When President Trump announced he was awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to economist Arthur Laffer, there were groans of dismay in Washington, especially in the world of professional, academic, and government economists.

Their reaction was hardly a surprise. Laffer is everything they don’t like in an economist. He’s an evangelist for tax cuts. He believes slashing tax rates is the key to economic growth and prosperity. And more often than not, he’s been right about this.