An economist sketched a tax theory on a napkin over dinner in 1974

Arthur Laffer argued that tax revenue is zero at both a 0% and a 100% tax rate, so somewhere between them lies a rate that maximises what governments actually collect — raise taxes past that point and revenue can fall. The idea predates Laffer by centuries, but a napkin sketch at a 1974 dinner with future officials Cheney and Rumsfeld made it famous; the napkin now sits in the Smithsonian.

— Jude Wanniski, The Way the World Works — 1978
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