Ronald Reagan economist Art Laffer doesn't expect inflation to go down anytime soon

Ronald Reagan economist Art Laffer discusses high inflation and why he believes it won't be decreasing anytime soon
Economist Art Laffer

Well-known economist Art Laffer explained that while President Biden's claim that the month of July had 0% inflation was technically true, the whole story was not being told.

Laffer, an economic policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan, is well-known for his Laffer Curve theory which was the basis for supply-side economics.

"The President, as you know, said, last month's inflation — July just by itself with 0%, which is true," Laffer explained. "It is true. Oil prices came down dramatically, and were enough to offset the increase in other prices. But what he didn't tell you is the month before last —June's number — the number before July was 17+% 

"So that's why we look at year over year is because you get these volatility, these bibble-bobbles up and down on specific months," Laffer continued. "But if you look at it over the full year — this last survey, July's was 8.5%, while the previous month was 9.1%. But that's still an extraordinarily high number."

Laffer said that he does not expect inflation to go down anytime soon and expects it to stay in the 7% to 10% range. Laffer then gave his thoughts on the IRS expansion — 87,000 more IRS agents being hired. He explained how billionaires and millionaires have a lot of influence and the IRS agents likely won't be going after them.

"They've got lots of lawyers, they've got lots of accountants, they've got a lot of different income specialists," Laffer said in reference to the billionaires and millionaires. "They have a lot of favorite grabbers. They have a lot of lobbyists, they have a lot of influence. They know the tax codes inside out and have all this stuff done. I don't care how many IRS people you go after them, you're not going to get much more money from them."

"If you raise tax rates, what you find is that average tax revenues from the top 1% go down, not up," Laffer stated. "And that's because they use all of these loopholes and all these tax shelters."