Hillary Clinton is a walking, talking cliche who spouts decades-old sound bites that were bad enough when her husband first delivered them but are painfully anachronistic today. Same old material, same old demagoguery.
You would think a self-styled “progressive” would be less regressive and reactionary, but this woman apparently believes that the Clinton magic of the ’90s can be dusted off and resurrected without the slightest rhetorical modification. The problem with that is that Clintonomics only works on the heels of Reaganomics and liberals have been squeezing every last ounce of Reaganomics out of our system.
In her first major economic policy speech at The New School in New York, Hillary made clear that she wants to revive the shamefully populist Clinton-Gore trope of “trickle-down economics.” This hackneyed slogan is grounded in the lie that Republicans believe that only by stacking the deck in favor of the wealthiest people will the rest of America be able to do better, and then only by catching their breadcrumbs as they trickle down into the general economy.
Hogwash. First, neither conservatives nor Republicans advocate special advantages for the rich. Most propose some level of progressive income taxes, which means stacking the deck against the higher-income groups, not in favor of them. Even those who support a flat tax, by definition, are not favoring the rich over the poor.
Second, conservatives don’t argue that the non-rich succeed only by licking scraps from the rich. They do say that freer markets are conducive to economic growth across the board. Yes, opening up the markets and reducing onerous taxes provide incentives for risk-taking and spur economic growth, and when big and small businesses grow, they have more jobs to offer and people have more money to spend. It’s not a matter of trickling down; it’s that a rising tide lifts all boats. The policies that are conducive to rich people’s succeeding are the same ones that lead to lower- and middle-income earners doing better as well.
Conservatives don’t favor the rich, but liberals discriminate against them and all who succeed or who aspire to achieve. Roughly half of income earners in the United States don’t pay income taxes now, and higher-income earners are responsible for paying a wildly disproportionate share of federal revenues. To claim they don’t pay their fair share is objectively dishonest, and no one with half the brains Clinton’s admirers attribute to her could possibly believe it.
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