THE MEDAL OF FREEDOM IN ECONOMICS:

At the Medal of Freedom presentation, President Trump offered a remarkable glimpse of what he himself is like as a person. It belies the notion that he is but a showman with scant appreciation for ideas. He described the Laffer Curve in detail and spoke of Mr. Laffer’s early work for Governor Jerry Brown of California, as well as President Reagan. Mr. Trump disclosed that he had studied the Laffer Curve, and over the years has heard it discussed at Wharton.

Mr. Laffer spent his remarks acknowledging an array of colleagues and collaborators. Among those at the ceremony were Vice President Pence, Steve Forbes, Larry Kudlow, Steve Moore, and others who played roles what is known as the supply-side revolution. Several figures now gone — Jack Kemp, Robert Bartley of the Wall Street Journal, and Jude Wanniski — were also named. All the more remarkable is the staying power of the supply-side ideas.

Robert Bartley’s The Seven Fat Years and How to Do It Again was a powerful and timely piece of contrarianism during that brief period the DNC-MSM dubbed “the worst economy in 50 years,” only to announce — in December of 1992, after the election — that the recession had ended prior to the fall of 1992. Or as a December 7th 1992 Time magazine headline noted with full snark, “Bush’s Economic Present for Clinton.”