Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:40 pm on 7 June 2017.
Week after week here in the Assembly, Llywydd, we hear the Member offer us his version of supply side economics. He is addicted to the Laffer curve, to which he made indirect reference there. I can’t remember which economist it was—it may have been J.K. Galbraith who said that the real explanatory power of the Laffer curve was that you could describe it to a congressman in six minutes, and you could go on repeating it for six months, and we’ve heard it repeated here for months on end. [Interruption.] Yes, coming up now for years. I simply reject the basic supply side approach that the Member takes. It is his belief that tax cuts lead to economic growth and tax rises lead to economic decline. I simply don’t think that that is borne out by the empirical evidence when these things have been put into practice.