Bridget Johnson points out that Obama has a new catch-phrase that he’s used five times in recent speeches, “trickle-down fairy dust.” A typical example:
We know better than this. They have been trying to sell us this trickle-down, tax cut fairy dust before. We’ve seen this before.
Yes, we have—at least we’ve seen the fight about it before. It goes back at least to William Jennings Bryan, who used the phrase “leak through” in 1896, in his famous “Cross of Gold” speech:
There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it.
“Trickle” and “leak”—the picture conjured up is almost inevitably that of wetting one’s pants, or of urinating on the masses. The phrase has virtually always been a pejorative used by the Democrats; as Thomas Sowell has pointed out, it’s not used by those on the right, and the theory the left critiques is not the theory under which the right is operating:
The point, however, is not simply to move money around but to change behavior in a way that will result in more economic activity. Tax cuts have a long track record of doing that, resulting in rising national incomes and rising employment.
But there is no way that some people are ever going to admit that what they call “tax cuts for the rich” are tax cuts for the economy. As far as they are concerned, this is all just an excuse to “give” something to the rich, in hopes that it will “trickle down” to the lower income brackets.
A year ago this column defied anyone to quote any economist — in government, academia, or anywhere else outside an insane asylum — who had ever argued in favor of a “trickle down theory.”
Many people quoted David Stockman as saying that others had made that argument. But David Stockman was not even among the first thousand people to make that claim. What is crucial is that not one of those who made the claim could provide a single quote from anybody who had advocated a “trickle-down theory.”
The “trickle down theory” has been a stock phrase on the left for decades and yet not one of those who denounce it can find anybody who advocated it. The tenacity with which they cling to these catchwords shows how desperately they need them, if only to safeguard their vision of the world and of themselves.
Sowell wrote that in 2006. And Obama is proving it’s still all too true.
In response, Romney ought to talk about Obama’s “trickle down anchors” or “trickle down cement boots” which each new regulation, increased item of taxation, and deficit spending accomplishes in weighing down our economy.
The trickle-down tax cuts HAVE worked every time. The point is: Obama is a total liar on this subject. A clasic case of Orwellian Newspeak.
Interesting. I didn’t know that about “trickle down”. I had always assumed that somebody, somewhere, had advocated for it using that term.
This gives me ammunition to use if I should find myself in a conversation with a leftist, a situation I increasingly try to avoid.
I vaguely recall the “trickle-down” phrase was used when Reagan cut the upper tax rates from 70% to 35%. Maybe the Republicans never used it, but the Democrats used it on a reasonably clear target.
However, it’s VERY hard to make the case that trimming or not trimming marginal rates constitutes “trickle down”, especially if everyone else maintains their current rate.
It’s just Obama trickling down on the voters.
Wasn’t Quantitative Easing sort of a trickle down, that did not work?
The rich are my customers dammit! I need rich people and more of them. I work on luxury cars for a living. The 80s were great to me. I want it back.
I know that I am a worker bee. I don’t want the responsibility of running a buisness. It’s not who I am. Therefore I want customers. I don’t care who coined the phrase. Trickle down works dammit! The POTUS insults me. He insults my meager intelligence when he trys to tell me that government will save me when I know I just need CUSTOMERS!
John Myers:
Exactly. I don’t own a business myself, but I’m employed by a man who does.
The only business “owner” 0 believes in is the Government. Look back at the 20th century to see how well that theory worked out…or look at Argentina today.
Try Jack Kemp for using trickle down economics. Also see Judd Wanninski here: http://www.quickoverview.com/issues/supply-side-economics.html
Sorry, the name should be spelled Jude Wanniski. It was first spoken in 1975 according to the article at the above link.
The article is also interesting for its brief but cogent discussion of supply side economics, Say’s Law, mentions the Laffer curve and other interesting tidbits.