Debate Over: Republicans choose Corporations over People! Period!

It's kinda ironic that those resentful "forgotten" voters everywhere are unfailingly behind Trump and Trump wannabe/impersonator Scott Walker. The Republican tax reform bill pushed by Paul Ryan just gave us our epiphanic moment. But will low information trolls be moved by their own instinctive twinges of self-preservation to change their minds?

Washington Democrat Suzan Delbene offered up a simple but striking comparison between the two parties. Can the Democratic message be this clear, and be repeated, in 2018?






Check out Jakes Economic TA Funhouse for analysis. Here's a taste:

As the House GOP tax bill was being debated in Committee this week, we were treated to this masterpiece of researching and framing questions by US Rep. Suzanne DelBene (D-Wash). In this clip Rep. DelBene is asking the Chief of the Joint Committee on Taxation (the independent organization in Congress that gives information about tax bills) about what types of expense deductions go away for individual workers like teachers and fire fighters who buy their own supplies, and contrasts it with the fact that corporations would still be able to write off the exact same expenses.

Tax Cuts = Jobs? Despite the body of evidence proving tax cuts don't create jobs, Republicans are sticking with their old mind-numbing talking point, because it's their biggest argument for trickle-down economics. NPR's Marketplace rips that to shreds:

Are you ready for a Supply-Side-Voodoo-Trickle-Down Economy, without health care, environmental and Wall Street regulations?

Warning!!! Trump and the Republican House and Senate are about to usher in a full scale switch to supple side economics. 

Supply side-voodoo-trickle down economics is the Republican Party. Fortunately for us, this failed policy is now out there for everybody to see, thanks to a number of troubling red state examples.

Kansas Comeback Kid Gov. Sam Brownback took trickle-down to its illogical limit and failed. Apparently, this is what the angry, frustrated, ignored, left behind American voters wanted, and will get in January. Guess they showed us..."We won:"  

Kansas: In February 2015, three years into the supply-side economics experiment that

would upend a once steady Midwestern economy, a budget hole appeared in Kansas’ finances. To fill it, Gov. Brownback took $45 million in public education funding ... took highway money to plug it ... state money for Medicaid coverage went into the hole, but the gap continued to grow.

Today, the state’s budget hole is $345 million and threatens the foundation of this state, which was supposed to be the setting for a grand economic expansion ... The yawning deficits were caused by huge tax cuts that were supposed to set the economy roaring. They didn’t. The budget shortfalls have been felt across the state, particularly by public schools ... Brownback has repeatedly pledged his faith in the free market. “We’re going to continue to grow the economy.”

A stern lesson in theory versus reality to other states contemplating the same free-market ideas. After five years of an economic crusade that has left its originator, Brownback, as the least popular governor in the nation.

You've heard all of these theories and empty promises before:

The state would thrive, he pledged, because the tax cuts would help keep businesses and smart, young Kansans in the state. It will pave the way to the creation of tens of thousands of new jobs, bring tens of thousands of people to Kansas, and help make our state the best place in America to start and grow a small business,” Brownback wrote in 2012. “It will leave more than a billion dollars in the hands of Kansans. An expanding economy and growing population will directly benefit our schools and local governments.”

Nope, didn't happen.

Revenue from income tax collections plummeted 22 percent. A separate repeal of taxes on partnerships and limited liability companies meant the surrender of 30 percent of state revenue. State revenue estimators project receipts ... down 7.4 percent from this year’s estimate ... the state did increase the sales tax ... the second-highest sales tax in the nation ... (but) Deflation is dropping the prices of goods and the taxes the state collects on them.

The Brownback solution, kill the messenger. Its what you don't know that will hurt you. And yet, this is what government looks like under Republican control:

Tired of the bleating horn of bad news, in September Brownback silenced a quarterly economic evaluation of the state that counted employment, unemployment, personal income and energy production, and consistently illustrated the state’s plunging revenues. He had done so before, in August 2015, when he ordered a halt to a semiannual economic report. “A lot of people were confused” by the reports, said Nicole Randall, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Commerce.

Cutting the people out of knowing what was really happening economically in Kansas was only a start. Purging State Supreme Court Justices for defending the language of state Constitution was also a weapon Republicans have no problem using:  

Conservative groups supporting Brownback responded by pushing five Supreme Court justices into brutal, expensive retention races to keep their seats. The targeted justices were retained by voters and are expected to rule this month on the adequacy and fairness of the public education system in a landmark case, Gannon v. Kansas, filed by four of the state’s poorest school districts.

Supply-Side Here we Come: Voters took a chance on Trump's promise to change things, essentially draining the swamp of just Democrats. Now the hardships are about to get dramatically worse, while the nation preoccupies itself debating the latest outrageous Trump tweet. Thank you America.  

Walker joins other "Trickle Down" states by losing jobs, ginning up Resentment!!!

In an odd twist of fate, the GOP created Great Recession actually swept Republicans into power in 2010.

Those same states are now convulsing from dramatic revenue shortfalls, debt, and deferred maintenance. Even worse, Republicans are insisting that more debt, deferred maintenance, tax cuts and spending cuts will solve their problems. All this, after already slashing education for the next generation of job seekers and insane handouts to corporate freeloaders laughing under their breaths about letting the "free market" work. Jokes on us.

Under Scott Walker, who made it much harder to get unemployment benefits so he could brag about those numbers too, the state turned away jobs they say are created by company's that commonly fit into the Democratic column. Sticking with the disappearing manufacturing base at the expense of diversification, Wisconsin has forced labor...and then businesses, to leave the state.

Wisconsin's three-month run of job growth was halted in April by the largest one-month loss in jobs in nearly seven years, 11,500. If the figures stand up to revisions, it will be the state's biggest monthly jobs drop since July 2009, during the Great Recession. In April, Wisconsin lost 4,200 manufacturing jobs, 0.9 percent of the total for the state's largest job sector, to return to a flat level of growth since last October.

And business are still fleeing (just sampling):

Old National Bancorp has notified state officials it plans to eliminate 140 full-time jobs, almost all of them in Madison ... Most of the positions will terminate in September.

Caterpillar Inc. said it is moving engineering and technology jobs from its mining equipment division in South Milwaukee to Tucson, Ariz.

But other ballyhoo'ed state templates for "trickle down prosperity" are sinking fast as well. The problem is, the national news doesn't cover the failed "comebacks," like in Indiana, which sounds a whole lot like Walker's scheme (except for evil clean energy):

Stride Rite had left Huntington for Mexico at the tail end of the recession; Breyers Ice Cream had closed its doors after 100 years.

In the weeks after each factory closing in his part of Indiana, union rep. Tom Lewandowski had listened to politicians make promises about jobs — high-tech jobs, right-to-work jobs, clean-energy jobs — but instead Indiana had lost 60,000 middle-class jobs in the past decade and replaced them with a surge of low-paying work in health care, hospitality and fast food.

Scott Walker has also taken aim at the middle class:

...with a dash of irony.

Wisconsin had a faster decline than any other state in the percentage of households in the middle class during the period 2000 to 2013.

Like Wisconsin, wages are depressed and lower: 

Wages of male high school graduates had dropped 19 percent in the past two decades, and the wealth divide between the middle class and the upper class had quadrupled. Fast-food consumption was beginning to tick up. Poverty was up.

Foreclosures were up. Meth usage up. Heroin up. Death rate up. An ideological crisis was spreading across Middle America as it continued its long fall into dependency: median wages down across the country, average income down, total wealth down in the past decade by 28 percent. 

For the first time ever, the vaunted middle class was not the country’s base but a disenfranchised minority, down from 61 percent of the population in the 1970s to just 49 percent as of last year. 

And now, desperate Republicans want plunge even deeper into trickle down, topped with more empty promises, by electing a huckster like Trump. If you hate government, thank a Republicans who made government worse. We now get to see it crash:

As a result of that decline, confusion was turning into fear. Fear was giving way to resentment. Resentment was hardening into a sense of outrage that was unhinging the country’s politics and upending a presidential election.

Trickle Down Voodoo Economic disaster in Louisiana under "Idiot" Jindal, so says Republican.

While stories like this keep rolling in, the national press doesn't get the connection between every Republican state and those that are tanking economically. Supply side is failing big time. 

Even though it's only one Republican sheriff asking for a reassessment of GOP policies, I'll take it:

Republican Sheriff Newell Normand might be a good ol’ boy from Jefferson Parish in Louisiana, but that didn’t stop him from lobbing a dose of reality at the Metropolitan Crime Commission’s annual awards luncheon on Tuesday. According to a video of the speech posted by WUVE, Normand bad-mouthed the GOP’s Beltway establishment and elected officials, notorious tax cutter Grover Norquist and called former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal an “idiot,” equating him to cult leader Jim Jones.

Normand fully admits that he endorsed and supported Jindal when he ran for governor, but that Jindal’s leadership destroyed the state that Normand holds dear. 

“What a mess. Bobby Jindal was a better cult leader than Jim Jones. We drank the elixir for eight years. We remained in a conscious state. We walked to the edge of the cliff and we jumped off and he watched us and guess what? Unlike Jim Jones he did not swallow the poison. What a shame.

We have to just say no! I’m a Republican but I’m not a hypocrite. We have to look at ourselves critically as a party and figure out where we are and what we’re going to be about. We do not need to face the stupidity of our leadership as it relates to how we’re going to face balancing this budget and talking about these silly issues because we’re worried about what Grover Norquist thinks. To hell with Grover Norquist! I don’t care about Grover Norquist!

We’re worried about the ATR report card. And I have to listen to my Republican counterparts talk about gobbledigook. Blah, blah blah… And I’m so sick and tired of hearing: Obama, Obama, Obama. You know how much intellect it takes to blame something on somebody else? This much! Propose a solution. Work together.” He closed by comparing politics to being married and asked how many people in the audience refuse to compromise in their marriages.

 Here's part of the address by the new Louisiana Democratic Governor, John Bel Edwards with the really bad news:

Ryan confused? Accuses Obama of...Trickle Down Economics?

Paul Ryan just admitted that trickle down economics is bad, which is honest and good.

I thought it was surreal enough when I heard Ryan whine on and on about wage stagnation, when he's done everything he can to make it worse. But now in a fevered moment of projection, he's blaming Obama for the GOP's radical trickle down agenda. Stunningly, he's saying trickle down is bad, and giving it Obama face:

It's "Trickle Down" Obama! 

A reporter asked Ryan if he believes the president “deserves any credit at all” for economic improvements. The Republican Speaker responded, “I think the Federal Reserve has done more. And by the way, I think the Federal Reserve has given us, in combination with Obama policies, more regulations, higher taxes, more uncertainty; has given us trickle-down economics.”

Sounds really bad...for Ryan and the Republicans. 

But this isn't the first time Ryan has tried to do the old "switcheroo," taking the worst of the Republican Party, and making seem really Democratic. Remember Obama's push for "crony capitalism?" I know, I missed that too:

President Barack Obama’s most recent tax overhaul for corporations is just “crony capitalism,” Rep. Paul Ryan says. “It’s a raw deal and I think it’s more crony capitalism. The president likes to pick winners and losers. He lets some businesses off the hook…”

Sorry, that didn't make any sense. Thomas Frank's wrote this about Ryan's pretzel logic:

Government, in Mr. Ryan's view, is alternately the tool and the terror of big business, doing one firm's bidding as it crushes another one. The solution is to get government out of the game altogether ... the tail-chasing logic behind the "down with big business" rhetoric. 

MSNBC's Steve Benen also noticed how Ryan now suddenly and conveniently appreciates the Federal Reserve:

What is important is that Ryan’s explanation is gibberish. Consider the Speaker’s argument broken down into its component parts:

1. Paul Ryan opposes the Fed’s recent monetary policies.2. Paul Ryan believes the Fed’s recent monetary policies are bad for the economy.3. Asked about positive economic developments, Paul Ryan credits the policies he doesn’t support.

About a year ago, Paul Krugman described Ryan’s understanding of monetary policy as “craziness.” The assessment continues to be fair.

Benen rightfully concludes...

Paul Ryan doesn’t get to complain about trickle-down economics; Paul Ryan is a champion of trickle-down economics.

Jeb Bush's Trickle Down Plan Forces Cuts to Safety Net Programs.

Republicans are back at it again, proposing massive tax cuts that will only result in massive revenue shortfalls.

Now it's Jeb Bush's turn to offer up another crisis creating trickle down budget.

That means cutting social safety net programs like Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, education, etc.. This is getting so old.

Economist Jared Bernstein wrote this about the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center analysis of Jeb Bush’s proposed tax cuts. The TPC’s findings:

First, the Bush plan lowers tax rates on both individuals and businesses, on both earnings and investment income. It repeals the estate tax, and shifts to a territorial system for multi-national corporations (meaning they don’t have to pay U.S. taxes on foreign earnings). 

TPC estimates that the plan would lose $6.8 trillion in the first decade relative to the current tax code, and $8.6 trillion in the next decade; that’s 2.6 and 2.3 percent of expected GDP over these years. 

And because this is another iteration of trickle down economics, the trillion dollar budget losses will be offset magically with cuts to discretionary spending, which really isn't discretionary at all.

Creating a Budget Crisis to Cut our Safety Nets: As the TPC pointed out:

If the deficit effect is as large as we estimate, government borrowing would push up interest rates and crowd out private investment, possibly offsetting some or all of the positive incentive effects. The campaign has said it intends to cut spending to offset any revenue loss from its tax cuts. Offsetting a deficit this large would require very large cuts in entitlement and discretionary spending.

Take a look at who benefits again in the chart. Big surprise? Still, conservative voters don't mind getting the tax cuts scraps. Behold the results of supply side economics:

Republicans target government, roll out Voodoo Economic.

Sen. Bernie Sanders got it right. It's dynamic scoring and the GOP's voodoo economic deceit, where a repeat of their failed policy will eventually make anyone hate government. PoliticusUSA:

The senator said the main reason Republicans want to change the budget rule is to disguise the impact of their plan.

The Republicans are politicizing the budget process in a way that will undermine the credibility of the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation, which have provided unbiased, nonpartisan analysis on the cost of tax and spending bills.

Republicans are refusing to face the reality that tax cuts for the wealthy don’t grow the economy. Instead, they are trying to rewrite the rules in order to hide their policy failures. 

Howard Dean didn't hold back either, warning Americans Republicans will now easily invent growth with magical dynamic scoring, all the while spending money:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Voodoo Supply Side Trickle Down Economics.

For Republican voters, it's worth thinking about...

Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) delivered a scathing critique of trickle-down economics in which she cited former President George H.W. Bush:

"Since the 1980s, too many of the people running this country have followed one form or another of supply side — or trickle-down — economic theory. Many in Washington still support it. When all the varnish is removed, trickle-down just means helping the biggest corporations and the richest people in this country, and claiming that those big corporations and rich people could be counted to create an economy that would work for everyone else. Trickle-down was popular with big corporations and their lobbyists, but it never really made much sense."

She noted that the senior president Bush called it "voodoo economics."

"He was right, and let’s call it out for what it is: Trickle-down was nothing more than the politics of helping the rich-and-powerful get richer and more powerful, and it cut the legs out from under America’s middle class. Pretty much the whole Republican Party – and, if we’re going to be honest, too many Democrats – talked about the evils of 'big government' and called for deregulation. It sounded good, but it was really about tying the hands of regulators and turning loose big banks and giant international corporations to do whatever they wanted to do—turning them loose to rig the markets and reduce competition, to outsource more jobs, to load up on more risks and hide behind taxpayer guarantees, to sell more mortgages and credit cards that cheated people. In short, to do whatever juiced short term profits even if it came at the expense of working families. The trickle-down experiment that began in the Reagan years failed America's middle class. Sure, the rich are doing great. Giant corporations are doing great. Lobbyists are doing great. But we need an economy where everyone else who works hard gets a shot at doing great!"

Ah, Dynamic Scoring and the Magic of Trickle Down Economics about to transform the Country....

From Common Dreams, I thought this description of trickle down economics by Robert Reich said it all. I've also included the video admission by Alan Greenspan that deregulation and trickle down was a failure, for those still not convinced. Tax cuts and deregulation are conservative concepts that go hand-in-hand. Our incoming Republican majority will be doubling down on their past failures. They're going to make this work if it kills us:  

Reich: According to reports, one of the first acts of the Republican congress will be to fire Doug Elmendorf, current director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, because he won’t use “dynamic scoring” for his economic projections. Dynamic scoring is the magical-mystery math Republicans have been pushing since they came up with supply-side “trickle-down” economics.

It’s based on the belief that cutting taxes unleashes economic growth and thereby produces additional government revenue. Supposedly the added revenue more than makes up for what’s lost when Congress hands out the tax cuts. Dynamic scoring would make it easier to enact tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, because the tax cuts wouldn’t look as if they increased the budget deficit.

Incoming House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) calls it “reality-based scoring,” but it’s actually magical scoring – which is why Elmendorf, as well as all previous CBO directors have rejected it.

Few economic theories have been as thoroughly tested in the real world as supply-side economics, and so notoriously failed: Ronald Reagan cut the top income tax rate from 70 percent to 28 percent and ended up nearly doubling the national debt. His first budget director, David Stockman, later confessed he dealt with embarrassing questions about future deficits with “magic asterisks” in the budgets submitted to Congress. The Congressional Budget Office didn’t buy them. George W. Bush inherited a budget surplus from Bill Clinton but then slashed taxes, mostly on the rich. The CBO found that the Bush tax cuts reduced revenues by $3 trillion.

Yet Republicans don’t want to admit supply-side economics is hokum. The CBO has continued to be a truth-telling thorn in the Republican’s side.

The budget plan Paul Ryan came up with in 2012 slashed Medicaid, cut taxes on the rich and on corporations, and replaced Medicare with a less well-funded voucher plan. Ryan claimed these measures would reduce the deficit. The Congressional Budget Office disagreed. His 2013 and 2014 budget proposals were similarly filled with magic asterisks. The CBO still wasn’t impressed. Now that Elmendorf is on the way out, presumably to be replaced by someone willing to tell Ryan and other Republicans what they’d like to hear, the way has been cleared for all the magic they can muster. Or have your benefactors finance “think tanks” filled with hired guns who will tell the public what you and your patrons want them to say. 

Hillary Clinton still crushes "Job Creator" myth.

Job creator is a marketing term for "filthy rich" and "greedy corporate CEO." It sounds so friendly.

Hillary Clinton doesn't have to apologize for telling the truth about "job creators" either.

Consumer demand creates jobs. It’s a pretty simple thing to understand, right? Not for numbskull conservatives. Here's how it works simpletons:

Things that are sold need to be replaced, and if demand is up, businesses hire more employees to keep up with that demand. That’s job creation. Even more mind blowing; consumers also supply business with employees. Without consumers, business would die.

But the comments from previous stories about Hillary Clinton’s statement are telling me GOP voters believe instead in free market Santa Claus's...benevolent corporate bosses. Businesses hire the poor unemployed sap because they feel charitable, even if it hurts their bottom line. Sure they do.

Republicans Gasped in Horror: The fallout continues, and it can only end badly for Republicans. This is not the debate they want to have. Yet the following is so ridiculous...:

The former secretary of state is as prone to putting her foot in her mouth as any other prominent political figure. Clinton tripped over her tongue by saying business don’t create jobs. “Don’t let anybody tell you it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs,” Clinton said, contradicting what she has written in several books and in her decades of public service. By Monday, the gaffe had mushroomed into a full-blown political controversy the likes of which haven’t been seen since 2012’s infamous “you didn’t build that.” 

Infamous "you didn't build that?" Of course Obama never said that, so it can't be infamous. But Clinton is a Democrat, and should havetold Republicans to go to hell, but instead tried to make things right...a liberal weakness:

Clinton meant to say that tax breaks for corporations and businesses don’t create jobs, as she later explained. But Republicans saw the remark as revealing Clinton’s inner leftist ... Talk of the gaffe dominated conservative blogs and broadcasts, as outside groups piled on. Every presidential candidate will face manufactured controversy, but usually not before the previous election has concluded. its notable that her ventures on the campaign trail for Democrats has been mostly flawless – until Friday.

There's nothing wrong with our "inner leftist," unless the media makes it seem like there is, which was done here. But laughably, a Bloomberg columnist tried to “nail” Hillary for contradicting herself. She actually didn't in the quoted passages below, because American companies in foreign countries would only “create jobs” to keep up withconsumer demand there, and not out of charity.

That's an acrobatic pivot from what Clinton wrote in "Hard Choices." As she wrote in one passage:“There were still too many barriers and restrictions, but American companies were slowly gaining access to Indian markets, creating jobs and opportunities for people in both countries.”

Here's another example, where "job creator" again refers to consumer demand in a foreign market:

“We had worked with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to organize the trip because more trade between America and South Africa promised to create jobs and opportunities in both countries.”

And then there's Chapter 22, "Jobs and Energy: A Level Playing Field," which details Clinton's work to help American companies compete abroad.

“When I became Secretary in 2009, I focused on two big questions about the global economy: Could we sustain and create good jobs at home and help speed our recovery by opening new markets and boosting exports? ... And were we going to let China and other relatively closed markets continue to rewrite the rules of the global economy in a way that would surely disadvantage our workers and companies?”

There is a disconnect, and I'm still trying to distill all of this in just a line or two. Thanks to Hillary, our chance to clarify our thoughts is coming.  

Fox News Heads Explode, part 2: Clinton called names as proof she's wrong.

Hillary Clinton stirred up a bees nest dissing trickle down, supply side economics. 

"And don't let anybody tell you, that, you know, it's corporations and businesses that create jobs. You know, that old theory, trickle-down economics. That has been tried. That has failed. That has failed rather spectacularly."

In the most stunning and amazing example of “projection,” ever, I was directed by an anonymous conservative in the comment section to this website that supposedly offered a rebuttal to Hillary. The clueless GOP base is actually described perfectly in the article.

What conservatives don’t understand is, wait for it, is consumer DEMAND. Consumers have all the power. But the wealthy elite and corporate CEO’s, marketed as “job creators,” don’t want the riff raff to know that they need us desperately, and depend on demand.

   

Projection? See if you agree. It’s jaw dropping Bizarro World supply side stuff that doesn't offer one solid fact or rebuttal. Just name calling. It's laughable stuff:

Hillary — Are You Ignorant, Stupid or Just a Demagogue? Ignorance seems to be overwhelming everything. Nowhere is that more apparent than in basic economics. The political class uses economic ignorance as the basis for wild claims. So where do jobs come from? Do they just happen, sort of like Ebola? Or, as many politicians would want you to believe, are they created by government? Clinton’s statement above is dependent upon extreme ignorance, or even plain stupidity. If she truly believes it, then she is stupid. (With her background, it is impossible to claim she is ignorant.) Thus, for her to issue such a statement reflects either stupidity or duplicity. Either, in my opinion, disqualifies someone from my vote … If it doesn't represent stupidity than it is demagoguery of the worst kind. Neither deserves voting support.

Let's take a shot at public education for not teaching trickle down economics:

Sadly, ignorance regarding basic economics … we can thank our public schools. Just as Catholic schools do not teach the Muslim religion, government-run schools do not teach free markets. Perhaps it is no accident that the declining school standards are not corrected. Neither political party seems concerned with remedying the process which converts the raw material of our future into functioning citizens.

Yea, my kid is a “raw material.” Wow. I know, it’s truly beyond outrageous. Here’s projection that goes off the Richter scale:

As in so many other aspects of government, H. L. Mencken appears to have gotten it right: The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. In the great predatory game of politics, it is the citizen who is the prey.

Would it be stupid to compare the number of working Americans just before the Great Recession to the jobs situation right now? Of course, but it’s a trick conservative minds won’t pick up on:

The miminum-wage bill for which Hillary Clinton voted passed in 2007 and took effect in stages, beginning that summer. In June 2007, the Household Survey of the BLS showed that the US economy had 146.063 million jobs in June 2007, just before the increase took place. Last month’s data showed that the US economy had 146.6 million jobs — an increase of less than 500,000 in over 7 years, not “millions of jobs” as Hillary claims here.

The fact that Clinton added nearly 21 million jobs is somehow lost in the mix, while later they did mention Reagan’s total. Funny thing isn't it? And CNN embarrassed themselves:

CNN host John King presented Clinton's comments as a fumble "a little reminiscent there of Mitt Romney saying corporations are people, too," and USA Today called the comments "An odd moment from Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail Friday - and one she may regret."

That was like Romney? Clinton also said this:

"One of the things my husband says, when people say, what did you bring to Washington? He says, well I brought arithmetic. And part of it was he demonstrated why trickle down should be consigned to the trash bin of history. More tax cuts for the top and for companies that ship jobs over seas while taxpayers and voters are stuck paying the freight just doesn't add up."

Here's the argument for "demand:"

 U.S. economic growth has historically relied on consumer spending, and middle class consumers are "the true job creators," Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz points out. Right now, the U.S. economy is "demand-starved," as Economic Policy Institute's (EPI) Joshua Smith puts it. Steiglitz says that, of all the problems facing the U.S. economy, "The most immediate is that our middle class is too weak to support the consumer spending that has historically driven our economic growth."

Wisconsin Congressmen try to put Voodoo Economic Spell on CBO!

Supply-side Economics: 1992 presidential candidate Ross Perot was right to call it voodoo economics. Supply-siders are still convinced cutting taxes (government revenues), increase...government revenues. It’s magic.

We’re seeing this play out in Wisconsin, where “job creating” businesses has gotten everything they wanted from Scott Walker, from major tax cuts to tort reform, all without holding up their side of the bargain…jobs, jobs, jobs. And the GOP has yet to ask them to put up or shut up.

After the Reagan and George W. deficits, with a lot of help from the free market experiment that brought us the Great Recession, the only way to get people to accept supply-side was to make it into an actual law and force the CBO to use it.  

‘DYNAMIC SCORING’ BUDGET DOCTRINE: Voting 224 for and 182 against, the House on Friday passed a GOP bill (HR 1874) requiring the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to add “dynamic scoring” to its tools for forecasting the impact of proposed legislation on U.S. economic growth. A tenet of supply-side economics, dynamic scoring holds that tax and spending cuts always pay for themselves by stimulating economic activity. But the CBO, reflecting the views of mainstream economists, does not recognize dynamic scoring as empirically valid, and instead uses what is known as “static scoring” to forecast economic impacts. 

Voting yes to make their fantasy economic dream come true were Ryan, Sensenbrenner, Petri, Duffy, and Ribble. Polls show Americans might like to try this magical potion. 

In researching this failed economic BS, I came across another term; the horse and sparrow theory:

The economist John Kenneth Galbraith noted that "trickle-down economics" had been tried before in the United States in the 1890s under the name "horse and sparrow theory." He wrote, "Mr. David Stockman has said that supply-side economics was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy—what an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: 'If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.'"

Or this...

A 2012 study by the Tax Justice Network indicates that wealth of the super-rich does not trickle down to improve the economy, but tends to be amassed and sheltered in tax havens with a negative effect on the tax bases of the home economy.

And finally:

In 1896, Democratic Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan made reference to trickle-down theory in his famous "Cross of Gold" speech:

"There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it."

Bursting Sykes' Bubble! Outside the "Right Wing Authoritarian" Echo Chamber.

I once thought Charlie Sykes had at least some credibility. But the truth is, conservatives really don’t see their flaws, their mistakes and their continued economic failures. Their shit don't stink.

I suppose to some, corporate tax cuts and tort reform isn't considered a handout...corporate welfare. But to me, it tops the list of entitlements big business freeloaders get at the expense of ever day taxpayers.

Simpleton Sykes speaks out: In what Sykes describes as a few “quick thoughts” on a belatedly
released jobs plan by candidate Mary Burke (didn't she know there was a GOP time limit?), it turns out to be nothing more than more conservative projection. My answer follows Sykes, reminding him of a few laws passed and proposed:

Sykes: “Same old pap. Recycling isn't just for plastic bottles anymore; it apparently also works for worn out, tired ideas.” Funny, we could say the same thing about trickle down economics filled with the same old ineffective tax cuts that never actually create jobs. Burke’s minimum wage hike would at least encourage spending, create demand and then produce jobs.

Sykes: “Most of Burke's ideas start from the philosophy that government can direct the economy instead of the philosophy that government should get out of the way of the free market.” Right, directing tax cuts toward manufacturing and agriculture, deregulating and streamlining permits, and exempting corporations from liability is, according to Sykes, getting government out of the way.

Sykes: “Despite a long history of failures, folks like Burke are still relying on central planners instead of the free market.” What failure? Unemployment was down during Burke’s tenure, and Doyle was tenth in job creation before Walker tanked the number. And what would be more “central planned” than the one size fits all state wide laws banning paid sick leave, minimum wage hikes and local sand mine regulation? Or how about usurping local control over cell tower locations, roundabouts, early voting. And don’t forget the tax cuts, tort reform and help from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. Odd, Walker hasn’t asked big business to show the beef…you know, the jobs. We've been waiting 3 and half years. I know, they're now uncertain about Walker's future as governor. Those pesky elections. Can we change that next time around?

Study: "Having a Republican Governor is Associated with Lower Rates of Growth!" Walker's Austerity and Tax Cuts Folly Proof.

Trickle-down true believers continue to repeat their voodoo incantations, despite overwhelming proof they've been wrong for years. Now the new real world numbers are in, again, and the news is even more unsettling.

This embarrassingly clueless comment from state Rep. Dale Kooyenga, who like Dumb Ron Johnson is a former and failed accountant, is just more gut wrenching trickle down BS:

But Kooyenga's theory is so very wrong. Low tax states don't do better, but states with liberal governors? See for yourself:

The Atlantic: The idea that lower income taxes spur economic development is a mantra for many Republicans and fiscal conservatives ... lower tax rates provide the needed financial incentives that attract capital, entrepreneurs, businesses, and talented people. But is this actually true?

A new study by Tulane's James Alm and Janet Rogers of Nevada's Department of Budget and Planning takes a close look at the effects of tax and spending policies at the state level. Entitled "Do State Fiscal Policies Affect State Economic Growth?", it examines 50 years of data (from 1947 to 1997), tracking  the effects of state tax policies, spending policies, and political orientation on economic growth. 

Get ready for "the bomb:"

They found "moderately strong evidence" that a "state's political orientation, as indicated by whether the governor is Republican or Democrat, whether the state has enacted tax and expenditure limitation legislation, and whether the state frequently elects a governor of the same party as the incumbent, have consistent, measurable, and significant effects on economic growth."  

And then they drop their bombshell: "Having a Republican governor," they conclude, "is associated with lower rates of growth." They qualify their conclusions slightly--but only slightly--noting that past measurement errors may have introduced some distortions into the record.

Taken together, these findings seem to support the spending orientation favored by liberals and pose a rather stark challenge to Republican governors who are embracing austerity.

Ron Johnson's War on the People's Government.

Ron Johnson's caricature of Gary Cooper's performance in the Ayn Rand movie "Fountainhead" is getting on my nerves. Case in point, the debt ceiling.

Johnson now wants a do over. Driven solely by his economic philosophy, Johnson wants trickle down economics on steroids. Johnson also believes health care for all is a bigger threat to our nation than communism.

Interviewer Al Hunt stumps Johnson time and time again with just a basic list of questions that shouldn't flummox this simpleton from Wisconsin:

Johnson: "We'll increase the debt ceiling upon certification that we've actually passed a Constitutional Amendment that will limit spending, and eventually lead to a balanced budget...and let the people decide." 

The constitutional Amendment doesn't allow the people to decide. This "cap" has been described as:

"a fiscal straitjacket" that would result in $7.6 trillion less spending over 10 years.

That would make congress unable to stimulate the economy, putting in place a constitutional mandate of trickle down economics. Just as bad, it would permanently cut Social Security. How easy was that?

If Congress failed to live within those means, the Office of Management and Budget would make evenly distributed cuts throughout the federal budget … Social Security would be counted as part of the federal budget and subject to cuts if overall spending is not reduced to the target level. 

And to stimulate business and consumer spending while the government is in shutdown?

Johnson: "We'll pay the rest of ya, 60 cents on the dollar, until we reorganize, until we actually fix the problem."

Hunt: "So IRS refunds might be only 60 percent, Wisconsin farm payments would only be 60 percent."

Johnson: "For a couple of weeks, until we actually fix the problem."

The nations debt, fixed in a couple of weeks...oh my god. Johnson also attributes Clinton's job creation on the Reagan tax cuts for business. Never mind the swelling debt that resulted, and the many tax increases after wards. Never mind the tax increase passed by Clinton and the Democratic congress without one Republican vote...never mind.