We could blame President Herbert Hoover for the new Trump Tax.
I can predict the future. I can’t actually, foretell who will win the World Series, or the winning numbers of the next big Washington State Lottery, but I’ve been around so long, it seems like I’ve seen just about everything. And of course there is the fact that history usually repeats itself. History repeats itself because people just never learn.
I’m going to tell you a story about Ned, the Neanderthal. A hundred thousand or so years ago things were getting tight. The weather was changing. Game seemed to be disappearing. People weren’t certain what was going on, but Ned was pretty sure of himself. His “fat mama” trinkets were going over well, and people tended to listen to him around the evening fire. What Ned proposed for the survival of his people . . . even the slower, older and younger tribal members who weren’t productive hunters or gatherers was his well thought out plan of “Meat for Me.” His reasoning was that since he and a few of his friends, who were really good hunters and did all the hard work of tracking and slaying of animals, should get all of the meat or at least most of it. By keeping them well fed and satisfied, they would be better hunters, who could then hunt and kill more game, which would often find its way onto the dinner menu for everyone’s enjoyment . . . and nutrition. Well, of course it didn’t work. Ned and his hunting buddies got fat, while the people starved. Eventually, Ned found himself on the dinner menu. However, years later, Ned Jr had a plan . . .
Let’s move into more modern times and Herbert Hoover, U.S president during the start of the Great Depression. “On Hoover’s recommendation, Congress established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, approved Jan. 22, 1932, with an initial working capital of $500 million. It tried to provide indirect relief to the unemployed by lending insurance companies, banks, farm organizations, railroads, and state, county, and city governments money to stimulate economic activity and employment. His opponents criticized him for this “trickle down” theory, based on the idea that if the government aided big business at the top of the nation’s financial structure, business would then create more jobs and relieve unemployment at the bottom.”
Republican candidates and presidents have trotted out the “trickle down” theory repeatedly over the years. It’s been used at the state level as well. Trickle down, Voodoo Economics, Pig in a Poke, Wishful Thinking, Meat for Me . . . call it what you want. It never works. And it is back one more time . . .
“The Trump/GOP tax plan will not spur job creation, economic growth nor raise stagnant wages for the lower and middle class. It’s built on a lie. Once again, the GOP is trying to bamboozle Americans into believing that giving tax cuts to businesses and the ultra-wealthy will help everyone else. It’s never been true and is just a giveaway designed to keep money flowing into GOP campaign coffers and starve government. Although details are scarce, there may be some movement toward creating a higher top bracket, although what incomes are impacted — and whether juicy write-offs will be pared — are not known. Other than that dim bright spot, the rest of the plan is bad news for working people.”
Blame is not marketable. Leadership is. We need to elect leaders who understand the world, people, economics, and change. The future is near and tomoorrow is closer.
There’s no such thing as “trickle down” unless you’re getting pissed on.
Please provide some actual, factual examples to prove your point. Just saying the same thing over and over doesn’t make it true. On one point I agree: Government taking money to give it back later is not an efficient way to “stimulate” the economy or anything, except government. On the other point of tax cuts, history tells a different story: The substantial tax cuts of JFK and Ronald Reagan, for example, were, in fact, followed by economic expansion, including more jobs, higher wages, and growth in revenue (taxes) to the government. Call it whatever you want but, allowing people to keep their own money works. Because people keep more of their own money, folks buy more things they need or want, businesses can purchase new equipment and hire new workers to expand their businesses, and more jobs, higher wages and more purchases contribute to higher revenue to government–even at a lower tax rate. This is not theory, it is history.
Stephen,
Thank you for writing. The one point you say we both agree on, was the point of the entire article. Trickle down doesn’t work. I didn’t say the same thing over and over. I reached back to start off with the debacle of Herbert Hoover to show that Trickle Down didn’t work in the 1930s and ended with a quotation from an article from Forbes to show that it won’t work now as well – https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwasik/2017/09/29/the-one-solid-lie-behind-the-trump-tax-plan/#54f19fb461b7 , but perhaps I could have used one more example: “Kansas embarked on its trickle-down experiment in 2012. Brownback slashed taxes across the board, calling his plan “a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy.” Five years later, the state’s economy is on life support, and government expenses are expected to outpace income by $1.1 billion through June 2019. Instead of a poster child for the small-government theories championed by economist Arthur Laffer, tax reform activist Grover Norquist and the rest of the Republican Party, Kansas has become a cautionary tale about what happens when you expose their economic ideas to sunlight.
Meanwhile, a state that Republicans love to mock – California – has done just the opposite. In November of 2012, the same year Kansas plunged into its tax-slashing experiment, more than 54% of California voters approved Proposition 30, a measure that temporarily raised income taxes for the state’s wealthiest residents and increased the sales tax in order to fund schools and pay down debt. The tax hikes helped California erase $27 billion in debt, and the state has since enjoyed some of the strongest economic growth in the country. (Of course that growth isn’t due to tax hikes alone; the state has a robust tech sector, among other factors.)” — http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-steyer-kansas-tax-cuts-brownback-california-20170622-story.html
Thanks again for reading AND commenting.
As one wealthy Seattle
Factory owner put it, I want everyone to be able to buy my pillows. I don’t need a tax break because I can only really use two pillows. But if middle class and poorer people get the tax breaks, they’ll each be able to buy more of my pillows and my business will thrive.
Andie,
So true. Money needs to be in the hands of consumers. Thanks for reading and for writing.
Don