Trickle-Down Only Works In Sinks

Prisoners await their turn at parole. Those unrightfully sentenced await exoneration. The Pope bid his time as Michelangelo finished the Sistine Chapel.

For 30 years I have awaited the Word – the hope I’ve harbored since 1981. The hope that someone would refute and condemn President Reagan’s hard-held belief that if you cut taxes to the rich, somehow (like chasing a rainbow to find the pot of gold after a summer storm), wealth would somehow “trickle” down to the poor.

This “belief” coming from a president that literally destroyed the efforts of his predecessor, Jimmy Carter.  He destroyed Carter’s wonderful work to bolster the Office of Education to make college education affordable for some of the poor folks, such as yours truly, and to place a college degree within reach for anybody who wanted to work. Forget the Berlin Wall -- Reagan tore the walls down to the Office of Education, and I escaped from his “reforms,” barely completing my degree in 1982.

So it was with great relief that I heard the words of His Excellency, Pope Benedict XVI, condemn Reaganomics and the trickle-down theory.

Check this out from the NPR Radio Website,
click here:
“Those who read the pope's 2009 encyclical ‘Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth)’ will not be surprised by this new document. In that encyclical, the Pope decried ‘corruption and illegality’ among economic and political elites in both rich and poor countries. He told financiers they must rediscover the ethical foundation of their activity and stop abusing savers. He wants a radical rethinking of economics so that it is guided not simply by profits but by ‘an ethics which is people-centered.’

“Benedict notes that economic ‘inequalities are on the increase across the globe. He does not accept the trickle-down theory, which says that all boats will rise with the economic tide. Benedict condemns the ‘scandal of glaring inequalities’ and sees a role for government in the redistribution of wealth.

“Yes, you heard that right. The pope favors the redistribution of wealth. When was the last time you heard a liberal Democrat use those words?”

So in the Pope’s words, the words of God’s Representative on Earth, it is simply not enough for companies to look solely at profits. Corporations must consider the impact of those company policies on the humans that depend on them. God’s Representative, the Voice of God, has condemned this idiocy.

Who came up with this “trickle-down” concept in the first place?

Well, it goes back – way back to President Calvin Coolidge, as part of some government reforms post-World War I. In the near present-day, trickle-down economics’ (TDE) biggest proponent was David Alan Stockman, President Reagan’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, in the early 1980s.

The real-world experience of trying to implement this bizarre strategy of “supply-side economics” or TDE has caused its own demise.

So where am I going?

Well, look where the Pope COMES from.

He grew up in Germany, a very socialist place. A place we ignore, for the most part, because we are frightened of the term “socialism.” We love our capitalist-crazy U.S. of A. A country in which there is no mandated vacation (in Germany there is), a country with no national health care (in Germany there is), where education is extremely costly (by the way, it’s free in Germany), and where people get one mandatory week at the spa. (Wait, only in Germany.)

What is to love about this country, compared to Germany?

Germany instituted the VAT – value-added tax. This simply means if you can afford a yacht, you can afford to pay for social programs. Period. A way to make the rich pay for social services. Brilliant, huh?

Now THAT’s trickle-down!

Owe it to the Germans to come up with this.

Now we have Mitt Romney running for president. He supports “Romneyism,” the belief that the poor are taken care of already, we have enough social institutions to take care of them, and all we really care about are the rich. Romneyism is the ideology of putting the rich first, and making no mistake about it. Romneyism is blunt and blatant about declaring the rich the country’s number one priority.

And this is what the Republicans are giving us?

Trust me, when it comes to Germany-style socialism, perhaps as a result of Romneyism, the U.S. is not far behind. We will have a VAT within 15 years. Count on it. I think we will have no choice, the way this country is going.

Because for now, it’s only trickle-up -- and trickle up, if we continue to have anything to do with the idiocy called Reaganomics, it will remain.