Thatcher on Tax Cuts

This quote came from an interview with Brian Walden in January 1983.

Brian Walden: You used to say "Let's have the tax cuts and then we shall get the growth".

Margaret Thatcher: No. Not always. That was a Laffer-ism you know, and I remember having arguments with Laffer and saying "Yes, but there's probably a three year gap and how are we going to get back that three years, how are we to survive that three years?" And also, I've been in politics a long time—you know that, we were in it together—and I've watched many many years reductions in public spending as an objective… If you actually hold it, you're doing very well, and then you take the growth to reduce your personal taxation. Once or twice one's been able to do certain reductions because one's found inefficiencies.

(hat tip Daniel Finkelstein)