Re: No mention of Trickle Down Economics from the Republitards...

The 'Trickle-Down Theory' has caused our economic problems.
by K.L. Billingsley

The point of a slogan or cliché is to prevent the listener from thinking and invert reality through altering the meaning of terms and phrases.  The 'trickle-down economics' cliché has enjoyed tremendous success.

The cliché started during the first administration of Ronald Reagan and quickly became a mainstay of the interventionist vocabulary.  The trickle-down tag remains popular with President Clinton and his followers, and television 'journalists' attribute it to venal conservatives.  It was even mentioned on a popular situation comedy show comparing it to theories about Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.

Self-described socialist John Kenneth Galbraith once explained the concept on a Firing Line television program with William F. Buckley Jr. The administration of the time, lamented Galbraith the wealthy economist, was 'giving' out all sorts of favors to the wealthy and powerful, in the fond hope that some would eventually 'trickle down' to the poor and middle class.

Galbraith further compared the concept to stuffing a horse's trough full of straw, in the hope that some would eventually get tossed around for the chickens, ducks, and other little critters. But sound economics can show that this explanation more properly belongs to what emerges from the other end of the horse.

In the first place, the federal government produces nothing that people would freely buy in an open marketplace.  The state is a net consumer of wealth, not a producer.  Returning to the barnyard anology to find an image of the state, we notice a pig -- portly, listless, and, of course, always squealing for more.

Every time the state tries to produce something on any scale, the result is a disaster.  The collapsed economies of the Eastern Bloc stand as evidence of that fact.  As the late F.A. Hayek explained, no government, however enlightened, possesses the knowledge and moral detachment to 'plan' a modern society, with its myriads of daily decisions.  Only individuals acting in a free marketplace can do so.  But if the government's visible hand has its way, individuals can't have theirs.  It's as simple as that.

Only someone with a statist vision could see the government as the flywheel of wealth in America or anywhere else.  The typical response is that the government is handing out regulatory and tax concessions, but this too has fatal problems.

In the United States money does not trickle down from the government.  It flows upward from the private sector.  In a market economy, individuals and corporations earn money by producing goods which uncoerced consumers will purchase.  More important, in democratic societies that respect human rights, the government has no prior claim to what people earn by their honest labors.  There was, however, a system which maintained such a claim.  It went by such names as feudalism, slavery, and totalitarianism.

Hence, for the government to allow individuals to keep what they have earned by their own labor is not a favor, subsidy, or 'trickle-down' arrangement of any kind.  But for popular academicians to profess otherwise only shows the pervasiveness of the statist mindset and its capacity for self-deception.

This is not to say that there is not a true trickle-down theory.  Here is how it works.

The government currently ignores its legitimate task of protecting life, liberty, and property, and performing those tasks which it is not practical for individuals to do, such as maintaining an army.  Instead the government sets out to achieve 'social justice', largely by the 'redistribution' of wealth, which it assumes is the product of exploitation.

In reality, as Frederic Bastiat explained in his masterful treatise The Law, the modern state acts like burglars, who are also in the business of redistributing wealth.  In like manner, the state plunders the property of its citizens.  And with the proceeds, the state is always careful to take care of its own benefits first.

Federal employees, for example, boast their own retirement program, much more generous than Social Security.  And postal employees get their choice of -- count 'em-five medical plans.  Every day brings new revelations of bulging salaries for little effort, outrageous perks, bounced checks, and general corruption.

This same government that plunders wealth proposes spending 'programs' that will supposedly benefit the populace, increase prosperity, and eliminate the deficit.  Who says there is no Santa Claus or tooth fairy?  Here, then, is the true
trickle-down theory as an honest partisan would explain it:

You the producer will, on your own initiative and with your own capital, work hard to turn a profit.  We, the government, will impede you with regulations and confiscate ever-increasing amounts of your income.  With what we confiscate, we will first take care of the needs of the state, but hopefully some of that money will trickle down to those we determine to be needy victims.

Ironically, if you follow this model the cliché is true.  The trickle-down theory is the source of our economic problems.