‘Trickle-down’ effect has failed for second time

Vernos Branco, Las Vegas

Monday, July 5, 2010 | 2:03 a.m.

A friend of mine recently told me that those in the middle class who vote against their own best interest — by electing people who support corporate America — cause middle class enslavement.

According to The Wall Street Journal, George W. Bush had the worst track record of creating jobs among recent presidents — only 3 million in eight years. Did we have “trickle down” economics, creating more jobs? No, we didn’t.

We ended with an economic collapse, higher unemployment and a middle class bailing out huge corporations. The huge tax cuts given to the wealthiest only accomplished shortchanging the economy.

This is the second time this particular experiment has been tried.

Under Ronald Reagan, the beginning of stagnating middle class wages, the same attempt to make the wealthiest even wealthier failed. “Trickle down economics” was paraphrased by George H.W. Bush, when he ran against Reagan in the Republican presidential primaries in 1980, as “voodoo economics.” It seems he was correct in using that phrase. Too bad his son didn’t pay attention.

If the government forced the wealthiest to pay their fair share of taxes, cutting out the loopholes and offshore accounts, and we stopped shipping American jobs overseas, we could recover from the present situation more quickly.

To add to the restructuring of our economy, we could stop wasteful spending on antiquated war machines and give outsourced military contracts back to the military. We shouldn’t have more civilian contractors overseas than military personnel.