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.
Trickle down economics has not worked
even once.
By
cutting the taxes for the rich, the money they save, so they claim, will some how trickle down to the
poor.
