The economists who worked for President Reagan were members of the Council of Economic Advisers, part of the Executive branch. Martin Feldstein, Martin Anderson, William Niskanen were among them. Laffer ran a private consulting firm during the Reagan years. His work at OMB, which you highlighted, occurred during Nixon.
Paul Craig Roberts doesn't support the idea that reducing rates increases the yield to the Treasury. I asked him this very question myself, and he wrote a piece clarifying his position. It was posted online, and you can find it here:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts52.html
The greatest myth of all about Reaganomics is that the administration made a "Laffer-curve" forecast that the tax rate reductions would pay for themselves. Reagan’s budget deficits are regarded as proof that supply-side economics failed.
Martin Anderson as well devotes considerable time to debunking the claim that Laffer-curve forecasts were ever considered by the Reagan economic team, of which he was a senior member. He derides it as "the myth of the supply-siders". You can find the relevant passage in his book Revolution.
Anderson, Roberts, et al would certainly have revised their opinion of the Laffer Curve predicting an increased yield to the Treasury if the increased yield had happened. It didn't, except in the limited case of capitals gains rate reductions. Once stimulus effects of deficit spending, the business cycle, and other such factors are accounted for we find that each dollar of cuts regained 60 some cents through growth. An impressive feat compared to the predictions of static analysis, but hardly the "cuts pay for themselves" claim. A breakdown of the effect of the Reagan tax program was published by Lawrence Lindsey, The Growth Experiment.
I didn't say he was working for the Administration. A lot of times the Advisers are more important to policy than the "working" economists. His bio pretty clearly indicates his influential role.
The reason I highlighted the Nixon-era role he had as CEA Chief Economist was that he worked for George Schultz, a behind-the-scenes guy who Reagan ultimately named as Secretary of State to replace Haig. The connection indicates influence that is pivotal.
As to Paul Craig Roberts, on Revenue Growth models, I believe you are right, that he has taken the agnostic postion on revenues, indeed note especially here My Time With Supply Side Economics:
President Reagan’s economic program was contained in a document called A Program for Economic Recovery, published on February 18, 1981. Contrary to many uninformed academic economists’ assertions, the administration did not base its program on a “Laffer curve” forecast that the tax cut would pay for itself. The administration decided not to fight the battle for a dynamic revenue forecast and used the standard static revenue forecasting still in use today. Tables in the document show that the administration assumed that every dollar of tax cut would result in a dollar of lost revenue.
Taking the dollar for dollar approach, and treating the steep inflation declines as lost revenue are a bit on the Keynsian side. And empirically, the Revenues did grow in a stellar way, despite these cautious assumptions. I think I got the contrary notion aboujt Roberts' view from one of his articles for the Wall Street Journal and National Review, "Reagan Changed the World".
Once stimulus effects of deficit spending, the business cycle, and other such factors are accounted for we find that each dollar of cuts regained 60 some cents through growth. An impressive feat compared to the predictions of static analysis, but hardly the "cuts pay for themselves" claim.
I am not sure that it was claimed that the effects had to be a complete restoration. As you clearly admit, a 60% recovery is a lot better than the administration's own politically cautious assumption that the cuts were a complete dollar-for-dollar loss.
The net growth history of the experiment (and it was an experiment then) with Reagonmics as it came to be called is encouraging. The term of course was intended to be disparagement, but as it proceeded to succeed....it was raised high as a banner amongst us conservatives. Some pertinent program history was well described in Wikipedia's rendition, which might help the youngsters on this thread. This history helps clarify a mixed and complicated policy:
Part of what Reagan implemented was in fact not supply side economics, but rather his own version of Keynesianism. Reagan advocated initiating deep tax cuts and simultaneous increases in military spending, while at the same time claiming that the Federal deficit would be erased. Critics argued that while Keynesian economics promoted the idea of consumers (including the poorest) creating jobs by increasing the demand for goods and services, Reaganomics relied on giving more money to producers by giving tax cuts especially to the wealthiest citizens, who would then create jobs that would somehow find a demand. This type of economic theory has also been referred to derisively as "trickle-down economics."The belief of Reaganomics that the tax cuts would more than pay for themselves was influenced by the Laffer curve, a theoretical taxation model that was particularly in vogue among some American conservatives during the 1970s. Arthur Laffer's model predicts that excessive tax rates actually reduce potential tax revenues, by lowering the incentive to produce. The rise, rather than fall, in government deficits during the Reagan era caused many to question the validity of the Laffer curve. In addition, although the Laffer curve was used to justify tax cuts, its main emphasis was on showing how to maximize government revenues through fiscal policy; because this conflicted with the aim of conservatives to reduce spending as well as revenues, the Laffer curve has more recently been deemphasized by conservatives in recent years. Nonetheless, Federal Government tax revenues did increase significantly following the tax cuts of the Reagan years; it was the dramatic increase in spending that produced the budget deficits of that era.
Before Reagan's election, Reaganomics was considered extreme by the liberal wing of the Republican Party. While running against Reagan for the Presidential nomination in 1980. George H. W. Bush had derided Reaganomics as "voodoo economics", a term that held currency long after the recession ended. Similarly, in 1976, Gerald Ford had severely criticized Reagan's proposal to turn back a large part of the Federal budget to the states. After the Reagan election, however, most Republicans endorsed Reaganomics, including Bush, who became Reagan's Vice President.
Support for Reaganomics A study from the Cato Institute, which supports many of the premises that lie behind Reaganomics) said:
* Real economic growth averaged 3.2 percent during the Reagan years versus 2.8 percent during the Ford-Carter years and 2.1 percent during the Bush-Clinton years.
* Real median family income grew by $4,000 during the Reagan period after experiencing no growth in the pre-Reagan years; it experienced a loss of almost $1,500 in the post-Reagan years. ([http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-261.html source])
Laffer and Reagan were vindicated by the results of the Reagan tax cuts. Real per capita GDP increased at an annual rate of 2.6% from 1981 to 1989, after languishing at a 1.6% rate during the Carter years of 1977 - 1981. Citation: Louis Johnston and Samuel H. Williamson, "The Annual Real and Nominal GDP for the United States, 1789 - Present." Economic History Services, March 2004, URL : http://www.eh.net/hmit/gdp/
Reagan's supply-side model changed the paradigm of government involvement in the economy. Keynesian economists were at a loss to explain why the aggregate demand increases of the 1970's did not result in improved national economic performance. Likewise, they could not explain how to reverse the shift in the Phillips curve. The Reagan-Laffer-Volcker-Milton Friedman model of improving economic performance by reducing government involvement in the economy has since gained wide currency. President Clinton ran as a "New Democrat": fiscally conservative and trade-friendly. Likewise, national governments worldwide are implementing low-rate flat tax revenue structures, with impressive results.
Indeed, many are.
Wish we were.