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Trickle-down economics refers to economic policies that disproportionately favor the upper tier of the economic spectrum, comprising wealthy individuals and large corporations. The policies are based on the idea that spending by this group will "trickle down" to those less fortunate in the form of stronger economic growth. [1] The term has been used broadly by critics of supply-side economics to refer to taxing and spending policies by governments that, intentionally or not, result in widening income inequality; it has also been used in critical references to neoliberalism. [2] However, the term does not represent any cohesive economic theory. [3]
Similar criticisms have existed since at least the 19th century, though the term "trickle-down economics" was popularized in the U.S. in reference to supply-side economics and the economic policies of Ronald Reagan. [4] Major examples of what critics have called "trickle-down economics" in the U.S. include the Reagan tax cuts, [5] the Bush tax cuts, [6] and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. [7] Major UK examples include Liz Truss's mini-budget tax cuts of 2022. [8] While economists who favor supply-side economics generally avoid applying the "trickle down" analogy to it and dispute the focus on tax cuts to the rich, the phrase "trickle down" has also been occasionally used by proponents of such policies. [1] [9] As of 2023, studies have not shown that there is a demonstrable link between reducing tax burdens on the upper end and economic growth. [10] [11] [12]
The Google Ngram Viewer shows [13] that the term "trickle down economics" was rarely seen in published works until the 1980s. However, the concept that economic prosperity in the upper classes flows down into the lower classes is at least 100 years old. The term itself is used mostly by critics of the concept. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary notes that the first known use of "trickle-down" as an adjective meaning "relating to or working on the principle of trickle-down theory" was in 1944 [14] while the first known use of "trickle-down theory" was in 1954. [15]
In 1896, United States Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan described the concept using the metaphor of a "leak" in his Cross of Gold speech: [16] [17]
There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it. [18]
William J. Bennett credits humorist and social commentator Will Rogers for coining the term and noted in 2007 its persistent use throughout the decades since. [19] In a 1932 column criticizing Herbert Hoover's policies and approach to The Great Depression Rogers wrote:
This election was lost four and six years ago, not this year. They [Republicans] didn't start thinking of the old common fellow till just as they started out on the election tour. The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover was an engineer. He knew that water trickles down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach the driest little spot. But he didn't know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow's hands. They saved the big banks, but the little ones went up the flue. [20]
In 1933, Indian nationalist and statesman Jawaharlal Nehru wrote positively of the term (in the sense that wealth entered upper classes then "trickled down") in critical reference to the colonial seizing of wealth in India and other territories being a cause of increased the wealth in England:
The exploitation of India and other countries brought so much wealth to England that some of it trickled down to the working class and their standard of living rose." [21]
After leaving the presidency, Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson alleged "Republicans ... simply don't know how to manage the economy. They're so busy operating the trickle-down theory, giving the richest corporations the biggest break, that the whole thing goes to hell in a handbasket." [22]
Presidential speechwriter Samuel Rosenman wrote in 2008 that "trickle down policies" had been prevalent in American government since 1921. [23]
Ronald Reagan launched his 1980 campaign for the presidency on a platform advocating for supply-side economics. During the Presidential nomination in 1980, George H. W. Bush had derided Reagan's economic approach as "voodoo economics". [24] [25] Following Reagan's election, the "trickle-down" reached wide circulation with the publication of "The Education of David Stockman" a December 1981 interview of Office of Management and Budget director David Stockman, in the magazine Atlantic Monthly. In the interview, Stockman was sharply critical of supply side economics, telling journalist William Greider that the Kemp–Roth Tax Cut was a way to rebrand a tax cut for the top income bracket to make it easier to pass into law: [26] [27]
It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory.
— David Stockman, The Atlantic
Political opponents of the Reagan administration soon seized on this language in an effort to brand the administration as caring only about the wealthy. [28] In 1982, John Kenneth Galbraith wrote the "trickle-down economics" that that David Stockman was referring to was previously known under the name "horse-and-sparrow theory", the idea that feeding a horse a huge amount of oats will result in some of the feed passing through for lucky sparrows to eat. [29] Reagan administration officials including Michael Deaver wanted Stockman to be fired in response to his comments, but he was ultimately kept on in exchange for a private apology. [30]
Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz wrote in 2015 that the post-World War II evidence does not support trickle-down economics, but rather "trickle-up economics" whereby more money in the pockets of the poor or the middle benefits everyone. [31]
In a 2020 research paper, economists David Hope and Julian Limberg analyzed data spanning 50 years from 18 countries, and found that tax cuts for the rich only succeeded at increasing inequality and making the rich wealthier, with no beneficial effect on real GDP per capita or employment. According to the study, this shows that the tax cuts for the upper class did not trickle down to the broader economy. [32] [33] [11] [34]
A 2015 IMF staff discussion note by Era Dabla-Norris, Kalpana Kochhar, Nujin Suphaphiphat, Frantisek Ricka and Evridiki Tsounta suggests that lowering taxes on the top 20% could actually reduce growth. [35] [36]
Political scientists Brainard Guy Peters and Maximilian Lennart Nagel in 2020 described the 'trickle down' description of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations stimulating economic growth that helps the less affluent as a "zombie idea", and stated that it has been the most enduring failed policy idea in American politics. [37]
Some studies suggest a link between trickle-down economics and reduced growth, and some newspapers concluded that trickle-down economics does not promote jobs or growth, and that "policy makers shouldn't worry that raising taxes on the rich ... will harm their economies". [38] [39]
While the term "trickle-down" is commonly used to refer to income benefits, it is sometimes used to refer to the idea of positive externalities arising from technological innovation or increased trade. Arthur Okun, [40] and separately William Baumol, [41] for example, have used the term to refer to the flow of the benefits of innovation, which do not accrue entirely to the "great entrepreneurs and inventors", but trickle down to the masses. And Nobel laureate economist Paul Romer used the term in reference to the impact on wealth from tariff changes. [42]
Despite a lack of practical-use evidence for the Laffer curve, it is often cited by proponents of trickle-down policy. [43] [8]
In the US, Republican tax plans and policies are often labeled "trickle-down economics", including the Reagan tax cuts, the Bush tax cuts and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. [44] In each of the aforementioned tax reforms, taxes were cut across all income brackets, but the biggest reductions were given to the highest income earners, [45] although the Reagan Era tax reforms also introduced the earned income tax credit which has received bipartisan praise for poverty reduction and is largely why the bottom half of workers pay no federal income tax. [46] Similarly, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 cut taxes across all income brackets, but especially favored the wealthy. [47] [48]
In the 1992 presidential election, independent candidate Ross Perot also referred to trickle-down economics as "political voodoo". [49] In the same election during a presidential town hall debate, Bill Clinton said:
What I want you to understand is the national debt is not the only cause of [declining economic conditions in America]. It is because America has not invested in its people. It is because we have not grown. It is because we've had 12 years of trickle-down economics. We've gone from first to twelfth in the world in wages. We've had four years where we’ve produced no private-sector jobs. Most people are working harder for less money than they were making 10 years ago. [50]
The political campaign group, Tax Justice Network has used the term referring broadly to wealth inequality in its criticisms of tax havens. [51]
In 2013, Pope Francis referred to "trickle-down theories" in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium with the following statement (No. 54):
Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. [52]
In New Zealand, Damien O'Connor, an MP from the Labour Party, called trickle-down economics "the rich pissing on the poor" in the Labour Party campaign launch video for the 2011 general election. [53] In a 2016 presidential candidates debate, Hillary Clinton accused Donald Trump of supporting the "most extreme" version of trickle-down economics with his tax plan, calling it "trumped-up trickle-down" as a pun on his name. [54] In his speech to a joint session of Congress on April 28, 2021, US President Joe Biden stated that "trickle-down economics has never worked". [55] Biden has continued to be critical of trickle-down. [56] [57]
A Columbia journal article comparing a failed UK Enterprise Zone proposal to later US proposals references them as a form of trickle-down policy where lower regulatory and tax burdens were aimed at wealthier developers with the hope they would benefit residents. [58]
Nobel laureate Paul Krugman states that despite the narrative of trickle-down style tax cuts, the effective tax rate of the top 1% of earners has failed to change very much. [59]
Political commentator Robert Reich has implicated institutions such as The Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, and Club for Growth for promoting what he considers to be a discredited idea. [60]
Kansas governor and politician Sam Brownback's 2018 tax cut package was widely labelled as an attempt at trickle-down economics. [61]
Friedrich Hayek's economic theories have also been described as trickle-down. [62] [63]
Speaking on the Senate floor in 1992, Hank Brown (Republican senator for Colorado) said: "Mr. President, the trickle-down theory attributed to the Republican Party has never been articulated by President Reagan and has never been articulated by President Bush and has never been advocated by either one of them. One might argue whether trickle-down makes any sense or not. To attribute to people who have advocated the opposite in policies is not only inaccurate but poisons the debate on public issues." [64]
Thomas Sowell consistently argues that trickle-down economics has never been advocated by any economist, writing in his 2012 book "Trickle Down" Theory and "Tax Cuts for the Rich":
Let's do something completely unexpected: Let's stop and think. Why would anyone advocate that we "give" something to A in hopes that it would trickle down to B? Why in the world would any sane person not give it to B and cut out the middleman? But all this is moot, because there was no trickle-down theory about giving something to anybody in the first place.
The "trickle-down" theory cannot be found in even the most voluminous scholarly studies of economic theories - including J. A. Schumpeter's monumental History of Economic Analysis, more than a thousand pages long and printed in very small type. [65]
Sowell has also written extensively on supply-side economics and opposes its characterization firmly, citing that it has never claimed to work in a "trickle-down" fashion. Rather, the economic theory of reducing marginal tax rates works in precisely the opposite direction: "Workers are always paid first and then profits flow upward later – if at all." [66] [67]
In 2022, the Liz Truss administration objected to characterizing its policies as "trickle-down economics". [68]
Reaganomics, or Reaganism, were the neoliberal economic policies promoted by U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. These policies are characterized as supply-side economics, trickle-down economics, or "voodoo economics" by opponents, while Reagan and his advocates preferred to call it free-market economics.
The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA), or Kemp–Roth Tax Cut, was an Act that introduced a major tax cut, which was designed to encourage economic growth. The Act was enacted by the 97th US Congress and signed into law by US President Ronald Reagan. The Accelerated Cost Recovery System (ACRS) was a major component of the Act and was amended in 1986 to become the Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System (MACRS).
Supply-side economics is a macroeconomic theory postulating that economic growth can be most effectively fostered by lowering taxes, decreasing regulation, and allowing free trade. According to supply-side economics, consumers will benefit from greater supplies of goods and services at lower prices, and employment will increase. Supply-side fiscal policies are designed to increase aggregate supply, as opposed to aggregate demand, thereby expanding output and employment while lowering prices. Such policies are of several general varieties:
Thomas Sowell is an American economist, social philosopher, and political commentator. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. With widely published commentary and books—and as a guest on TV and radio—he became a well-known voice in the American conservative movement as a prominent black conservative. He was a recipient of the National Humanities Medal from President George W. Bush in 2002.
Arthur Betz Laffer is an American economist and author who first gained prominence during the Reagan administration as a member of Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board (1981–1989). Laffer is best known for the Laffer curve, an illustration of the theory that there exists some tax rate between 0% and 100% that will result in maximum tax revenue for government. In certain circumstances, this would allow governments to cut taxes, and simultaneously increase revenue and economic growth.
A progressive tax is a tax in which the tax rate increases as the taxable amount increases. The term progressive refers to the way the tax rate progresses from low to high, with the result that a taxpayer's average tax rate is less than the person's marginal tax rate. The term can be applied to individual taxes or to a tax system as a whole. Progressive taxes are imposed in an attempt to reduce the tax incidence of people with a lower ability to pay, as such taxes shift the incidence increasingly to those with a higher ability-to-pay. The opposite of a progressive tax is a regressive tax, such as a sales tax, where the poor pay a larger proportion of their income compared to the rich
David Alan Stockman is an American politician and former businessman who was a Republican U.S. Representative from the state of Michigan (1977–1981) and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (1981–1985) under President Ronald Reagan.
Economic inequality is an umbrella term for a) income inequality or distribution of income, b) wealth inequality or distribution of wealth, and c) consumption inequality. Each of these can be measured between two or more nations, within a single nation, or between and within sub-populations.
A tax cut represents a decrease in the amount of money taken from taxpayers to go towards government revenue. Tax cuts decrease the revenue of the government and increase the disposable income of taxpayers. Tax cuts usually refer to reductions in the percentage of tax paid on income, goods and services. As they leave consumers with more disposable income, tax cuts are an example of an expansionary fiscal policy. Tax cuts also include reduction in tax in other ways, such as tax credit, deductions and loopholes.
Trickle-up economics is an economic policy proposition that final demand among a broad population can stimulate national income in an economy. The trickle-up effect states that policies that directly benefit lower income individuals will boost the income of society as a whole, and thus those benefits will "trickle up" throughout the population. It is the opposite of trickle-down economics.
Robert Ernest "Bob" Hall is an American economist who serves as a professor of economics at Stanford University, and as the Robert and Carole McNeil Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is generally considered a macroeconomist, but he describes himself as an applied economist.
Fiscal conservatism or economic conservatism is a political and economic philosophy regarding fiscal policy and fiscal responsibility with an ideological basis in capitalism, individualism, limited government, and laissez-faire economics. Fiscal conservatives advocate tax cuts, reduced government spending, free markets, deregulation, privatization, free trade, and minimal government debt. Fiscal conservatism follows the same philosophical outlook as classical liberalism. This concept is derived from economic liberalism.
William Arthur Niskanen was an American economist. He was one of the architects of President Ronald Reagan's economic program and contributed to public choice theory. He was also a long-time chairman of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank.
Income inequality has fluctuated considerably in the United States since measurements began around 1915, moving in an arc between peaks in the 1920s and 2000s, with a 30-year period of relatively lower inequality between 1950 and 1980.
The phrase Bush tax cuts refers to changes to the United States tax code passed originally during the presidency of George W. Bush and extended during the presidency of Barack Obama, through:
This article discusses the domestic policy of the Ronald Reagan administration from 1981 to 1989. Reagan's policies stressed conservative economic values, starting with his implementation of supply-side economic policies, dubbed as "Reaganomics" by both supporters and detracters. His policies also included the largest tax cut in American history as well as increased defense spending as part of his Soviet strategy. However, he significantly raised (non-income) taxes four times due to economic conditions and reforms, but the tax reforms instituted during presidency brought top marginal rates to their lowest levels since 1931, such that by 1988, the top US marginal tax rate was 28%.
"Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor" is a classical political-economic argument asserting that, in advanced capitalist societies, state policies assure that more resources flow to the rich than to the poor, for example in the form of transfer payments.
In economics, the Laffer curve illustrates a theoretical relationship between rates of taxation and the resulting levels of the government's tax revenue. The Laffer curve assumes that no tax revenue is raised at the extreme tax rates of 0% and 100%, meaning that there is a tax rate between 0% and 100% that maximizes government tax revenue.
The Kansas experiment was a controversial tax policy and agenda by Kansas state governor Sam Brownback in 2012 that had lasting effects in the state of Kansas from May 2012 until June 2017. It drew widespread attention following Kansas Senate Bill Substitute HB 2117, a bill signed into law by Brownback in May 2012. It was one of the largest income tax cuts in the state's history. The Kansas experiment has also been called the "Great Kansas Tax Cut Experiment", the "Red-state experiment", "the tax experiment in Kansas", and "one of the cleanest experiments for how tax cuts affect economic growth in the U.S." The cuts were based on model legislation published by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), supported by supply-side economist Arthur Laffer, and anti-tax leader Grover Norquist. The law cut taxes by US$231 million in its first year, and cuts were projected to total US$934 million annually after six years, by eliminating taxes on business income for the owners of almost 200,000 businesses and cutting individual income tax rates.
The phrase Reagan tax cuts refers to changes to the United States federal tax code passed during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. There were two major tax cuts: The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 and the Tax Reform Act of 1986. The tax cuts popularized the now infamous phrase "trickle-down economics" as it was primarily used as a moniker by opponents of the bill in order to degrade supply-side economics, the driving principle used to promote the tax cuts.
The Bush-era tax cuts were designed to reduce taxes for the wealthy, and the benefits of faster growth were then supposed to trickle down to the middle class.
Behind [Republican tax legislation of 2017] is a theory long popular among conservatives: Slash taxes for corporations and rich people, who will then hire, invest and profit — and cause money to trickle into the pockets of ordinary Americans.
Will Rogers referred to the theory that cutting taxes for higher earners and businesses was a "trickle-down" policy, a term that has stuck over the years.
The philosophy that had prevailed in Washington since 1921, that the object of government was to provide prosperity for those who lived and worked at the top of the economic pyramid, in the belief that prosperity would trickle down to the bottom of the heap and benefit all.
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