As our country reaches a social and economic crossroads, one thing becomes clear. It’s time for the free marketers and trickle down theorists to prove or disprove their own theory.
We have given the supply-siders almost thirty years. We were sold a mindset that said, basically, "If you give the richest of the rich enough of the breaks they ask for, a reward will come trickling down to everyone in society in the form of reinvestment in American industry and infrastructure", which translates to, in part, "additional employment opportunities further down the food chain." This theory made sense to us in the middle class, because this idea came from the same people (in that upper 5%) that hired our parents and created the great middle class that was so strong after the Second World War.
The economic landscape had changed drastically at the end of the 1970s. We weren’t pouring steel or making as many cars as we were in the previous generation. So the kids who were blessed with the means to get a higher education were told that the future jobs were in information movement, not making Thunderbirds. It made complete sense.
That’s where we began to go off the rails. The upper 5%, in all of their capitalistic glory, discovered you could get a guy in Bangalore to do the work cheaper than you could a guy in Baltimore. As corporate profits soared, the job market in the good ol’ USA shrank and shrank. Union busting became the norm. Labor was blamed as an increasing expense item rather than an investment. As corporate profits soared, that same upper 5% saw their wealth increase by more than 200%, Joe the welder and Brenda the teacher saw their value stagnate, and sometimes go through patches of foreclosure and bankruptcy. As Exxon Mobil racked up the largest profit in the history of money in three quarters out of four in 2008, Americans were filing bankruptcy, and losing their houses for the sin of getting sick or having an accident.
You can’t say that tax cutting has not worked. There are plenty of folks who have done quite well because of it. That’s not the point I’m trying to argue here. What I’m saying is, we were told (By Reagan and his ilk) that if we gave away the store, deregulated everything so you can more freely wield that dangerous weapon called ‘big C’ Capitalism, eventually some of it would trickle down to society in general. So far, the numbers show that it hasn’t. In fact, many "capitalists" have found themselves in jail, or considered general pariahs because of their greedy ways. One way to quiet the critics is to play fairly and give back to the system that made your wallets so fat. (I’m looking at you, upper 5%.) Single Payer Healthcare would do it for me. Paid for mostly by those who have benefited so greatly from the slash-and-burn fiscal policy of the past thirty years. But we most certainly won’t get that. Now, we in the middle are fighting like hell just to get some kind of meaningful reform in order to survive. Roughly 3 out of 4 Americans want it. We would much rather spend our money on this instead of continually blowing up the Middle East and Central Asia. We get it, you disagree. You’re making way too much money to let it go without a fight. You don’t need to send any more yokels out to disrupt the debate. At least let us HAVE THE DEBATE. This would be a relatively painless way to show that your theory can work, if the right people are in place. It’s time you kept up your end of the bargain,and trickle some down this way.
Looking at the corporate P & Ls over the past 30 years, and comparing that to what my 401k looks like today, I’d say we, in the other 95%, have kept ours.