The Republican Party has become the ''party of growth'' for good, economist Art Laffer says, and its nominee in 2024 will champion lower tax rates and a society of opportunity.
Laffer made this observation in a speech Wednesday at the Republican National Committee meeting in Nashville, where the former Californian now lives and where he helped craft Tennessee's reduction and elimination of several taxes.
Asked whom he favors as a Republican presidential candidate in 2024, Laffer replied: ''I love everybody who's considering running in '24. Twelve of the Republican candidates in '16 flew here, and they all favored a pro-growth agenda.''
The change in Republicans accepting tax increases is, in Laffer's words, ''now 100%. We are the party of Ronald Reagan, [the late New York Rep. and tax cut advocate] Jack Kemp, and Donald Trump, not the party of Bob Dole and [Arizona Sen.] Barry Goldwater.''
He recalled how 1996 GOP presidential nominee Dole, as a House member from Kansas in the early 1960s, voted against John F. Kennedy's tax cut. Laffer also pointed out that Goldwater, the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, ''stopped JFK from cutting the highest tax rates in the early 1960s from 52 to 46 %.''
''Debt is a problem, but not the problem it once was,'' he added, pointing out that enterprise zones and other growth-based measures help deal with it.
Laffer, 80, worked in the White House under Presidents Nixon and Reagan and advised President Trump on his tax cut of 2018.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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