Alices in a Trickle-Down Wonderland

More deficit-busting tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. This is the Republican medicine for our nation’s economic ills. It was an interesting (Reagan “trickle down”) theory 30 years ago. Over the ensuing three decades, however, that theory has been a proven failure. So, why won’t our current elected officials or anyone in the media point out that these collective Alices are still living in a 1980s Wonderland?

Tax breaks for corporations have never created a single job (in the U.S.). Jobs are created, for the most part, by the convergence of two factors:

1) Consumer demand for a product or service.

2) Consumers’ ability to purchase that product or service.

Acme Hammer Company will not hire more people to produce hammers if no one can afford to buy those hammers, regardless of the number of tax breaks it receives. When people are gainfully employed, they have purchasing power. That is the catalyst which fuels production and creates more jobs.