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> It's more about giving preferential treatment, power, or advantage to the wealthy "trickle down" is a slur against a set of economically liberal policies. It
by rsj_hn 5y ago
> It's more about giving preferential treatment, power, or advantage to the wealthy
"trickle down" is a slur against a set of economically liberal policies. It's not a "theory". It's not an economic model. And it's certainly not well-defined. It would be like arguing against "revolving door" sentencing, which is another slur.
Point being, anyone who uses the term "trickle down" is advocating some sort of propaganda, and tuning them out or calling them out for being propagandists is the best course of action. Being on the guard for these markers of propaganda is important in today's media environment, where so often advocacy masquerades as both news and science.
That does not mean that underneath all these political slurs there aren't useful debates about, for example, what is the right tax rate on capital income or property taxes. Should we increase or decrease business regulation, etc.
Those are all good discussions to have, but unlike the slurs, they are actually nuanced and people who approach them understand there are trade offs not simply reducible to "trickle down" or "revolving door". Therefore the goal of these slurs is to reduce thought. To eliminate nuance and to hide painful trade offs. To make it seem like there is one simple, obvious, correct solution to what is, in fact, a complex issue with no obvious solutions.