Laffer curve cited directly by Laffer. For example, in 1924, Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon wrote: "It seems difficult for some to understand that high rates of taxation do not necessarily mean large revenue to the government, and that more revenue may often be obtained by lower rates". Exercising his understanding that "73% of nothing is nothing", he pushed for the reduction of the top income tax bracket from 73% to an eventual 24% (as well as tax breaks for lower brackets). Mellon was one of the wealthiest people in the United States, the third-highest income-tax payer in the mid-1920s, behind John
George Laffer George Laffer George Richards Laffer (14 September 1866 – 7 December 1933) was an Australian politician. He was member of the South Australian House of Assembly from 1913 until 1933, representing the electorate of Alexandra for the Liberal Union, and its successors the Liberal Federation and Liberal and Country League. He was a minister in the Barwell government, and was Speaker of the South Australian House of Assembly from 1927 until 1930. Laffer was born at Coromandel Valley into a fruit-growing family, his father having emigrated from Cornwall in 1840. He continued in the family business, and was actively involved