I'm always surprised that tax cuts for wealthy corporations and individuals aren't more unpopular than they are, like "uprising" unpopular. But if/when the debate arises in our social and political discourse the ones defending these tax cuts have only one arrow in their quiver: Trickle down economics. The unfortunate reality is that the only thing that seems to trickle down from above is this kind of bull shit. The false premise behind this theory is that wealthy people will spend more of their money if they don't have to pay so much to the IRS. If you replace the word "wealthy" with the word "poor" the statement is demonstrably true. Poor people love to shop, even if it's for basic necessities and not the fun stuff like cars and high def flat screen televisions. Rich people already have everything they need and most of everything they could ever want, but they do want more money even if they'll never feasibly need it.
Most people around the world do not consider their "worth", most people don't even have a savings account. For the upper class of this aristocratic planet there is no end to the status symbols and trophy possessions they can acquire, but with money they actually have a numeric system for their wealth and power. The wealthy want something most people have never dreamed of, they want to be on the Forbes list of the 400 richest people in America. They have a pile of money and they are carefully grooming and growing it, never satisfied with being mere millionaires. There is an art to growing your net worth and a major part of the skill required is eliminating leaks and holes where their money slips away. Money does not trickle down the social ladder, it goes specifically where it is needed to maintain and grow the power of the rich. And the more money they add to their net worth, the less there is in circulation for the people who need it for basic survival.
Of course "trickle down" is meant as a metaphor, nobody actually believes money is a liquid subject to gravity. So let's follow this metaphor to discover (or uncover) the mentality of it. What sorts of life forms live off of the water that trickles down to them? Crustaceans? Rats? Insects? What is America, a castle and most of us live in the dungeon? And where is the money? Shouldn't it just be raining money outside with no obligation, no strings attached? Many people have found similar fault with the word "trickle" but what about the word "down?" Are the rich exposing their true colors by putting themselves above the rest of us? I happen to believe that the rich are beneath the poor, or as Jesus called us: The Meek. And if you rejigger "trickle down economics" it can actually make a lot of sense. Money does trickle down from the workers who actually earn it to the bottom feeders who "own" everything.
Contrary to Orwellian belief, the rich do not have more because they work harder. Those who work the hardest have the least and those who work the least have the most. It's a simple fact that no person can become a millionaire on an hourly wage, a lifetime is not long enough even with double over time. The wealthy are literally (not metaphorically or hyperbolically) parasites on the planetary population of hard working souls, and when a host is asked to live off of what trickles down from a parasite the host is near death. "But wait" you say "The rich are the ones who give us jobs!" The rich do not take their personal wealth and put it into creating jobs, they invest it in limited liability corporations who move jobs overseas to maximize profits. And middle class business owners don't put their private wealth into the payroll system either, they rely almost exclusively on credit from banks to pay workers. The banks took our 700 Billion dollar bailout on the promise that they would use it to extend credit for this purpose, it's too bad we didn't get it in writing.
So how is this connected to our current situation? Well we may be rid of Bush but we still have the Bush tax cuts, the most blatant giveaway to the wealthy in my lifetime. And now we have several states following the union busting class warfare of recently erected governor of Wisconsin, Scott (The Imperial) Walker. Scott Walker walked into a budget due for a surplus and immediately gave corporations over 100 million dollars in tax breaks to encourage them to come to the state. He then demanded the money from workers and pushed for the quick passage of a bill that would take away unions collective bargaining rights effectively destroying the unions. So we may not be hearing about trickle down economics specifically, but we are hearing the part about the wealthy corporations being the giver of jobs, when in fact they take them away at every opportunity. So the supporters of Scott Walker are claiming that the unions are responsible for chasing away the corporations and compelling them to move jobs to China where the people aren't overpaid and under worked.
The wealthy calling the unions over paid and under worked is the height of absurdity, irony, and of course, classic republican hypocrisy.
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