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> Trickle-down economics has never been a real economic policy, and never been seriously advocated by federal policy-makers. It is an entirely pejorative term c
by regularization 1mo ago
> Trickle-down economics has never been a real economic policy, and never been seriously advocated by federal policy-makers. It is an entirely pejorative term created by detractors of supply-side economics.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3522907-gop-lawmaker-byron-donalds-says-trickle-down-economics-does-work/ https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3522907-gop-lawmaker-byro...
Well here is one of those federal policy-makers you say doesn't exist, a Republican congressman, advocating four years ago for trickle down economics and advocating for "...letting the free market - and yes, trickle down economics, which does work - actually flourish in the United States"
- smallmancontrov 1mo agoIf only big players had KPIs like us little folks! r>g is close to a complete debunk of the trickle-down narrative, today and through history, and it's a remarkably sturdy result.
- win311fwg 1mo agoThat's not serious advocacy as trickle-down economics isn't a policy that can be implemented. The policy associated with trickle-down economics is known as supply-side economics. Trickle-down economics is something created for a comedy bit to express, in a humorous way, why supply-side economics doesn't work. Even if you don't buy into the underlying message of the comedy routine and believe that supply-side economics does work, you still cannot implement that comedy routine as government policy. That... doesn't make any sense. Clearly that guy you refer to was performing his own comedy routine.
- smallmancontrov 1mo ago"Supply-side economics" is a technocratic rebranding of trickle-down economics, adding just enough nuance to force the draw rhetorically while advocating policy that is completely indefensible to anyone who has enough time to properly examine the nuance.
- win311fwg 1mo agoAgain, "trickle-down economics" was created by Will Rogers. He was never a policy maker, just a comedian trying to tell funny stories. Nor did he accidentally create a policy in a 10 minutes of rambling standup routine. If you listen to the routine you will realize that he was talking about things that had already happened. He wasn't some kind of hidden political visionary. We can accept that "supply-side economics" is a policy rebranding, but it is not a rebranding of "trickle-down economics". That is abundantly clear. There has never been a policy known as "trickle-down economics".
- smallmancontrov 1mo agoNo, no such thing, only a hundred spectacularly regressive tax, trade, and benefit decisions sold on promises of growth that would supposedly benefit everyone and then didn't. Totally different!
- win311fwg 1mo agoSince you clearly haven't finished listening to the full joke yet, I'll reveal the punchline: What you describe is what Rogers called "trickle up". "Trickle-up economics" has never been formally used to refer to a policy either, but at least if you called it that we would understand what you are trying to say. "Trickle-down economics" doesn't even make sense beyond a device used to setup a joke. It is bizarre that you keep going there.
- smallmancontrov 1mo ago"Grow the pie" is the phrase used by proponents, because they understand that "trickle down" invites uncomfortable discussions about "are you sure this will actually help me" while the pie analogy cleverly makes this question difficult to talk about. But it's the same argument and everyone can see it.
- 9rx 1mo ago
- manlymuppet 1mo agoLate but here goes. This is like when Trump said that foreign countries pay tariffs. Like Byron Donalds in the article you linked, he’s just wrong. Foreign countries don’t pay tariffs. Domestic producers have always paid the statutory toll, and most of the time the economic incidence too. No textbook has argued argued otherwise, because this is just the standard. It’s not that Trump is advocating a different policy when he says foreign countries pay tariffs, it’s just that he (like a lot of other MAGA Republicans) so grossly misunderstand economics and their own party positions, that they end up advocating for a different thing. In this case, Byron Donalds is even going as far to advocate the pejorative version of his own side. Now if you’re saying that trickle-down has become so widespread that even supply-side supporters have become fooled into thinking that it’s their side, I’d happily grant you that. But what I mean when I say that trickle-down has never been “seriously” advocated is that it’s never been in textbooks. There are no policy appropriations made by legislators to support the goals of trickle-down economics. Similar to how Republicans nowadays accuse Democrats of trying to bring in illegal immigrants to bolster their voter base (a pervasive lie), to try and “debunk” such a policy would be intellectually dishonest, since the Democrats have never advocated such a thing.