We have 'been there' time and time and time again with Republicans. It does not work and it drops the Middle Class and Working Class in an abyss without any power to do anything about it.
Money is power in the USA and the power is not equally distributed.
Ronald Reagan never had an economic policy and I wish I had a nickel for every time I have ever said that or written it, but, the Republican rhetoric continues to state he did. He did not.
Ronald Regan DEREGULATED the country. He also exploited natural resources to the point where we are today and that is with marginal natural resources, if we are lucky, except for coal.
Reagan's deregulation produced star Wall Street performers such as Junk Bond King Michael Milken. So, don't even think that the USA is going back to the Bush and Reagan years. We ain't.
We have a new President that understands the struggle Minorities, the Middle Class, the Poor and the Working Class face. Deregulation does not work to benefit most of the populous of the USA that actually supports this country's treasury.
Tax cuts have a 'place' in the economics of the free market, but, they are only remotely a good idea when the USA has just finished bailing out a huge banking sector of its economy and is faced with incredible issues in regard to jobs and destroyed infrastructure that supports small businesses.
I wish someone would open the eyes to reasonably intelligent people that are in the Republican Party and educate them about what economics in the USA is all about, they really don't 'get it.'
President Obama and Vice President Biden have a plan for economic growth that will matter, produce a sustainable employment base and will build a strong tax base for states as well as the federal treasury. Americans aren't used to that. Plans to expand the economy of the USA in a meaningful way isn't easy, cheap or overnight.
Sometime in the future, the USA will have many, many more people living within its borders. There won't be enough roads to support the transportation needs of the populous. Fast, clean trains are the best venue for the USA today and a century from now.
June 30, 2009, 4:54 PM ET
Trickle-Down Economics Fails to Deliver as Promised (click title to entry - thank you)
By Michael S. Derby
Trickle-down economics, a centerpiece of conservative economic thinking for many decades, failed to deliver its promise of distributing wealth across the economy, a new paper from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government says.
According to this theory, when government policies favor the wealthy — for example, via tax cuts for upper-income classes — the increase in wealth flows down to those with lower incomes. That’s because the rich are more likely to spend the additional income, creating more economic activity, which in turn generates jobs and eventually, better paychecks for the less well-off.
It’s a school of thought that is closely linked to former President Ronald Reagan, and is frequently referred to as “Reaganomics.”
The idea has had enough power to be used as part of a long process to lower tax rates on the wealthiest Americans. According to the Tax Policy Center, the top marginal tax rate in the U.S. stood at 70% when Reagan was elected in 1980, falling steadily to 28% by 1989, before it began to rise modestly. The top marginal rate now stands at 35% against a peak of 94% in 1945.
Trickle-down economics prevailed in a period in which a smaller portion of the U.S. gained an increasing share of the most important measures of economic vigor. Be it total wealth or net income, the top gained a greater share of the pie at the expense of the less-well-off.
The paper does not argue that trickle-down economics is without merit. It’s just that it doesn’t appear to generate enough bang for the buck. It was written by Harvard’s Dan Andrews and Christopher Jencks, and Australia National University’s Andrew Leigh....
