No, it absolutely is not. I suppose if you consider supply-side as a political movement started by specific people such as Laffer and Jude Wanniski, you might have a point. But supply-side as a general economic idea goes all the way back to Adam Smith.
And the concept that less tax and regulation will make an economy more dynamic and faster growing goes back even earlier. The Hanseatic League created a low-tax free trade zone by getting Henry II to exempt them from the typically heavy tariffs kings of the day imposed on trade. They also handled another form of ‘tax’ - banditry - by raising their own protection forces. The result was an explosion of economic growth. Supply side economics.
Supply side economics is not even just about tax cuts. Supply side economics has three legs - tax policy, regilatory policy, and trade. Supply siders believe in lower taxes, lower regulations, and free trade. The Laffee Curve doesn’t even address the last two, for God’s sake, and it’s not necessary for the first.
I can support lower taxes even if I think it will reduce government revenue. For example, I may think the government already takes in too much and should have its revenue reduced. It’s also possible to be a supply sider and think taxes are about right. For example, if you think the deficit is more important and should be paid down, or if you think taxes are low enough and focus on reducing regulatory barriers and barriers to trade. That’s pretty much where I am.
The Laffer curve has been latched onto by Republicans for the same reason the ‘fiscal multiplier’ was latched onto by demand siders - it’s a political tool used to defang the arguments of the other side. Both are have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too ideas that politicians use to claim that their policiex will be self-financing. But the Laffer Curve is no more necessary to Supply Side as the fiscal multiplier is to Keynesian economics.
The Laffer curve is similar to multipliers in another fundamental way: both theories can be correct given the right circumstances, but have been applied by their adherents as universal truths that apply in all economic conditions.
Another definition of supply-side economics is as the reciprocal of demand-side economics, which says that taxing or borrowing money then handing it out to the people will stimulate the economy. Again, both are true in limited scenarios, but wildly overapplied. Fiscal stimulus as conceived by Keynes was only supposed to apply to recessions when there is a temporary demand shortfall. But now it’s common for the left to talk about all government spending as ‘stimulus’, even when the economy is doing fine and there are shortages of both material and labor. That’s the fault of politicians and idealogues, not economic theory.
example of someone drinking the ideological kool-aid.
