Last year Arthur Laffer, Stephen Moore, and Peter Tanou authored a book titled The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy - If We Let it Happen.
The other day a talk the authors gave about it was bradcast on C-SPAN. It's quite a delight to watch, and they do a good job of explaining in simple terms the problems we are facing, and they make no bones about how President Obama's policies will make it worse, whether it's the goal of energy independence, government run industries, or the "tax the wealthy" mentality.
They are right, of course. Mr. Laffer's ideas about taxes in the early '80s helped usher in a long era of prosperity, and only the most hard core political opponents even attempt to deny that lower taxes have been proven to lead to prosperity. On the other hand, high taxes hurt the economy. And the "wealthy" will figure out a way to avoid taxes. The issue isn't political, it's economic.
In the talk Mr. Laffer provides an image that anyone can grasp. If you tax people in place "A" higher than place "B," then people in "A" will move to "B." That's why Mr. Laffer moved from California to Tennessee. An example Mr. Laffer gives of how the wealthy avoid taxes is Warren Buffet who until recently was supposed to be worth $66 billion. His wealth is unrealized capital gains in Berkshire Hathaway stock, and he won't pay any taxes on it unless he sells it. So if Mr. Buffet says he pays less taxes than his secretary then he's probably telling the truth. And Mr. Buffet could donate his stock to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to avoid ever paying any taxes on it.
The talk is available online here. If you watch it pay attention at around the 23 minute mark where you can hear the most remarkable compliment/complaint I've heard about Barack Obama. Here's a partial transcript, Laffer is talking:
"This man Barack Obama is one of the most impressive human beings I've seen in my life in politics I'm awe struck. He's an awesome man, he represents so much that is wonderful about our country. A black African father, a white American mother, if that's not the melting pot I don't know what is. ... He went to Columbia University, did extraordinarily well then. He then went to Harvard Law School, became editor of the Harvard Law Review -- you don't get that by affirmative action, you got to really be good. ... This man is really cool. ... But he's wrong on every single issue."
Mr. Obama is known to be somewhat thin skinned, so maybe that's the way to criticize him. Butter up his ego and make it very personal, then slam him with the truth about his policies.