Obama on ‘Trickle Down’ Economics: ‘It Doesn’t Work, It Has Never Worked’ [View All]

[blueclown]

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/12/06/383348/trickle-down-economics-doesnt-work-obama-asserts-in-economic-speech/

Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, there’s been a certain crowd in Washington for the last few decades who respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. “The market will take care of everything,” they tell us. If only we cut more regulations and cut more taxes – especially for the wealthy – our economy will grow stronger. Sure, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everyone else. And even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, they argue, that’s the price of liberty.

It’s a simple theory – one that speaks to our rugged individualism and healthy skepticism of too much government. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker. Here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It has never worked. It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It’s not what led to the incredible post-war boom of the 50s and 60s. And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade.

Does anyone else find this particular passage of the President's speech extremely exciting... to see him finally acknowledge this premise, instead of trying to be the "Great Uniter"? The progressive wing of the Democratic Party has argued for years that trickle-down economics have been an abject failure. While many moderate and Conservadems might feel the same way, there has never been a huge public pushback against the notion of lower tax rates on the rich = more jobs. Finally though, it seems as if the President realizes that he's going to win the 2012 election in no other way than by acknowleding the facts and the situation on the ground. He may alienate some of his rich financial donors, but he needs to run on this platform in 2012. He needs to present the rationale that the alternative is another era of the Gilded Age, where the top 1% get richer and the rest of the 99% get the scraps. It's exciting to see him parallel his vision of what America should be to the 1950s and 1960s, an era of high marginal tax rates on the wealthy and numerous progressive reforms.

Every President has a different path to re-election. I hope the President realizes that this is his path.