"This is a fallacy based on a complete misunderstanding of trickle down economics."
I'm also sort of curious in what world "trickle-down economics" is actually how the economy has been run for any period of time in the recent past. Liberals have been running the economy in the US for decades now, even when Republicans were nominally in command, and as far as I know the rest of the developed world has been running even more liberal policies for even longer.
If you believe wealth disparities are a result of government economic policy, and you are unhappy about that, you are unhappy about the result of liberal economic policies.
It's as surreal to me as people who still today rant about how bad "laissez-faire economics" are as if they've ever lived under them. Maybe they are bad, but you sure don't know that from experience. There hasn't been any for a long time now.
While you have a point, and it should be noted that the US government has never been able to tax more than 20-22% of the nation's GDP (not even in WWII), there has been a sea change starting with JFK in taxation policy towards "the rich". The history of top marginal Federal income tax rates is (memory plus http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/history-of-federal-individual-...):
Peaked at 77% during WWI.
Down to 24% the last time Republicans ran the economy (down and up a tick as engineer Hoover tried to fix the economy :-( ).
63 then 79% under FDR pre-WWII.
Up to 94% during WWII.
Never got less than 82% post-WWII, and "We like Ike???" after he kept Truman's 91-92%.
Then down to 77% under JFK in the first supply side tax cuts.
Bounced between 70% and the mid-70s LBJ through Carter.
Down to 50% Reagan part I, then down to 28% after the great tax rewrite in '87.
Raised to 31% by "kinder and gentler" Bush I and to 40% under Clinton.
The devil 'W' reduced that to 35% ... where it's stayed, even under Obama and Democratic legislative super-majorities.
We also need to factor in that inflation pushed people into higher tax brackets until Reagan, and capital gains taxes have never been indexed for inflation (nice racket, the government inflates the currency then taxes you for merely running in place).
One should also note this is intended to change people's behavior. The lower the max marginal rate, not to mention the capital gains rates, the less people focus on tax advantaged investments. I watched my parents change their business strategies quite a bit from the '70s to the '80s, and in ways that ... trickled down a lot more.
What's with this OBSESSION with how wealthy the wealthy are?
That's how this bogus article starts, it says "the poor are not better because so much is owned by the rich", a "Look, a squirrel!" head fake which totally ignores how well off the poor are or aren't. And you're just continuing that focus.
Bottom line: do you care about the poor, or about the rich?
I'm also sort of curious in what world "trickle-down economics" is actually how the economy has been run for any period of time in the recent past. Liberals have been running the economy in the US for decades now, even when Republicans were nominally in command, and as far as I know the rest of the developed world has been running even more liberal policies for even longer.
If you believe wealth disparities are a result of government economic policy, and you are unhappy about that, you are unhappy about the result of liberal economic policies.
It's as surreal to me as people who still today rant about how bad "laissez-faire economics" are as if they've ever lived under them. Maybe they are bad, but you sure don't know that from experience. There hasn't been any for a long time now.