Voters may be better off with Kamala – but they dream of being like Trump

Back in the 1970s and 80s there was an American economist who became the darling of the conservative, small-state right. His name is Arthur Laffer, and he came up with what became eponymously known as the Laffer curve.

The theory is there’s a tipping point for taxation, where the higher the taxes become, the less revenue your treasury will collect. The argument being that people will employ ever more elaborate tax avoidance schemes – or just leave the country altogether.

Outside of academic and right-wing circles, not much was heard of Laffer in the intervening decades – but in 2016, he popped up to become an economic adviser to Donald Trump. And, indeed, Trump did cut taxes massively – for the wealthiest Americans.

He is promising to do more of the same if he wins the presidential election in November, and he is promising to fund the tax cuts by whacking tariffs on goods coming into the country, and imposing sanctions on those countries that don’t play by his rules.

So is Laffer – who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Trump in 2019 – applauding? No, he most certainly isn’t. He has warned that “all this stuff of sanctions and threats of tariffs is not the right way to go. That’s a way of guaranteeing World War Three.”

But because Trump might be losing the right-wing intellectuals over fears of the ruinous consequences of trade wars, don’t think he’s losing the American people. Polls suggest that he enjoys a big lead over Kamala Harris when it comes to the economy.

Trump is threatening punitive measures against China and the EU (the former president has always had an obsession about Mercedes cars). Also in the cross-hairs are companies that have set up big manufacturing plants in Mexico as a way of