The Republican presidential candidates still cling to (the failed) trickle-down economics. - US News

[Bill USA]

Unwavering Fealty to a Failed Theory
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/2015/08/06/republican-2016-candidates-cling-to-failed-trickle-down-economics-theory

Looking beyond the rhetoric and individual policies, however, lies the Republican Party's major problem: unwavering fealty to trickle-down economics. Virtually all Republicans since Ronald Reagan was elected president have run on a platform of supply-side policies, and the 2016 election will be no different. But it should be, because there is now a growing recognition that trickle-down economics has failed due to the fact that it rests on a fundamentally flawed premise.


Trickle-down economics, the misguided theory that has controlled economic policymaking for more than three decades, is built on the idea that high levels of economic inequality are good. Tax cuts for the rich and less regulation of business supposedly provide incentives for the wealthy to invest and work more. Enabling "job creators" to get richer helps us all, the theory goes. So the fact that the top 1 percent now take home a greater share of the nation's income than they ever have, while incomes for the typical household are lower than they were in 1989, is not a problem in this way of thinking. In the trickle-down mindset, these facts are seen as good for the economy.

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The proposals thus far from the many Republicans who have already thrown their hat in the ring show no signs that the party plans to deviate from trickle-down anytime soon. If anything, they are doubling down on its fundamentals, with proposals to cut taxes for the wealthy by far more than President George W. Bush ever did. Rubio, for example, proposes to eliminate taxes on capital gains and dividends – which would almost exclusively benefit the wealthy – while George W. Bush merely cut them by a few percentage points. Similarly, Sen. Rand Paul's flat tax proposal goes well beyond a mere reduction of top rates and would instead eliminate progressive income taxation.

For several decades, academic economists helped provide cover for trickle-down economics and the obvious harm it was doing because the theory fit with their ideas about inequality and incentives. But especially since the Great Recession, economists have been thinking about inequality in a new way. Increasingly, they are realizing that a strong middle class is not merely the result of a strong economy, as was previously thought, but rather a source of America's economic growth. Rebuilding the middle class would provide the stable base of consumer demand necessary to increase business investment and job creation. It would also enable the country to fully develop the potential of its people, increase the social trust that makes it possible for people to do business with one another, and help to balance political power so that we have a government that works for the whole country, not just those at the top. (Campaign finance reform will be a necessary part of that endeavor as well.)

Because we are currently doing a substandard job in building the middle class, Standard & Poor's reduced its projections for future U.S. growth, noting in a recent report that it views "extreme income inequality as a drag on long-run economic growth." Similarly, the director of the International Monetary Fund summed up current research, stating: "Severely skewed income distribution harms the pace and sustainability of growth over the longer term. It leads to an economy of exclusion, and a wasteland of discarded potential."
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[applegrove]

1. And they are the only right wing party in the world to do so.

[pansypoo53219]

2. most of the gnewz still think tinkle down is fine.