The Tax Cuts For The Rich

The cuts were based on a theory that the rich would invest capital productively and this would create wealth which would trickle down to the other members of society. This theory was espoused by Ronald Reagan and may well have been valid in his time. First, the "trickle down" is a trickle, not a flow. The unfortunate simile one thinks of is "molasses in January". Second, there was always a sort of unstated assumption that the money would be invested in wealth producing activities in the United States. With the advent of globalization under Bush I and Clinton I, this assumption was proven less and less true. Even if the money is invested in US companies, the jobs go overseas and the profits accrue solely to the shareholders, who, by the by, are the wealthy class. The wealth stays where it started, with the wealthy, or it goes abroad, and peoples of foreign climes stand at the spigot to catch the "trickle" which is left over. It reminds me of the Colorado River which exhausts itself in the desert and no longer flows mightily to the sea.