the introduction, Mr. Obama is a smart man. He surely knows his tax policies do not match up well to his stated objectives, to say nothing of his purported concern for the environment. He must know that taxing those corporations that waste the fewest natural resources to subsidize those that waste the most (can anyone say "GM?") is counter productive. And yet, he pursues these policies anyway. Laffer charitably suggests that brilliance in one area need not imply the ability to pass Econ 101, but I suspect the problem is of a different nature. The stated policies of Obama do conflict with his stated agenda, but they do not conflict with the agenda of certain corporate lobbies which stand to benefit from the massive government intervention that is happening in the economy. On p. 152, Laffer notes, "No one with good intentions would ever advocate a tax increase" given the facts. At this point, I think it is fair to question the intentions of our rulers. But in any event, I doubt the policy recommendations in this book will be implemented any time soon. So I recommend this book to readers as a delightful intellectual exercise in what might have been. In the meantime, the most likely path facing the United States is 20 years of so of recesion much like Japan has experienced, probably with a massive dose of inflation. A "return to prosperity" is exceedingly unlikely. Readers of this book, at least, will be able to understand why.
47 people found this helpful
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Dr. David R. Bess
5.0 out of 5 stars Timely Words for an Ailing Economy
Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2010
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I heard of Arthur Laffer through Dave Ramsey's radio program. After reading his book, I can see now why Dave is so enthusiastic about him -- his economic policies are filled with common sense. He describes in great detail how the federal government can actually receive more money by reducing taxes, a concept obviously not shared by leaders in power today. Even though Laffer has his political ties, he is non-partisan in his comments and observations. He praises Reagan and Clinton alike for their reduction in taxes and stimulation of the economy. He looks back to JFK, applauding him for departing from the policies of Eisenhower and slashing taxes. If you are open to a different perspective than the current one of wealth distribution through excessive taxation, then you are likely to enjoy reading this book. Laffer is brilliant -- it would be fantastic if our national leaders learned from his wisdom!
8 people found this helpful
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The Dekester
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read - more people need to read and act on it!
Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2010
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Return to Prosperity did a great job of outlining what's wrong with our nation's current financial system and then also outlined, in detail, how we can move toward fixing it. Laffer did a great job of logically walking the reader thru the logic of his proposed solutions. Given the current tragectory or our government (especially with the recent passage of 'big government' health care), this message could not be more timely. Tragically, I find it unlikely that few of any of the ideas in this book will ever be implemented by the current group in Washington.
3 people found this helpful
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John R. Schwartz
5.0 out of 5 stars A winning economic revelation
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2015
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I've always been a proponent of Laffer's economic theories especially the "flat tax". I feel that he gives a conservative but concise analogy of what our nation should do in order to become an economic leader again on the world stage. I've also enjoyed listening to Steve Moore's economic and political analysis on Fox Business News. Together, they are a winning combination who make a lot of economic revelations
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Donald D. Farra
3.0 out of 5 stars not sure
Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2017
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I do not remember buying or reading this book.
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beau loots
5.0 out of 5 stars This is common sense economics anyone can understand. After ...
Reviewed in Australia on February 20, 2016
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This is common sense economics anyone can understand. After reading this book one can understand the vacuous economic debates of the political elites. It is then clear why the West is on a road to bankruptcy and decline.
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L. E. Jones
4.0 out of 5 stars good book poor delivery
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 24, 2024
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Usually Amazon is very good. But this time left the parcel by the open gate at the road instead of bringing up the driveway...
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