Trickle Down Economics is a blatant strawman of supply-side economics used to demonize supporters of said system.
Those using the term assert that
Republicans intend to cut taxes on the rich people, which will then, by some undefined mechanism, cause money to trickle down to the poor.
However, not one economist has ever published a theory on the mechanism behind this so called
Trickle Down Theory.
This strawman mainly serves to demonize the
Republicans for cutting taxes on the rich. The actual position of the
Republicans, supply side economics, asserts a well known phenomenon, wherein cutting taxes on rich people will cause them to invest more money, thus opening new markets or expanding existing ones, creating jobs and generating wealth.
The
origins of the term lie in a speech by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, wherein it is asserted that there are two economic theories, one according to which "If we make the rich people richer, somehow they will let a part trickle down to the rest of us.
The second theory ... is that if we make the average of mankind comfortable and secure, their prosperity will rise upwards, just as yeast rises up, through the ranks."
Roosevelt, a democrat ironically enough, mocked this idea himself, however, it has somehow become a staple in politics to claim that this nonexistant theory is somehow the economic position of the Republicans.
