Laffer curve tax revenues significantly and contributed to the massive increase in federal debt during the 1980s.". The Laffer curve and supply-side economics inspired Reaganomics and the Kemp-Roth Tax Cut of 1981. Supply-side advocates of tax cuts claimed that lower tax rates would generate more tax revenue because the United States government's marginal income tax rates prior to the legislation were on the "right-hand" side of the curve. This assertion was derided by George H. W. Bush as "voodoo economics" while running against Reagan for the Presidential nomination in 1980. During the Reagan presidency, the top marginal rate of tax in the
Yerkes–Dodson law Yerkes–Dodson law The Yerkes–Dodson law is an empirical relationship between arousal and performance, originally developed by psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson in 1908. The law dictates that performance increases with physiological or mental arousal, but only up to a point. When levels of arousal become too high, performance decreases. The process is often illustrated graphically as a bell-shaped curve which increases and then decreases with higher levels of arousal. Research has found that different tasks require different levels of arousal for optimal performance. For example, difficult or intellectually demanding tasks may require a lower level of arousal