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Laffer Associates
Game On [Updated 7/6/2016]

In fact the entire political terrain of the U.S. has shifted 180 degrees in the past 8 years with one exception—the White House. A betting person with any lick of sense would be loath to bet against a Republican presidency and a radical reversal of economic policies.

VI. Issues and Political History
Another factor favoring Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton has to do with longevity and negative selection. The political process, more than any system I’ve ever worked with, thrives on pointing out mistakes and overlooking successes. My advice to many candidates has been to speak as little as possible and to describe policies in as general a manner as you can get away with. People aren’t looking through your transcripts to find the next wonderful and positive thing you’ve done, but instead they try to find your missteps, transgressions, faux pas and failures. Politics is a totally negative process. You live or die by the sum total of what you’ve done wrong, not on the balance between what you’ve done right and what you’ve done wrong. In the words of Shakespeare, “the good is oft interred with their bones.”6

Trump has had very limited exposure as a practicing politician and, therefore, has only his own words and phrases to criticize. While he may have a number of missteps in business or in his personal life, no one cares. And yet, he truly enjoys celebrity status as no one in politics today does. Also, given how much Trump has said about any number of issues over the past couple of years, there are probably quotes that can be used on any side of most any issue. But with Hillary, it’s different.

Hillary has done a lot. She’s been involved in politics at a visible level since the Watergate hearings and maybe even earlier. Her past contains numerous misdeeds and failures as much because she’s done so much and perhaps not so much because she has been a failure. Yet, a diligent, hard-driving researcher can find a laundry list of her significant misdeeds.

To wit,

• As events have unfolded, her vote in favor of the Iraq War is a clear sign of poor political judgment, especially in her party.

• Her behavior surrounding the attack on the consulate in Benghazi and the failure to respond to four American deaths sure looks like a case of poor judgment.

• Her use of a private e-mail server while Secretary of State and thus the potential exposure of critical U.S. intelligence to those who would do us harm again smacks of poor judgement.

• The Clinton Foundation along with its big gifts and extraordinarily large speaking fees surely creates an aura of impropriety, favoritism and the absence of sound judgement.

• Her involvement in the cover-up of Fast and Furious is transparent bad judgment.

• Her disregard for coal miners and coal companies in her reckless quest to be seen as a defender of the environment is yet another case of dangerous judgement.

• The IRS scandal: While not directly implicated as a participant in an administration cover-up of the Cincinnati IRS office headed by Lois Lerner’s misuse of government power, there are definite indications of her gross negligence in the pursuit of even-handed fairness of the power to tax.

• As I have predicted,7 Obamacare has not only driven considerable premium increases for coverage since 2013, when the marketplace first opened for enrollment, but has also added significant cost burdens onto health insurance companies, many of whom are choosing to leave the Obamacare marketplace as costs continue to outpace profits. This has led to entire states, such as Alaska and Alabama, being left with only one insurer on their respective Obamacare marketplaces, with 650 counties total being left with just one insurer in 2017.8

• Her personal investments in cattle futures.9 In the late 1970s, she turned an initial investment of $1,000 into $100,000 in just 10 months, despite having no previous investment experience. Her close friend, James Blair, an experienced commodities trader, advised her to enter the commodities market, but Clinton claimed to have made her own investment decisions. One academic study published in The Journal of Economics and Finance estimated the likelihood of achieving a result such as Clinton’s as 1 in 31 trillion.10

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6 William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 2, Line 1620.
7 Arthur B. Laffer and Emily Evans, “Rising Health Care Costs and Premiums: Is the ACA to Blame?” Laffer Associates, July 30, 2015.
8 Anna Wilde Mathews, “Insurance Options Dwindle in Some Rural Regions,” The Wall Street Journal, May 15, 2016. http://on.wsj.com/1sqcTGq
9 Caroline Baum and Victor Niederhoffer, “Herd Instincts: Hillary’s Investment Profits,” National Review. February 20, 1995. pp. 43–44.
10 Seth C. Anderson and John D. Jackson, and Jeffrey W. Steagall, “A note on odds in the cattle futures,” The Journal of Economics and Finance.

©2016 Laffer Associates. All rights reserved.
No portion of this report may be reproduced in any form without prior consent. The information has been compiled from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not hold ourselves responsible for its correctness. Opinions are presented without guarantee.

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