If President Donald Trump wants to strip away Democrats' midterm "affordability" attack point, he needs to continue feeding supply-side economics, famed economist Art Laffer said on Newsmax TV.
At the heart of today's cost-of-living issue, Laffer argued, is not demand, speculation, or spending — but supply.
"Affordability is the supply of the goods produced," Laffer, architect of the Laffer Curve, told Sunday's "Conversations With Nancy Brinker."
"If there are 100 houses, 100 people can afford a house. If there are a million houses, a million people can afford a house."
Housing costs cannot be controlled through government intervention or redistribution, Laffer said, calling such approaches "extremely illogical."
Instead, he said, policymakers must focus on increasing production by removing regulatory barriers and encouraging growth.
"It is exclusively a supply-side production problem and can only be solved by increasing the production of the product, whatever it may be," he added.
Turning to taxation and economic growth, Laffer pushed back hard against liberal calls to raise taxes to fund expanding government services. He warned that history offers no examples of prosperity created through higher taxation or unchecked spending.
"I have never heard of an economy taxed into prosperity; I mean, it just doesn't make sense," he said.
"I have never heard of a poor person spending himself into wealth."
Redistributive policies impose hidden costs on both sides of the equation — discouraging work, investment, and productivity while fostering dependence.
"Whenever you give it to a second group, they find an alternative source of revenue or income without working, and they'll do less work – and the ones you take it from will either leave or they'll not work as hard or they'll shelter their income," Laffer said.
The result, he added, is a system that ultimately undermines itself.
"When you get something for free, it's the most expensive thing you'll ever get," he said. "It will destroy the whole process."
Laffer also weighed in on Trump's use of tariffs, describing them not as an end goal, but as a powerful negotiating tool uniquely suited to Trump's leadership style.
"It is a beautiful, beautiful tool that is just personally perfectly fitted for President Trump to use to negotiate free trade deals, ends of war and all of that," Laffer said.
On the Federal Reserve, Laffer noted that while it has enshrined independence, authority without responsibility leads to poor outcomes.
"Someone has to hold the Fed accountable for its mistakes," he said.
"Whenever you get responsibility along with accountability, that's the way to do it."
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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