The year-long process of putting together yesterday’s lecture series was completed when Dr. Laffer thanked the crowd for their attention. 

The College of Business Administration collaborated with the College of the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences to arrange an informative evening open to the public. The event was funded by local contributors like Winton-Ireland, Strom & Green, and Young America’s Foundation.

Dr. Arthur Laffer had been apart of Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board and was a Senior Advisor to President Donald Trump in 2016. He spoke on the topic of “Trumponomics: The Road To Riches Or Ruin” in the Snider Recital Hall.

Dr. Laffer, The Father of Supply-Side Economics, explained his views on economic status going into the second anniversary of Donald Trump’s presidency and broke down the five pillars of prosperity: taxes, spending, monetary policy, regulatory policy, and trade.

He shared a combination of his expertise and stories to the audience. He described a conversation that he had with the President about ten months ago, “Anyone who runs an international business has to be in free trade. When you run an international business what you got to do is outsource your supplies with the highest quality and the lowest cost. Location.” He went on to say, “What you then have to do is sell your products in the highest margin, highest profitability locations…I added to him, ‘well yeah anyone who imports two foreign wives has to be a free trader.’”

Kristina Stamper, Director for Communications, said, “The intention of the Executive Speaker series…is to bring a speaker to campus to speak to a regional topic or issue that impacts our students, our faculty and staff and our community at large. So the goal is to bring everyone together from all of those communities to hear about a topic that’s relevant to them.”

The idea to have Dr. Arthur Laffer return to campus and lecture was from multiple community members.

Tomas Gomez-Arias, Ph.D. Dean of College of Business Administration, explained the process of organizing the Executive Speaker Series. “Bringing a person like Laffer to the campus is expensive but we were fortunate for having a community who were able to pitch in to make this happen,” he said.

Edward Erickson, Professor of Economics, motivated his students to attend the event with extra credit along with other professors.

Erickson said, “He’s an exciting speaker. You may not agree with everything he says but he makes you think. A lot of good illustrations to back what he was saying and he’s been in politics and the academic world for a long time. He’s speaking from experience.”

There was gratitude from the audience and coordinators to Dr. Arthur Laffer for his appearance and his words. The work that was put into organizing this lecture, to make it special, was noticed by those who attended.