Trickle-down economics is the mistaken idea that giving money to the wealthiest individuals/companies helps the entire economy, as those individuals/companies are the best able to leverage each dollar to produce value for everyone else ('the money put in to the top trickles down to everyone even at the bottom').
It has definitely been used to push such policy decisions. Whether it was honestly held by those pushing it on TV, or by those who voted for them, is hard to discern.
> “Years ago, this column challenged anybody to quote any economist outside of an insane asylum who had ever advocated this ‘trickle-down’ theory. Some readers said that somebody said that somebody else had advocated a ‘trickle-down’ policy. But they could never name that somebody else and quote them.”
> Further, Sowell notes: “The ‘trickle-down’ theory cannot be found in even the most voluminous scholarly studies of economic theories — including J.A. Schumpeter’s monumental History of Economic Analysis, more than a thousand pages long and printed in very small type.”
No judgement implied on the economic matters at hand. Just on the matter that 'trickle down economics' is not a position actually held by anyone as far as I can tell.
The Reagan, Bush and Trump era tax cuts make no sense of we assume the government has any responsibility to common people, unless you invoke 'Trickle-down economics', the disparaging term for 'supply-side economics'.
> 1. Let’s start with the personal income tax reforms. There is some simplification, as many more taxpayers will be able to use the standard deduction. On the other hand, there’s some added complexity in the new deduction for “pass through” businesses. On net I am slightly encouraged by the bill, as I see it as a first step toward eliminating deductions from the tax code. But we still have a long way to go.
> The distributional consequences of the tax cut are not very important. The top rate comes down a bit, but that’s offset by the fact that state and local taxes can no longer be deducted. Some of the tax cuts benefiting lower income people are scheduled to expire, but almost no one thinks that will happen.
> 2. The estate tax exemption was doubled, but this threshold has been rising very rapidly for many decades. It’s a change, but hardly revolutionary. Recall that the House bill called for its elimination.
> 3. The big corporate income tax cut is the single most significant provision. But even President Obama favored a rate cut to 28%. This excellent WSJ article shows that even after the federal corporate tax rate is reduced to 21%, the total corporate tax rate (including state taxes) is in the middle of the pack for developed countries. It was inevitable that the US would eventually move the rate down to meet global competition—hardly a revolutionary change.
