With the economy overtaking all other issues in the primaries, the Republican candidates are fighting to wear the Reagan mantle. I wouldn’t care if voters remembered that with the “trickle-down theory” of Reaganomics, very little actually trickled down to those who needed it most. The reality was, the upper middle class was a kind of sponge, with everything reaching that level going no further. It was a periond when the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, a trend that continues today despite an intervening Democratic administration in the person of Bill Clinton, when the sponge was not removed but thinned a bit.
The belief that wealth will trickle down to the lowest classes is false. It never has, and it never will. The wealthy are greedy, and they do everything in their power to hang on to as much of it as possible. They have a disproportionate amount of influence over elected officials who are supposed to belong to all of us, and thanks to tax cuts and tax loopholes they do not pay their fair share of taxes.
I’ve long been an advocate of the “trickle-up theory,” and I sure would like to hear a candidate bring it up. The theory is simple: give the poor more money. A lot more. Make them unpoor. Raise the mimimum wage still more. Bring everyone above the poverty line. Enable everyone to afford to pay taxes, but keep tax rates much lower for those below a certain reasonable level. The poor will then have more money to spend, and they will spend it… and that money will trickle up. The poor are not executives or stockholders, but the money they spend enriches those who are. So give the poor more money and they will make those at the top wealthier. And then, raise tax rates on those above a certain reasonable income level, and close loopholes. The treasury will thrive. Problems will be fixed. And if the rich don’t like it, screw them. They will still be wealthy, perhaps just as wealthy as they were before, since their increased tax burden might be offset by the added income from all the new money the poor are spending.
But even if they take a slight hit, so what. It’s time for all good wealthy Americans — most of whom are God-fearing Christians — to give greed a rest.
Liberal Buzz 