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You also argue the fact that Reagan's tax cuts preceded a drop in receipts. I'd argue that they also preceded an increase in revenue. Same with Clinton's tax hikes preceding a climb in revenue followed by a revenue drop.

The issue is timing. The Laffer curve plots revenue and tax rates in two dimensions. The model does not include time as a third dimension. Maybe you'd like to refine the model to include three dimensions, call it the "Remember curve", and start a new thread.

What in the world are you talking about? The graph in the article on which this thread is based shows federal revenues for the first two months of five consecutive fiscal years. My graph shows the full year revenues for 64 consecutive fiscal years. The only other difference is that I correct my figures for inflation. Neither graph shows the tax rates. Bowyer's graph relies on the knowledge that there was a tax cut in 2003 and my graph relies on the knowledge that there was likewise a tax cut in 2001 and 1981 and a tax hike in 1993.

You, on the other hand, have introduced a mysterious time lag of 2 years for the Reagan tax cut and 7 years for the Clinton tax hike. Perhaps you should call it the "Expat time lag" and start a new thread!

In any case, like Bowyer's graph, your graph does not correct revenues for inflation. Even with the logarithmic scale that you appear to be using, constant real values will appear to be increasing. In fact, revenues tend to grow with GDP which, accept for recessions, tends to grow faster than inflation. The following graph shows individual income tax revenues as a percentage of GDP and the top marginal tax rate:

The actual numbers and sources are at http://home.att.net/~rdavis2/recsrc.html. As can be seen, individual income tax revenues dropped sharply after the 1981 tax cut and then stabilized. Following the 1993 tax hike, they rose sharply until the market crash in 2000. Following the 2001 tax cut, revenues dropped sharply, continuing to drop through 2004. Much of the recent increase in revenues has been due to a partial recovery in corporate tax revenues, the green line in the graph. As seen in the table at the above URL, however, even these revenues are below their 2000 highs.

Anyhow, I hope you had a happy holiday and are all rested up for another year of head-butting!

model does not include time as a third dimension... ...What in the world are you talking about? ... .. mysterious time lag of 2 years for the Reagan tax cut and 7 years for the Clinton tax hike ...

Maybe you've used economic models such as supply and demand curves, in which case you're having a few laughs. If so, skip the rest of this paragraph. If not, here's a Wiki link, and here's one from Investopedia. The two curves are about the most basic and most useful economic models, and they both ignore time lags to the point that the prof always has to drone on with something like what the Investopedia had in the middle of the page under "Time and Supply". They have to leave out time because if you included time, then you'd also have to include location, race, age, etc., etc., until you had an entire epic novel, not a graphed formula. This is why the article that started this thread started by saying:

Ronald Reagan once said an economist is someone who sees something that works in practice and wonders if it would work in theory.

Rather than suggesting the Laffer curve is wrong because it fails to address timing, you might want to attack the curve's relevance and usefulness, and then we could get seriously into all kinds of other factors besides timing --purchasing power, consumer confidence, etc. Another way of saying it is that the essentials of the Laffer model are impossible to refute because they're so simple. So, why bother? I'd have thought you'd be better off saying it's too simple and then offering a refinement.